Church of North India celebrates 40 years of unity

|PIC1|NEW DELHI – Christians from the Church of North India met this weekend to celebrate 40 years of unity.

The Church was formed when several Protestant Churches agreed to merge in Nagpur in 1970.

"This is the time to celebrate thanking God for what He has done and asking forgiveness for what we have done. This is also the time to seek His direction to do what He wants us to do," said CNI General Secretary the Rev Enos Das Pradhan in his keynote address.

"It is necessary to introspect and retrospect so that we can work more effectively for His coming kingdom."

He said the church was "waking up to a new dawn" as it entered into its 40th year of united mission, witness and service.

"This is now the time to visualise our mission in the growing context of poverty, illiteracy, militarism, fundamentalism, denial of justice and absence of peace," he said.

Rev Pradhan urged the representatives of the church to be "equipped with skills and characters to understand our roles and responsibilities in protecting the oikoumene".

He said the “legacy left behind by our missionaries should be our strength to energise us and to enthuse us in our mission paradigm and praxis".

On Friday, participants also joined in worship and Bible reading and heard sermons by the Rev Dr Paul Dhinakaran, president of Jesus Calls Ministries and chancellor of Karunya University.

In his message drawn from Mathew 16, Dhinakaran outlined Church as the "cornerstone of Christ that connects people with His great body".

Church must continue to lead God's people in following the commission to spread the Gospel, he urged.

As part of its celebrations, CNI held a consultation on education and minority empowerment and a worship service was held at the Cathedral Church of Redemption on Sunday.

The Church of North India is the dominant Protestant denomination in northern India. It is a conglomeration of six churches – the Council of Baptist Churches in Northern India, the Church of the Brethren, the Disciples of Christ, the Church of India (Anglican, formerly known as the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon), the Methodist Church (British and Australasian Conferences) and the United Church of Northern India.

The Church has about 1.3 million members and 3,500 congregations in 26 dioceses. Its headquarters are located in New Delhi.