Nations in Review

This will be rescheduled at a later time

An evening service titled Nations in Review was planned for Sunday, May 18th but will be rescheduled at a later time. During this meeting we will hear reports from several of those who have recently made short-term trips to Bosnia; West Papua; Ivory Coast, and Sudan. This should be a great evening and very informative.

Dr. Bobby Gupta - May 3rd and 4th

We are very privileged to have Dr. Bobby Gupta with us May 3rd and 4th. Dr. Gupta will be speaking at the men’s breakfast on Saturday the 3rd, beginning at 8:00 am, and both services Sunday morning the 4th.

Paul Rajkumar Gupta (Bobby Gupta) was born to a zealous missionary couple, Dr. and Mrs. N. Paul V. Gupta. In March 1970, Paul surrendered his life to Christ and in accordance to God’s call for ministry became a student of the Word. He completed his Diploma in Biblical studies from the Hindustan Bible Institute in 1975; B.Th from Piedmont Bible College, North Carolina in 1977; M.Div in 1980 from Talbot Seminary, California and his Th.M and Ph.D in Intercultural Studies in, from Fuller Seminary, California in 1992.

Paul Gupta was ordained as a pastor by the Bethany Bible Fellowship, Westminster, California. In 1983, he joined the ministries of Hindustan Bible Institute, India and took on the responsibility as the President and Director in 1984.

The primary concern of Dr. Paul Gupta is reaching the unreached peoples of India using a holistic approach.

Dr. Paul Gupta founded the Indian National Evangelical Fellowship (INEF). The strategy to spearhead the spread of the gospel was implemented by recruiting missionaries to work in different parts of India. INEF currently has 610 village church planters who have planted 3,494 churches in 22 states of India and in Nepal with a membership of over 160,000 believers, over the last 20 years.

In 1987 he hosted the first Consultation on National Strategy to consider the question, `How can we reach the unreached peoples of India?' As a result of this consultation, a movement called "The Council on National Service" was started with the vision of planting a church in every village and every colony of every town and city in India.

Dr. Gupta was instrumental in convening the All India Congress on Church Development in Hyderabad in August 1990 and the Second All India Congress on Church Development in Chennai in January 1995.

At present he serves as the Chairman of CONS and provides leadership for the vision of Saturation Church planting through a strategy of Discipling the whole nation. Under his direction, a program that included research, prayer mobilisation, networking, equipping of the task force, consultations and publications to further the vision of CONS is being developed.

In order to facilitate the vision of CONS at the grass root level he has initiated a special effort at a district level to envision the Church and the harvest force. He has co-authored a series of books titled "Unfinished Task" for the states of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. He has also been instrumental in Publishing State Data chart for 19 states and one national data chart giving information on Harvest field, population, Christian presence, literacy etc.

He further developed the Hindustan Bible Institute Inc., in LA into HBI International ministries now known as HBI Global Partners that exists to glorify God by mobilizing the North American church to partner with national ministries to fulfil the great commission in India and beyond.

In partnership with Evangelism resources he started the Asian school of evangelism to develop leaders or emerging leaders in the skill of training and mobilising others in a strategic plan to reach the unreached people and locations with a strategy of saturation church planting. Today under the supervision of CONS 6 schools of Evangelism are equipping leaders for church planting movements.

In addition to Dr. Gupta’s teaching at the Hindustan Bible Institute, he lectures for the U.S. centres for World Missions in their perspective courses; and the Haggai Institute of leadership development. He conducted a seminar at the University for the Nations with Youth with a Mission. He participated in several national and international conferences like the Lausanne Conference, John Knox Fellowship, AD2000 Global Outreach and presented papers.

Dr. Gupta has also presented papers at “Coalition on the support of indigenous ministry (COSIM), Advancing churches in Missions commitment (ACMC) and at Overseas Ministries Study Centre (OMSC). Dr. Gupta has been key note speakers in missions conference in several churches all over the world to mobilize the local churches for world missions.

Dr. Paul Gupta has been honoured as the Alumnus of the year for 2005 by Fuller Seminary, California, USA.

Dr. Gupta initiated a strategic effort to help the Tsunami victims of Tamil Nadu especially in 6 villages near Chennai with a population of over 6000 people with a vision for Total Development and Transformation through Relief, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Rebuilding and Regeneration.

Dr. Paul Gupta also serves as one of the Pastors of New Calvary Church in India. New Calvary church has been recognized as one of the hub churches providing help during the Tsunami crisis by Saddleback church, USA. Dr. Gupta received “the Church in Action” award on behalf of the New Calvary Church in May 2005.

In March 2006, Dr. Paul Gupta authored a book entitled, “Breaking Tradition to accomplish vision” - Training leaders for a church-planting movement. Dr. Sherwood Lingenfelter, Provost and Senior Vice President of Fuller Theological Seminary co-authored the book. It is published by BMH Books of Winona Lake, Indiana.

Dr. Paul Gupta’s main thrust is equipping transformational leaders for leadership and evangelism for the nation of India; church planting through the equipping of a strategic team of national missionaries to reach the unreached; mobilizing the Church to a vision of discipling the nation through a strategy of saturation church planting.