Friends Missionary Prayer Band
Friends missionary prayer Band is a missionary movement of Indian Christians who want to personally share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with fellow Indians, particularly with those who have not had the opportunity to hear it even once. The main emphasis of the early period was evangelization of the nation. We cannot convert the nation but we can evangelize the nation. That was the clarion call given to its members. In the late 1950, the Spirit of God moved in a very special way in the southern part of Tamil Nadu, among the young and the old, and especially among the children. P. Samuel was the anointed instrument through whom God pioneered the VBS (Vacation Bible School) movement in India in 1952. A few other young people, including Sam Kamalesan, Theodore Williams who cared for these children gave a helping hand to him. Wherever the team ministered, sweeping revival resulted. In 1937, the World Gospel Mission started the South India Bible Institute (now SIBS Ministries), which in turn gave birth to the Vacation Bible School movement in India. In 1952, in a small village called Kovilpatti in south Tamil Nadu, a VBS session was held with 75 children and 8 teachers. A talented team of P.Samuel, Theodore Williams, Mrs. Mary Hamilton, Miss Edith Morgon and Packiathai nurtured the V.B.S. movement and saw it grow. In 1955 VBS was conducted in 12 centers with committed young people like Theodore Williams, Samuel Kamalesan, Fredy Kokkavi, and Fredrick David. These young friends when they do the follow up ministry for the VBS also gathered for prayers. Their fellowship was called Friends Fellowship. Then, on 26-30 December 1959 at 211, Dhanaskodi Street, Kovilpatti of Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, nearly 25 Vacation Bible School Friends (committed young people) gathered for prayer, who had a thirst for the perishing souls of the nation, who were committed for Holiness and soul winning. The Spirit of God moved among them in a special way that they had started a Praying Movement which was later named Friends Missionary Prayer Band. In that time it was declared that it was only a praying group, not an organization, Church or society. In these meetings God used brothers like Applebee, P. Samuel, Theodore Williams as instruments to stimulate the hearts of the people to pray more and more to reach the people with Gospel. The sharing of Mr. P. Samuel after his outreach ministry in the Kalvarayan Hills of Tamil Nadu, gave more burden for the people who did not know Jesus Christ. Then this group began to start small prayer cells in every city of the Tamil Nadu to pray for the unreached people of India. Bishop Jebaraj of the Tirunelveli Diocese was the first Patron of the FMPB. Later Bishop Leslie Newbigin of Madras Diocese became the Patron of this movement. Seeing the work of FMPB, he said "this indigenous movement is nothing but the work of the Holy Spirit". Following his advice, the constitution of FMPB incorporated in its constitution, the three historic creeds of the universal church to be added to the statement of faith of the Organization. Consequently FMPB works as an arm of the Church.
The first Office bearer of the Friends Missionary Prayer Band Patron: Rt. Rev. A.G. Jebaraj. Bishop, Tirunelveli diocese President: Mr. Theodore Williams Vice-President: Mr. P. Samuel Treasurer: Mr. G.D. Samuel & Mr. A. Sathiyasingh Secretary: Mr. Visuvasam Sathya Regional Leaders Trichy and Tanjore: Miss. A. James A.D .Dhanaraj Madurai-Ramanad: Mrs. T. Samuel and Mr. F. Selveraj Tirunelveli : Mrs. Rajapandian and Mr. G.D. Samuel Kanyakumari: Mr. A.G Arnold Youth Leader: Mr. S.P.R. Ebenezer
A Clarion Call
"Go or Send" is the love command of FMPB to Christians in general. A Christian, who knows the Lord personally,
must GO as a missionary to preach the Gospel in un-reached areas or sponsor a missionary on his behalf. Apart from sending money towards missionary sponsorship, the sponsor is committed to uphold the missionary in his daily prayer. Sending missionaries and proclaiming the Gospel are primary objectives. To achieve these,
the organization emphasized Bible readings, faith, holiness, prayer, sacrifice, obedience and simple life style as fundamentals for effective Christian witness.
