An Announcement in regards to Gospel For Asia / K. P. Yohannan

Saints,

For over a decade we have been avid supporters of the Gospel for Asia organisation and movement that God is a part of. Of recent in the last year there has been alot of controversy in regards the way money was handled and the losing of EFCA certification. Also there has been alot of pressure within India in different ways not just towards GFA (Believers Church) but also many other larger mission organisations and missionaries. Through even some of the worst accusations we have stood with Gospel for Asia. But after considerable pressure from many on SermonIndex and outside we took K. P. Yohannan off from featured sermon speakers. I believe this was a mistake on my part and was condescending to pressures from most a few strong individuals.

The truth of the matter is that most accusations are not fully founded on fact and though there have been wrong decisions Gospel for Asia has made (as all organisations and individuals do make) there has been repentance and humbling on part of the leadership of GFA.

I have seen some individuals glad to see the demise or accusations against brother Yohannan and the mission, this should not be the Christians desire ever. Some have also disagreed strongly with the Episcopal church structure choice by leadership in India and K. P. Yohannan. In the end that is a red herring as many evangelical churches choose this structure model in India and many godly movements such as Methodism (John Wesley), Moravians (Count Zizendorf), Lutherans (Martin Luther) and many others have chosen this style of Church denominational structure.

Actually if one is to read the Moravians and desire something similar in our day, Believers Church in India has many striking similarities.

In the end, SermonIndex, stands with this wonderful Christian organisation and believe God's blessing is with them. Unfortunately some have chosen to defame, slander and accuse without relent, or deep loving prayer.

Even if we adhere to a different form of gathering or different philosophy of Church growth, in the end Jesus Christ is building His Church through all the above and may we not hinder but encourage God's work in whatever form it takes as the Good News of Jesus Christ is proclaimed.

Even though there are question marks on ECFA certification, I firmly believe leadership is doing all they can humbling themselves and seeking to be above reproach (Philippians 2:15).

We have re-featured K. P. Yohannan, and we ask saints to consider to pray for him and the work of Gospel for Asia (Believers Church).

Learn more about Believers Church here: http://www.gfa.org/believerschurch/

And prayerfully consider supporting this mission: http://www.gfa.org/gift/

Thank you for the update Greg.

Those who try "To run a rescue shop,within a yard of hell” will come under enormous attacks and accusations and need our prayer and support.
May the Lord continue to do a mighty work.
"For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name will be great among the nations, (Malachi 1:11)

Ron

You may want to prayerfully reconsider your reconsideration.
There are a number of legitimate Christian organizations that are actually doing the work of the Lord in India without guile, deceit, falsehood, obfuscation and controlling methodology. Financial records of charitable organizations must be in the public domain with those who have nothing to conceal. And it must add up.
The ECFA is a good start to examine whether an organization is a member and if not why not.

"For example the EFCA in late 2015 terminated the membership of Gospel for Asia (GFA), one of its charter members.

ECFA believedthat GFA misled donors, mismanaged resources, has an ineffective board, and failed to live up to its promises as an ECFA member. It had been investigating GFA since June.

All told, ECFA found that GFA violated five of the accountability group’s seven core standards. As a result, the ECFA board voted on October 2 to cut ties with GFA. The board said its decision is final.

"This ends Gospel for Asia’s 36-year-long status as an ECFA member,” the council said in a statement."

And nothing has changed since then

There are a number of legitimate Christian organizations that are actually doing the work of the Lord in India without guile, deceit and falsehood and cult like methodology.

Brother,

Perhaps a big difference in thinking between the Western culture and Eastern is the area of submission to authority. In the West it is cowboy free-for-all and republic thinking and the in East people find their identity submitting to authority and finding themselves in their role of serving or working. In an Episcopal systems also (as well as other reformed churches) the preacher does not have the freedom to just preach where he wants and do what he wants to do. Rather the Church leaders ask and specify for them to do this or that. They trust that God is leading in this. This type of un-questioning submission in the mind of a Western believer could be considered cult like which is probably the problem of the melding of the two cultures together working to reach the lost.

The major problem saints had was the style of Church structure chosen and the above link has K. P. Yohannan sharing about this as well as a free eBook sharing the heart of the Church, belief in evangelical doctrines and their passion for the lost.

