Exciting Developments in India

Todd Peterson (Pastor at Cross of Grace Church, El Paso, Texas), together with Erik Rangel (Lead Pastor of Legacy Church in Yuma, Arizona) are our SGC Representatives to India. Here is an update from Todd on their recent trip…

In June, Erik Rangel and I were able to make our annual trip to India for 11 days. Our first stop was to visit Pastors Caleb, Sidhanta and Sunil from Church on Mount Zion (CMZ), in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. We have been getting to know Caleb and Sidhanta for about three years now, but this was our first time meeting pastor Sunil. CMZ has been an official partner candidate church for over a year now and Caleb and Sidhanta started the ordination process in 2025.

I think that Erik would agree that the time spent with the pastors on this visit contained some of the most significant biblical vs. cultural breakthroughs that we’ve had in our visits to India. The Lord had brought to light through previous conversations some important personal areas that we needed to press into beginning with the pastor’s marriages and families. Talking about these types of personal matters, even among pastors, is very countercultural, and we knew that these would be watershed conversations that would help determine how far our partnership would be able to move forward.

We spent two whole days just talking through what the Bible calls us to as pastors leading and loving our wives and children. By God’s grace, we were able together to explore the seldom, if ever, discussed topic of the health of the church in light of the health of the pastor and his family. We discovered some real cultural pressures that prioritize the needs of the congregation over the needs of the pastor’s family. We were moved by the humility and openness of each of the pastors during our discussions.

We were even able to cross one more cultural boundary and bring the wives into the conversation on the second day. The time together was met with tears of joy from their wives as they shared that no one had ever endeavored to pastorally meet them in such a personal way. After the time with their wives, we were able to all have a nice lunch together, and you could tell that God was using that time of honesty and transparency to bond us all closer together than we had been during the previous visits.

This time together has given us plenty to work on in the near future as the Lord has brought down some significant barriers that we believe will allow Him to work in many areas of their lives and ministry, bringing us closer to an understanding of what we mean by partnership in SGC.  

We then traveled south to Gundugolanu, Andhra Pradesh to visit our good friend Pastor Jaya Prakash (JP). In March of 2023 at the Asia-Pacific Pastors Conference, as we were ending a three-month time of prayer to get direction for our continued futile attempts to start a pastors college in Andhra Pradesh, the Holy Spirit very clearly directed JP and me to pursue building a full-fledged English-medium school in Gundugolanu instead of a pastors college. We were not expecting this in any way. The only school in that area for children up to 8th grade is a series of outdoor sheds that currently houses 1400 students. God told us that this would be the primary means by which he would spread the gospel in this area. We have been working on all of the complex corporate, legal and governmental requirements ever since.

With that process almost complete, this trip was about determining the land to be purchased for the location of the school as well as meeting with consultants, civil engineers, and a few of JP’s acquaintances that God has brought forward to help us with this project. God continues to go before us in each step, breaking down barriers and bringing people from apparently out of nowhere that are helping us to move this project forward. The first phase of the project will be a 20,000 sq. ft. building with a capacity of up to 600 students that we hope to open in June 2027.

On the church front, by God’s grace JP’s current church building is now too small and we talked about the plans and funding for expanding the church, which is especially challenging since it was built on top of his house. At the writing of this update, God has provided all of the funds for the expansion between the church congregation, donations from partner churches, as well as a grant from the SGC Asia-Pacific Development Fund, and they are excited to get started!

We also had some time to talk about a long-term plan for gauging the desire for and parameters of partnership with other churches/pastors in the area. This is a very slow process in India since the idea of partnership at a village level is almost completely foreign outside of financial partnerships.

Please continue to pray for us. We believe God will show us the way forward if it’s His will to draw churches together into partnership, for the sake of the gospel in this region of India.