Gospel Partners Movement in the Beginning
Gospel Partners Movement (GPM) is a flame lighted in India on the Lord’s Day, October 3 rd , 1999 at the historic C.S.I Web Memorial Church, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, with the blessings of the Church of South India, Church of North India and several Church leaders. This is a movement for the 21 st Century with new and several Church leaders and new strategy to reach the unreached peoples of our country for Christ.
GPM has the Biblical basis of Partnership in the Gospel (Phil 1:5). The Missionaries, the converts, the sponsors, the Church and Mission leaders, other Mission agencies and in fact all believers are partners in the Mission.
Mission exists for the Church. The Indian Missionary Society was started in 1903. The Pioneer Missionary Bishop Azariah toiled hard in Dornakal area and established a Diocese under the Anglican Church in India. This has been highly applauded by the Missiologists and GPM has the same vision.
India is a land with about 110 Crores of peoples. The Christian population is very thin about 3%. The available missionary work force in our nation is no match for the tremendrous need. The effort of all the missionary societies put together can only scratch the surface. To add one percent to the Christian population in India, we have to win at least 1.1 crore of people for Christ every year.
The GPM has developed a strategy to meet this need in our nation by concentrating our efforts among responsive people groups and effect total transformation which will ignite further people movements to Christ resulting in chain reaction. The Gospel will spread in our nation like a wild fire as it happened in the Roman Empire in the First Century.
Identifying the most responsive people group in the South Gujarat, North Maharashtra border, we have work in Valsad, Navsari, Dangs districts in Gujarat and Thane, Nasik, Nadurbar and Jalna Districts of Maharashtra state. The work is carried on by 11 Missionaries and 90 local Evangelists and a number of Church Elders. We request every Church leader and Christian believers in Gujarat to join hands with us and support the Mission of Christ with prayers and sacrificial giving to reach this region.
Gospel Partners movement has work in Punjab, Haryana and Jharkhand State.
Please support the work with your prayers.
Our Motto
Mobilize partners : Introduce GPM to the people and get them to share the burden for and understand the need of the urgency to present the Gospel of our Lord, to all the people of our land.
Make disciples: Create an awareness for the need to bring people under the discipline of Christ.
Multiply indigenous Churches: Not mere buildings, but the real laity (God’s chosen people), who will receive the wholesome blessings from our Lord and in turn become channels of such immeasurable blessings to others.
The Emblem
- The fish is a symbol which was used by the early Church. Christians were a minority and many were slaves and were treated as the lowest of the lowest. They suffered persecution very much. They had a secret identification – the fish symbol! The word fish in Greek Ichthus has five letters. The first letter of all word “Jesus Christ God’s on Saviour” put together make the word Ichthus. Thus Christians in the early Church can identify themselves in a common place to one another without the knowledge of their enemies by drawing the fish symbol, in other words declaring to one another that Jesus Christ, the Son of God is the Savior of the world. Here is a declaration which is the heart of the Gospel. So we chose this.
- Secondly the arrows inside the circle symbolizes that there is Partnership between Gospel Partners Movement and many – the converts, the missionaries, believers in general though through there could be cultural and linguistic diversities, mission agencies, local churches denominations, etc.
- Thirdly this also symbolizes Movement. This fish and the arrows are in a moving posture.
Thus we chose a symbol which could represent the three aspects of our mission – the Gospel, the partnership, and the movement.