We accuse the strongest sometimes that which we do not know.

You are also correct there are other great missions that are doing work in Asia, one I have highlighted many times and continue to do so is Asia Harvest run by Paul Hattaway: http://asiaharvest.org

Greg

On another note having been born in and raised in the roman institution, witnessing its vile man and idol worship and corruption and then seeing the pictures of the believers church in India with the leader enthroned in the midst of his subservient bishops was truly a blast from the past. It was a nauseating and sickening reminder of the religion I left behind when Jesus Christ became my Lord and Saviour. Pride and arrogance and self importance on display. Is this the image
we are supposed to present to the lost and dying world?
No I will stick with Jesus and him crucified.

Is this the image
we are supposed to present to the lost and dying world?

Brother,

I understand your thinking. When I was first born again of God's Spirit, I went to a presbyterian Church, it was a large stone cathedral with stone inside and wood overlay and large elevated pulpit. As a new believer coming into this very large building with large stain glass windows spoke to me of God's greatness, grandeur and sense of majesty. Still till this day I can remember hearing Biblical sermons speaking of the greatness of God, Sovereignty of God, and His Grace and all the while the atmosphere of the Church building helping to re-inforce the impact of the message. The pastors wore long robes or stoles and there was a form of liturgy in the service where we repeated phrases and the Lord's Prayer. I still fondly remember the benefit and blessing of such times and the reverence and fear of the Lord it brought, and the respect for His Holy Word.

Today in evangelicalism it is almost the opposite, there are no crosses in churches, a loud band at the front and then a pastor who makes jokes to begin and end his sermon. The service begins with the chatter of people or loud music playing and ends similar. That was a far cry from the silence the service began with in the presbyterian church and at the end of messages there also was a time of silence for 10-20 secs and then people quietly started to disperse.

I am just trying to speak from my experience in an evangelical church where I saw the benefit of the outward and how experiences in assemblies that have little or no outward signs sometimes are lacking greatly in the sense of the fear of the Lord, respect for His Word and sense of silence in His presence.

The Believers Church has taken a step back in the direction of how Churches used to function and the benefits are there. That does not mean they are Roman Catholic. Thought I would just share my experience of the benefit of a liturgical environment that I still do miss at times.

The controversy surrounding GFA is not based on unfounded accusations. A summary of the issue is found in the link below. I strongly recommend believers do NOT give money to this organization based on the financial improprieties so far revealed. And these findings are only the ones that the ECFA have been caught doing, red-handed.

Here is a snippet below. (Btw, the ECFA stands for "Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability". If you lose your certification with them it is never a good thing. These people don't play games and they will drop you like a rock if they think something fishy is going on).

- The ECFA letter reported that GFA used $19.8 million in restricted donations to build its headquarters in Carrollton, Texas, just outside of Dallas.

- Those donations were intended for missions work. Instead, the money was sent overseas to one of GFA’s affiliates. The affiliate then returned the money to the United States, without the knowledge of GFA’s board of directors or donors.

- GFA leaders also tried to conceal the source of those funds. The $19.8 million was listed in GFA’s 2013 audit as an anonymous donation.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/december-web-only/report-details-why-gospel-for-asia-lost-ecfa-membership.html?share=bqQ3pNgEzJ%2b4%2bgM6uudZI6oQEz8V903G

There are thousands of mission organizations begging for money who are never heard of or promoted by influential websites like SI. GFAs marketing budget is enormous and they never lack...they pull in hundreds of $millions every year! Imagine what small, struggling mission organizations could do with just the $20million that was used to build offices in Dallas for GFA? Let us be better stewards of the resources God puts in our hands.

Brother Mark,

Simply stated, I do not know all the details of what is allowed and is not allowed. But working in foreign missions at times requires wisdom in how a group should operate. ie I know brothers who have to illegally send money in many ways to countries that are closed to the gospel (this is the only way they can get money to further the gospel). While being illegal they are doing right. Such as illegally printing bibles inside mainland China today where that is still not allowed.

Towards this also, Northern India especially has been and continues to be very hostile to Christianity. Currently India is on the top list of Open Doors currently ranked at 17. ranked under "Severe Persecution" label: https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/world-watch-list/

Many ministries have had to be wise on how to get funds into India over the years and many look like small businesses or NGO's but are actually mission movements.
So for believers "sneaking" money into India and other countries is not new.

