Mere Missions

98 • M ere M issions : M oving F orward to M ultiply

Just a few months after this update, the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world. Despite normal life coming crashing to a halt, Pastor Joseph’s Bangladeshi church plant movement did not slow. Bony Baroi in Bangladesh, who had been trained at the 2018 Dean School, had a vision to baptize 30,000 new believers congregated in 1,000 new churches. Through much prayer and discussion, we settled on a plan that would enable him, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to accomplish this vision. During this time I began consulting with Pastor Joseph to unite the Bengali Christian leaders he knows in nine states and Canada around evangelism, training, leadership, and church planting. This unity would lead to more conversions, leaders, and churches being planted, by the grace of God. One of Pastor Joseph’s connections, Prodip Das, attended the 2021 Evangel Dean School Training online. Within a couple of months of his commissioning, Prodip hosted an online Evangel School and was assisted by Rev. Dr. Baidya from New York and Rev. Halder from Bangladesh. At this school, eleven church planters and leaders were commissioned, representing six denominations and six different areas in Bangladesh. The leaders agree that more Evangel Schools need to be held to teach their people how to effectively reach more Bengalis. As part of their review process, they have planned to host an additional ten schools in the next two years. In one year, Prodip has facilitated four Evangel Schools of Urban Church planting. He is well on his way to reaching his goal of ten in two years. Two pastors, Rev. Milon Sarker and Rev. Ashim Kumar, in Bangladesh heard about the training and contacted me about receiving training to be certified as Evangel Deans so they can host church planting trainings. Their connections in missions work and the Baptist denomination makes them excited to begin a church planting movement of their own. This may