Zoom-Based Teaching Ministry to Pastors in India Reaches ‘So Many for So Little’
Christian missionaries have been traveling to other countries to spread the Gospel of Christ and disciple believers since the days of the early church.
With the origin of the modern missionary movement in the late 18th and early 19th century, the norm became a model where missionaries raised support and moved halfway around the world to minister in a different culture for years.
Technological innovations have “made the world smaller” and thus allowed for a wider reach at a smaller cost.
The accessibility of programs like Zoom, which grew in popularity due to COVID-19, allowed a ministry in Hickory, N.C., to grow organically to reach and disciple hundreds of Christian pastors in India.
Part-time pastor Chuck Myers learned from a woman in his congregation about a pastor in India who had been trying for years to get American pastors to come provide in-depth bible teaching to the believers there. Many of the Indian pastors are poor men with little formal education, no seminary training, and limited access to materials.
In late 2020, Pastor Kranthipaul Somavarapu, affectionately referred to as Pastor KP, suggested the idea of hosting some seminars via Zoom.
Myers contacted his good friend, Ed Stych, who has been a lay bible study teacher for decades, but whose career is as a national editor for American City Business Journals.
The two immediately undertook the mission and, in January 2021, hosted their first three-day teaching seminar for 55 native Indian pastors.
They have now streamlined the process into a two-year program covering Hebrews, John, Romans, and Revelation in the first year and Genesis and Acts in the second year.
Myers, Stych, and a 3rd friend, Tim Brown, essentially work their way through books of the bible verse by verse, explaining and helping the men understand the passages more deeply. They give their time as volunteers, receiving no compensation, Stych told MinistryWatch.
The program consists of four three-day seminars each year and is available to 250 pastors at a time. Pastor KP recruits the pastors.
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The seminars are hosted at a conference center in Hyderabad, a city in the eastern part of India. Pastors travel from as far as 1200 miles away to attend. Their travel, hotel costs, and meals are covered at a minimal cost of $70 per pastor.
By contrast, the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board estimates that it costs on average $60,000 to support an individual global missionary.
All money needed to put on the seminars is raised in the United States and goes through Myers’ church, Trinity Fellowship.
Additionally, Myers and Stych developed marriage and family sessions that the pastors and their wives attend to learn about working together in ministry.
Because of the time difference of 10 ½ hours, Myers and Stych are teaching the bible from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. in America. They host the seminars Monday through Wednesday.
Both have full-time jobs and finish teaching, catch a few hours of sleep, and get up to start work.
But Stych is happy to do it.
“I was attracted to the opportunity because it was entrepreneurial and an opportunity to create something new that helped push the Gospel into tiny corners of the world. It became obvious that through dozens of small-group Bible studies, my journalism skills, and 20 years of business experience that God had prepared me over three decades for this opportunity,” Stych told MinistryWatch.
He joked about some feedback he and Myers received, “We love you because you are boring. You don’t tell jokes and stories.”
He said it understood it as a compliment demonstrating how hungry and appreciative the pastors are for bible teaching.
Stych had the opportunity to meet Pastor KP in the United States when he visited this summer.
“He is very genuine and authentic and very transparent in his use of money for the ministry,” Stych observed.
The Indian pastors are enthusiastic about the opportunity to grow and learn and utilize that knowledge in their pastoral ministry.
“My church never grew very much in 25 years as a pastor. But I have been transformed by God through these conferences. Even my wife tells me that I’m not the same man. She says I don’t talk the same, I don’t walk the same, I don’t preach the same, I don’t sing the same. I am totally changed. And now my church has grown from 40 people to 170 people because God changed me,” one pastor explained.
Stych doesn’t believe ministries like this one should replace traditional missions work. But he believes it has a place in the Christian missionary movement.
“We are reaching so many with so little,” Stych noted.
He pointed out that there are political and safety issues in some areas of the world that impeded access for American missionaries.
Stych admits that there are challenges to hosting the seminars via Zoom. At first he and Myers tried to get the attendees to interact and ask questions. But that didn’t work too well.
However, he said they are very attentive and demonstrative. Sometimes they will just break into applause at the understanding of some newly acquired understanding from God’s word, he added.
A donor once suggested that Myers and Stych just record the seminars and let the Indian pastors play them at their convenience.
But Stych says that feels even less personal. He believes their Zoom seminars are a middle ground between recordings and in-person seminars.
Additionally, the seminars allow the pastors an opportunity to meet and fellowship with one another. They are also appreciative of a hotel bed and unlimited food and tea at the seminars.
The relationships built through the teaching seminars have opened other doors to assist the Indian Christians.
Through donations, the ministry purchased a motorbike for Pastor KP to make it easier for him to travel from village to village to preach the Gospel. He, like many of his fellow pastors, attend to multiple congregations.
During the height of the pandemic in India, they gave money so that pastors and their families could get vaccines developed for COVID-19.
In an effort to help widows who are often discarded and have a hard time surviving in India, the ministry gave money to purchase 19 sewing machines to help these widows provide for themselves.
Myers and Stych already have the next group of 250 pastors set up for the next two years of bible teaching via Zoom. In the meantime, Myers is planning a trip to visit India and hopefully meet some of their “virtual students” and brothers in Christ.