Just this last week India cancelled 20,000 ngo's meaning they cannot transit funds into India: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/fcra-licences-of-20000-ngos-cancelled-4447423/ This is 50% of them! A brother told me this is going to affect many missionaries, pastors, leaders, movements. It is actually probably a huge crisis for the work of God, though God is not shaken and will help.

We should NOT rejoice in this in anyway, but pray the Lord of the harvest will continue the work.

Towards a headquarters building for such a large ministry, the size and choice is probably good stewardship with over 100 staff, you could easily do the math and understand before they were paying housing rent for each family at anywhere from $10,000-$20,000 a family. Now that $1-2 million a year can go into the property and over a period of time it will begin to save the ministry alot of expense.

All the details of the transactions and if the donor money was properly used, if it was surplus, and the legality I am not sure.

All I know is that Gospel For Asia is working hard to ensure they are ECFA certified and making all changes necessary to appease them.

Brother Greg the issue I highlighted was the ECFA findings:

- The ECFA letter reported that GFA used $19.8 million in restricted donations to build its headquarters in Carrollton, Texas, just outside of Dallas.
- Those donations were intended for missions work. Instead, the money was sent overseas to one of GFA’s affiliates. The affiliate then returned the money to the United States, without the knowledge of GFA’s board of directors or donors.
- GFA leaders also tried to conceal the source of those funds. The $19.8 million was listed in GFA’s 2013 audit as an anonymous donation.

These charges are indefensible. I am not gloating over anything at all...just a concerned citizen who is suggesting that people send their hard earned money elsewhere.

"Towards a headquarters building for such a large ministry, the size and choice is probably good stewardship with over 100 staff, you could easily do the math and understand before they were paying housing rent for each family at anywhere from $10,000-$20,000 a family. Now that $1-2 million a year can go into the property and over a period of time it will begin to save the ministry alot of expense."

The $20 million designated for missions and sent offshore to be "laundered" through a back channel so it couldn't be discovered, was not even half the cost of the overall facility. GFAs own filings state that they spent $45 million on the entire headquarters which included many homes (100?) for staff members. The actual office buildings and other facilities came to around $24 million or so.

GFA raised over 93.5 million in Canada from 2008-2014, This information is publicly available from Revenue Canada, The funds were supposed to have been sent to India.
According to the Indian government audits of GFA statements absolutely nothing was sent from Canada over the same time period. No explanation has been given by GFA to this day. And they have been asked repeatedly. The money just disappeared. The irrefutable evidence and documentation is available to all. On what basis should anyone trust anything that they profess?

I was always suspicious of GFA because Brother Zac Poonen has never mentioned them anytime (at least the times I have heard him). If there is one man who is close to perfect (if not perfect) in money handling, it should be Brother Zac Poonen. Though KP mentions Zac's name many times, the opposite is not true.

The Church evangelism philosophy is much different then CFC local Churches, brother Zac has known K.P. Yohannan for many years and K.P. has had him speak to many of the leaders conventions and on TV. Also many of his books are available to many of the pastors of the movement. So brother Zac has had a tremendous influence to all the above!

Towards giving small amounts of money this is fine but when transferring millions for evangelism of northern India, it is a much different story.

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Again, our initial statement stands in this thread and we do not want the forums here to be the place where every question is asked of what I cannot mostly answer. Calling Gospel For Asia is probably the best avenue instead of posting further new threads.

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In the end, SermonIndex, stands with this wonderful Christian organisation and believe God's blessing is with them. Unfortunately some have chosen to defame, slander and accuse without relent, or deep loving prayer.

Even if we adhere to a different form of gathering or different philosophy of Church growth, in the end Jesus Christ is building His Church through all the above and may we not hinder but encourage God's work in whatever form it takes as the Good News of Jesus Christ is proclaimed.

Even though there are question marks on ECFA certification, I firmly believe leadership is doing all they can humbling themselves and seeking to be above reproach (Philippians 2:15).

We have re-featured K. P. Yohannan, and we ask saints to consider to pray for him and the work of Gospel for Asia (Believers Church).

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This thread is locked.