Our ministries
MEDIA MINISTRIES
Newspaper: Perhaps the most visible part of The Christian Messenger’s ministry is the one in the media. It publishes an eponymous evangelical newspaper that spans the length and breadth of the country. The newspaper remains dependent only on God and independent of any denomination or group of the Church. Though at one point, the newspaper’s circulation was 15,000 currently it prints anywhere between 6,000 and 8,000 copies. The newspaper would like to expand its coverage by publishing language publications in Hindi, Tamil and Bengali. The Christian Messenger’s Tamil language publication ‘Narcheithi’ (Good News) was active from April 2006 to Dec 2008 when it folded up due to lack of resources.
Online Portal: The online portal of The Christian Messenger ministry went live in Sept 2007. It was re-launched in Dec 2010 with a greater vigor to reach the hundreds of thousands of people accessing the Internet every day. The website is accessed by a few thousand people who consume content available on tens of thousands of its web pages every month. The Christian Messenger also makes use of social media networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn among others. Every day, a digest of Christian news, views and interviews along with inspirational Biblical messages is transmitted to around 3,000 people electronically.
INDIA MISSIONS
The Christian Messenger currently supports missions in five States of the Indian Union. They are Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab and Tamil Nadu. Besides these missions, it also supports a few village churches in north Tamil Nadu, a prison ministry in Maharashtra, a slum ministry in Chennai (formerly Madras) and an itinerant evangelist in Tamil Nadu.
Besides regular financial support, these missions are supplied with Christian literature such as Gospel tracts, Bibles and commitment cards in 10 different languages namely – Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil and Urdu.
In 2011, it is our vision to print or source and distribute over 600,000 Gospel tracts in these languages in addition to Telugu and English.
MEDICAL CAMPS
Medical camps were a regular ministry work of The Christian Messenger from 2007 to 2010 when a huge financial crisis hit the organization and they had to be halted. Each medical camp attracts anywhere between 300 to 700 people from the villages. A team of 4 to 6 doctors under a mission-minded doctor couple Dr. WMS Johnson and Dr. Priscilla Johnson assist The Christian Messenger in its medical camps. The camp sites are identified in remote places where even primary medical facilities are rare and access to quality health care is sometimes impossible.
In 2011, we have a vision to hold medical camps in all five States where we support missions and reach the unreached with the message of love, hope and salvation in Jesus Christ.
SOUL HARVESTERS TRAINING MEETINGS
Most believers and evangelists in India do not have access to Bible colleges or cannot simply afford them. While some do not have the required qualification to get into a Bible college, there are others who simply do not have the time to spare amidst their busy schedules. However, laborers are still few while the fields are ready for harvest. Realizing this need, The Christian Messenger has decided to lend its support to hold short-term training meetings for those who would like to commit their lives to be soul harvesters. It identifies churches that desire to send out and support missionaries from among its believers and works along with them. Qualified and experienced Christian leaders are identified and invited to train believers. They are equipped and molded into soul harvesters.
In 2011, The Christian Messenger would like to hold not less than 6 such training camps in different parts of the country.
JESUS FILM SHOWS
The Christian Messenger has also been involved with the Jesus film shows. It has screened the film in Tamil in some places. However, due to paucity of funds this project is currently in the backburner.
URBAN & SLUM MINISTRY
The Christian Messenger supports evangelists involved in urban and slum ministries in and around Chennai by equipping them with megaphones, Gospel tracts, Bibles besides monthly assistance.
FOREIGN MISSIONS
The Christian Messenger had to discontinue assistance to a mission centre based in Nepal due to budgetary constraints in 2007. This centre is still in need of resources. Besides Nepal, it is our desire to support missions in neighboring countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Tibet with the Gospel. Some of these countries are difficult to reach due to military dictatorship, local laws and culture.
