One Pastor in India is Preparing for the Future of Missions
One pastor in India has a unique way of looking at the future of missions. “We have pastors all over India requesting specialized training for their churches, but before we agree to provide the agricultural or special skills training, we require they focus on children’s ministry and first go through DOVE training,” Pastor Amos said (not his real name) during his time with us last week.
DOVE is a unique children’s program that is the first of its kind. It is a children’s Sunday school training curriculum created by the Chinese underground house church for the underground house church. It has been used to train hundreds of thousands of Sunday school teachers in China. Due to the phenomenal impact that it has had in China and the unique nature of its teachings, DOVE has also been in high demand with churches around the world. In addition to China, DOVE is currently being used in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Pakistan, and many other nations.
“Some will tell us that they will arrange for the DOVE education seminars after the training they requested, but we believe that children are an essential element in India and require that their churches first attend a DOVE seminar before we begin on any other training program.”
Pastor Amos and his team are dedicated to teaching vocational skills to pastors throughout India to help them build up a sustainable income. India, like many other nations in the 10/40 Window, or the region between China and Jerusalem, have implemented banking regulations that make it almost impossible to conduct missions work using the traditional western missionary model. For this reason, pastors in India are setting up structures that aid them in sustainable, long term mission support for the future and Pastor Amos can help them achieve this goal – if they agree to focus on children as a part of their future plans.
4 Comments
This is great! I’m in Odisha state of India now and have implemented the DOVE material with my friends who pastor here. We use it in the slum areas nearby the church. We especially like how everything, including supplies lists, are included, which helps the novice children’s ministry worker confident and overcome fear. We also are using this outreach with DOVE as an on-ramp for church members to become involved.
Highly recommend!
Hi, what does DOVE stand for and where can I find it? I live in the UK. Thank you.
DOVE is a program to train and equip Sunday School teachers so they can teach the word of God more effectively to children. It was started in China and has been spreading to many other countries. It is available on the backtojerusalem.com web store (in English only) in digital or print formate. You can also reach out directly to the Back to Jerusalem UK office officeuk@backtojerusalem.com to obtain a copy.
Thank you, I’ll check it out.