Kapalmochan Mela is an annual festival gathering that happens in the state of Haryana, where a million or more gather. They come from several districts of states like Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. A team of people used to visit the mela to distribute/sell Bibles. Over two thousand copies of the New Testament were distributed in one year in the late 1980s. The next year they expected to sell more and prepared from more stock. Most who went to sell were told that they had purchased the holy book the previous year. Wondered, they further asked, what they did with the holy book. They were packed with a new velvet cloth and placed along with deities to worship. None of them read but worshipped it. An Ethiopian eunuch (finance minister) travelling from Jerusalem in his chariot was reading the book of Isaiah. Though highly educated, he could not understand what he was reading, and asked Philip: “How can I, unless someone guides me.?” (Acts 8:31)
1) Reach: The mission we believe in is to reach people with literature like a New Testament or an audio bible. It is not helping people to have access to it, they should be encouraged to read or listen. People who visited the mela, though they had a copy of the New Testament, did not read it.
2) Teach: The well-educated finance minister of Ethiopia could not understand or grasp the message of Isaiah. He could read, understand each word and sentence, yet he could not comprehend the meaning. If even the educated could not understand, how can simple people understand? As the Ethiopian said, a personal touch or explanation becomes essential.
3) Train: It is not enough to teach or grasp them to understand, they should be trained to ‘renew’ their mind with the truths they learn. So that they can grow in spiritual maturity by being equipped in the Word of God.
4) Model: New believers would like to have models to follow. Gospel is not just a philosophy or theory but life.
Do I reach, teach, train and model the gospel?