Sages of the New Covenant

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Tips to Avoid Persecution:

1. Respect the local culture and religious ethos (dharma) of the local people and preferably work through a local people.
2. Never Argue
3. Be prepared to apologies
4. Exhibit only LOVE. The central message of Jesus is love, you need not try to win the hearts for Jesus Christ, in an unloving manner.
5. Meet in homes. (So far no Jehovah Witness People are persecuted in India)
6. Educational Institution Heads, please store the Scriptures / Evangelical literature ONLY in your Chapel; not in your Office and definitely not in Class Rooms / Staff Room. This becomes more significant, if the school / college is a government aided institution. 
7. Train workers quietly, a few at a time, instead of in big classrooms. (most of the time we create a hype and pseudo-threat to the other faith communities)
8. Send only self supported workers who are not known to be gospel workers. (Acts 18)
9. Adopt more local cultural forms, including local religious forms in your talk.
10. Let local Christians be your leaders from the start, with you serving as a trainer in the back-ground.
11. Teach local believes how to respond to persecution and trust the Holy Spirit. (Avoid being a Rambo; let the local Christian community be aware that you are going to distribute tracts.)
12. Demonstrate persevering prayer. (You need not go to the field, without equal number of people supporting with you in prayer.)
13. Our Constitutional Right to propagate the religion do not guarantee to insult the Culture, Religion, Religious Dharma (Ethos) of other Faith Communities.
14. Never organize any evangelical / religious meetings on National Holidays like: Republic day, Independence Day and Gandhi Jeyanthi. In case, you have compelling need to organize any such events, then hoist the Indian National Flag on Independence Day with a briefing about Indian Christian Leaders who participated in the Freedom Struggle like Dr Kumarappa and Dr Savarirayan Jesudas; and take Oath for National Integration on Republic Day, in addition to hoisting the Indian National Flag. Similarly on Gandhi Jeyanthi, pay homage to the departed soul in memory of his contribution to the society and muse over the writings of his Christian friends like: Rev. Charles Freer Andrews and Dr Stanley Jones. In one of the American funded Churches in Maharashtra, one pastor has hung an American flag. Would this sort of atrocity be acceptable to any nationalist?
15. Similarly, never organize any crusade / meeting on the religious holidays of other Faith. Many a times, Christians try to distribute tracts that is connected with the celebrations of other faith. Respect their festivals, if you can't celebrate the festival with a Christian touch. My parents were very staunch Christians; still, my mother used to prepare Sweet Pongal on Pongal festival day, Channa Sundal on Vinayagar Chathurthi Day and Kolukkattai on Karthigai Festival. In life, everyday has to be a festival day; but if every day is festival, the significance or festivity of the day will lose its meaning and fervor. Hence, the best way to add colour and festivity in our life is by celebrating as much festivals as we can, possibly with Christian touch. Unfortunately, there are Christian denominations that discourages celebrating festivals like Christmas. If Rev. Rhenius (Apostle of Thirunelvelli) was successful in the Southern districts of Thamizh Nadu, it is because of his contextual approach, without compromising his Faith.
16. Educational institutions should not expect the students of other Faiths to participate in their Christian functions; which mean Christian prayers in school should be avoided during the school assembly. St Xavier’s College Higher Secondary School, Palayamkottai has gone much ahead in having a Interfaith center build inside their school.
17. It is advisable to issue tickets for participation in crusades. Now political leaders have started charging nominal amount for their meetings. In addition, to getting money to meet out the expenses of the meetings, you will have chance to get to know of the details of those who are participating in your program; this will facilitate you custom-design your message / prayer. Crusaders should use online booking. When you organize events based on purchased-tickets, you will have chance of screening them physically to check whether anyone carry any bombs.
18. Freebies always carry a negative image. Anything given free is considered an inducement; hence tag price for whatever you intend to give them; in this way no one can blame you for any inducement.
19. Respect the rule of the land, which include the permitted decibel level of your speakers. If you are expected to switch-off the speakers by 10.00 pm, switch it off at any cost.
20. If you are running house-church, then it should be devoid of any amplifiers. In worshiping, the bhakta is renewing is relationship with God and high acoustics will spoil sanctity of the covenantal worship. Most of the time, by keeping higher-wattage speakers, pastors invite wrath; where as they are expected to spread the message of love. If speakers are gaining enemies, throw those gadgets.
21. Construct church only in the permitted place of your layout; if space is limited move away to a far of place, away from residential places. Converting a house in a residential location into a Church is an offense and unethical and immoral behavior.  In fact, sarcastically one man (who is very supportive of Christian rights) connected with the Dravidian movement told me that whenever he looks for a rented accommodation, first thing he looks for is: “Is there a Pentecostal church nearby?” - the reason being it is public nuscience in terms of high acoustics.
22. Be sensitive to the exams days. Please do not conduct any Christian programs on those days. Your meeting disturbs somebody to study his / her lessons. Recently in one of the diocese run schools, the Headmaster refused to reduce the volume of the speakers in the school chapel, when the Chief Examiner of the of the TN Public Service Commission approached him, while conducting the exams in their school. The reply of the headmaster was: “Every Sunday we conduct meetings. This is our regular meeting; hence we can’t reduce the volume.”  Hypothetically speaking, how it would have been, if the worshippers had prayed for all those who were writing the exams on that day with full volume and then switched-off the speakers, after making an announcement like this: “As the Government Service Commission Exams are going-on, today we shall have worship service without speakers”. I bet you would have won the hearts of all those who have come to write the exams on that Sunday. High-Watt speakers were of recent origin and connected with ‘rock-music culture’. At least for one Sunday, you could give rest to your ears and improve your audibility!!!
23. Do not return evil for evil... (1 Peter 3:9; Rom 12:12 - 14)
24. Rejoice and leap for joy! (Luke 6:22 - 23)
25. If needed, “shake the dust from your feet”, as you move on. (Matt. 10:14 and 23)

Watch This Thamizh Video with English Sub-titles:

Christian Responsibility towards the Culture of the People of India