Posted by Alok Srivastava

Greetings from one of the new churches in Uttar Pradesh (pictured above), who had just celebrated the dedication of their church building in May 2009. The vision of the 2020 Network of Uttar Pradesh is to see the Christian population grow from 1% to 20% by the year 2020. To see this vision come, our team is travelling throughout the state, holding one-day vision meetings in each district. Pictured below is a group of pastors, evangelists and church planters gathered around, and laying hands on the map to ask God to give the land. We are seeing tremendous excitement and fruit from these meetings.

The Power of the Gospel
Church growth is accompanied by persecution in many parts of India. The caste system is one of the major barriers to the advancement of the Gospel. But the power of the good news of Jesus Christ is reaching into the hearts of many Brahmins and others who consider themselves to be high caste. The man next to me (right) in the picture below is a Brahmin, and he now proclaims that salvation is found only in Jesus' Name.

Building Churches
Back to the church at the top of the page... I remember way back in 1996 when I visited this area for the first time where there were no believers at all. We, along with an Operation Mobilisation team did a massive distribution of gospel packs and the Jesus video in Hindi. We used to visit the villages once every two or three months. God heard our prayers and after three years of continuous prayer a high-caste Hindu man who had built a temple to a Hindu god in his home gave his live to Christ. After a few months, he faced huge persecution from fanatical Hindus in the local community. We thought no one will ever keep faith in Christ at least in this area, but we should never underestimate the power of the Gospel. Now, after 10 years or so, we have more than 30 small gatherings in different villages across the district! 

Get connected for mission with Alok and his teams working across Uttar Pradesh. Contact Radstock's Anthony Adams at or Alok at to find out more! 

[Editor's note: Alok was with us at the Radstock Conference 2009. Click here for his reflections on the conference and impact of church partnerships for mission in Uttar Pradesh and beyond.]