Annual GFA Conference Renews Passion for World Evangelism
More than 800 people this past week gathered at Gospel for Asia's latest conference in the United States to learn of the nearly 2 billion people who need to know the Lord and the significant need for more to embark in world evangelism.
Attendance numbers for the mission agency's Renewing Your Passion Conference Grapevine, Texas, tripled from the first annual gathering which launched last year. Over the fourth of July weekend, the miracles of the mission field throughout Asia and the predominantly Muslim and Hindu nations were brought to conference attendants.
"There were hundreds of strong comments about how their (the attendants’) lives have been impacted," noted K.P. Yohannan, founder and president of Gospel for Asia. "Our concern and prayer was that somehow people's passion for the Lord be renewed.
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"I think that by the grace of God, that took place."
According to Yohannan, there are nearly 300 million "untouchables" – people who are very much open to the Gospel – alone in India - a country projected to surpass China in population. Gospel for Asia, a nearly 30-year-old organization, currently has 16,000-plus missionaries, evangelists and pastors in 10 nations.
The growth of mission works and missionaries, however, has led to the rise of two major concerns.
"Our main concern is twofold. One, the tremendous challenge to do much more than we are doing because the way people are responding to the Gospel is significant," explained Yohannan. "Secondly, the persecution that increased maybe 2 to 300 percent in the last five to six years."
Persecution has included beatings, threats and imprisonment. "It's a mammoth ... challenge and opportunity," Yohannan commented.
Nevertheless, the spreading of the Gospel continues and hundreds more are becoming aware of the "lost world."
"Our main [conference] goal was for people to get a better handle on knowing the Lord and have a concern for the lost world," said Yohannan.
In the next few months, Gospel for Asia will be launching a television channel in India that will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And radio broadcasts are already airing in 92 languages.
While Yohannan encourages more to get enrolled in world evangelism, he asks that Christians who remain outside the mission field be in prayer.
