Revolution in World Missions

Revolution in World Missions by K.P. Yohannan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an interesting book. The author, KP Yohannan, makes a case that missions should be done by people from that country, especially in Asia. He states often, when Westerners go to Asia that they have to try to make Asia like America with customs and traditions instead of teaching all Biblical concepts.

I have added quotes that made me stop and think. I may not agree with all of them however I (we) should consider his thoughts.

For some reason, Americans seemed to have a need to surround themselves with noise all the time. [Isn’t this true? Even during prayer time in our churches often we have background music playing.]

They [western churches] usually took an offering and presented me with a check for what seemed like a great amount of money. Then with their usual hospitality, they invited me to eat with the leaders following the meeting. To my horror, the food and “fellowship” frequently cost more money than the money they had just given to missions. And I was amazed to find that American families routinely eat enough meat at one meal to feed an Asian family for a week. No one ever seemed to notice this but me, and slowly I realized they just had not heard the meaning of my message. They were simply incapable of understanding the enormous needs overseas.

The $74 million spent on one new building in the United States could build nearly 7,000 average-sized churches in India. The same $74 million would be enough to guarantee that the Good News of Jesus Christ could be proclaimed to a whole Indian state – or even some of the smaller countries of Asia.

There is such an emphasis on church buildings in the United States that we sometimes forget that the Church is the people – not the place where people meet.

Religion, I discovered, is a multi-billion dollar business in the United States. Entering churches, I was astonished at the carpeting, furnishings, air-conditioning and ornamentation. Many churches have gymnasiums and fellowships that cater to a busy schedule of activities having little or nothing to do with Christ. The orchestras, choirs, “special” music – and sometimes even the preaching – seemed to me more like entertainment than worship.

Social concern is a natural fruit of the Gospel. But to put it first is to put the cart before the horse; and from experience, we have seen it fail in India for more than 200 years. It was an attempt to exclusively concentrate on people’s obvious needs.

God changes the heart and spirit, the physical changes also. If you want to meet the needs of the poor in this world, there is no better place to start than by preaching the Gospel. If has done more to lift up the downtrodden, the hungry and the needy than all the social programs ever imagined by secular humanists.

However, this does not mean that we must not be involved in compassion-type ministries that reach out to the poor, needy and hurting people all around us.

In Matthew 22:38-40, Jesus clearly marked the Christian’s social responsibility when He said that loving God is the first and greatest commandment and “the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” All the Law and Prophets are summed up in both – loving God and loving others. It was not one or the other – but again both, for the glory of God.

C.S. Lewis, that great British defender of the faith, wrote, “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this [hell]. I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully, ‘All will be saved.’” But Lewis, like us, realized that was neither truthful nor within his power to change.


KP Yohannan is the founder of Gospel for Asia. It would be worth checking out their website . Also, there was a lawsuit against the organization that might be worth checking out. Here is the response about the lawsuit from Yohannan. And here is a wikipedia article about the lawsuit. I will continue to pray that a nation-wide revival will break out in India.

If you like missions then you will enjoy this book!

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