In 2018 and 2019 Joe Wilson and I led Catalyst Communities in Delhi, India. While there we worked to train a regional Catalyst Team (picture below), who could incorporate the Catalyst System into their toolbox of training resources. My friend Diwas was part of that team (second from left). Also pictured here is Albert (fourth from left) who was our initial connection to Sher in Nepal.
Fast forward to 2023….Joe had recently been working with Diwas in India and suggested we reach out to him to help with the project in Nepal. It turns out Diwas and his team all speak Nepali, and they have tweaked Catalyst Community in a way that has made it incredibly effective for generating movement in this part of the world. Colin and I began talking to Diwas and his team (first picture below) about joining us for Catalyst Community #2 in Nepal.
The Goal: Sharing the Gospel!
Catalyst Community #2 is about creating Missional Culture in our churches. The ultimate goal is to turn the people of your church into an externally focussed evangelical army that works to spread the gospel as they go about their daily lives. Diwas and his team shared several simple and effective tools that the leaders at our Catalyst Community could use to equip their people.
Our three day Catalyst Community #2 normally culminates with the presentation of a 5 year strategic plan for multiplying leaders, groups, and churches. However, this year we tweaked that plan. Diwas suggested that for this culture we might be better off establishing a one year target broken down by quarterly objectives with the primary focus on gospel shares, and that’s what we did.
Cumulatively, this group has plans to share the gospel 25,660 times in the next 12 months! In this part of the world 1 out of every 10 gospel shares leads to a faith conversion. These leaders are planning to start 322 new groups from these new conversions and 61 new churches in the next 12 months!
Rojan’s Story: The Bicycle Evangelist
Our partner Sher told us how he had been praying for Rojan’s people group for years. He invited Rojan to CC#1 last year with hopes of making progress in reaching Rojan’s people group.
When Rojan attended our first Catalyst Community in 2022 he had a small church of 10 believers, but he left with a great passion and conviction for reaching his people. Rojan started to share the gospel door to door and many people responded. We found out that Rojan had been praying for a bicycle so he could travel further and reach more people, so we sent funds to help him purchase a bike, and Rojan put it to good use.
Today, Rojan has grown from 10 people to 60 (a 600% increase in 12 months) and he recently baptized a group of 30. Rojan trained up 3 additional leaders and they now have four cell groups. Once a month these four groups gather together as one larger fellowship.
Rojan shared his plan to gather a group of 250 from their people group for a cultural celebration on May 14th. He now plans to take the tools he learned at CC#2 home to equip his 60 people to target this group with the gospel while they are gathered to celebrate their own unique culture. Pray for Rojan and his church!
John’s Story: Multiplying Leaders
When John came to Catalyst Community #1 last year he had one church. He left excited about putting into practice the tools we taught on developing leaders. John now has one church and three new fellowship groups that meet in believers’ homes. Each of these groups is led by one of John’s newly trained leaders. These fellowship groups are essentially new house churches.
John shared with us at lunch one day that he is excited to equip his people with the new tools he learned this year to help them share the gospel more effectively with their friends and families.
What’s next in Nepal?
Diwas, Sanjib, and Nirmal did an amazing job training our Nepali teams, but the story doesn’t end there, in fact it gets even better! They have offered to return to Nepal over the next year to further train some of our key Nepali leaders and their church members. They have already targeted three cities across Nepal and made plans to return each of those cities six times this year. Taking new Ground is providing the resources they need to cover their expenses.
With Diwas and his team and we are able to accomplish so much more than we could on our own. We are incredibly grateful to our friends from India, and we are dreaming with them about projects we can do together in nearby Bhutan and Bangladesh! I’ll be sharing more about those opportunities soon!
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