Performance Objectives of the Organization Towards Churches: • To work for the revival of the churches and to promote missionary vision in them. • To develop and maintain good church-mission relationship to enhance the growth of churches in India Towards Unreached People: • To proclaim the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to baptize those who accept Him as their Lord and Saviour. • To plant indigenous churches by organizing the believers as congregations. • To help them mature as witnessing Christians through effective pastoral care and to work with them for their welfare in the society. • To challenge them to take up the responsibility of reaching their own people. • To involve them in translation of the Bible in unwritten languages spoken in our mission fields. Towards Staff and Members: • To train, to motivate and guide the staff and members at all levels to become effective labourers for the Lord Jesus Christ. Towards other Christian Organization: • To develop cordial relationship and fellowship with other missionary and Para-Church organizations and to share mutually the resources to realize our prime objectives.
Towards Opposition:
• We should face persecution and opposition with positive attitude and that God permitted persecution will become a big advantage to the progress of the ministry. • Our weapon against the opposition is prayer, patience, endurance and perseverance in hope for divine deliverance.
Vision Statements and Mission Statements are the inspiring words chosen by successful leaders to clearly and concisely convey the direction of the organization. By crafting a clear mission statement and vision statement, you can powerfully communicate your intentions and motivate your team or organization to realize an attractive and inspiring common vision of the future. Mission Statements and Vision Statements do two distinctly different jobs. A Mission Statement defines the organization's purpose and primary objectives. Its prime function is internal to define the key measure or measures of the organization's success and its prime audience is the leadership team and stakeholders. Vision Statements also define the organizations purpose, but this time they do so in terms of the organization's values rather than bottom line measures (values are guiding beliefs about how things should be done.) The vision statement communicates both the purpose and values of the organization. FMPB shaped its mission and vision statements in 2007 and declared the following statements.
Vision Statement Building Transformed Communities by reaching the un-reached Indians with the Good News of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Mission Statement "The Friends Missionary Prayer Band, as an arm of the Church, is committed to work for the renewal of the Church, sharing the missionary vision as the contextual obedience to the call of God in our times, mobilizing prayer support, raising Indian resources and thereby enabling men and women to serve the Church in Mission within the Society. It seeks to serve the Church by calling young people to commitment to Jesus Christ and His Mission, and, by training them to reach and teach people groups who have not heard of Christ, making them disciples of Christ and thereby develops them as congregations to be integrated with the established churches under the pastoral care of the indigenous leadership. FMPB will always work in partnership with the fellow Christian Agencies in order to build up communities who will be constantly transformed by the abiding values of God’s sovereign rule for the benefit of every person and the nation, for the greater glory of God."
The basic structure of FMPB
There are three major divisions in FMPB. One is Head Quarters, where the general Administration, Finance, Communication, and HRD and other departments are functioning. The Second one is the mission mobilization department which raises all the resources like manpower, finance. The third and most important one is Mission Field department, where all the frontline missionaries are planting the Churches among the responding people groups in India. FMPB is registered as a society with the Government of Tamil Nadu (S). General body is supreme body which controls this organization. It appointed a board called Executive Committee , which makes the policies for the organization. President, Vice-President, Treasurer and the General Secretary are the key official positions.
The growth of Friends Missionary Prayer Band
1959-67 Praying movement
1967-87 Sending (cross cultural missionaries to needy place) movement
1987-97 People movement (the decade of harvest among people groups)
1997-2000 Partnership with other Christian agencies
2004- Integrating Kukna churches with CNI Gujarat Diocese
2006- Integrating Malto churches with ECI
Started as a prayer group Friends Missionary Prayer Band was started in 1959 at a house, 211, Thanakodi street, Kovilpatti, (a town near Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu) in a missionary camp held from 26 to 30 December 1959. It functioned as a prayer group. The first president of the FMPB was Mr. Theodore Williams, the first General Secretary was Miss Angela James. Praying for the existing missionary agencies and prayer warriors were given statistical information where Gospel had to be preached urgently. Araikooval was the magazine launched in 1960 as a prayer bulletin. It was published thrice a year. Christians were challenged to pray for the nation. Prayer groups were started in different places in Tamil Nadu with the committed leaders just to pray for the nation. All the prayer warriors became prayer members of Friends Missionary Prayer Band. They also collected money for the magazine as well as to send money to support needy missions.
Praying movement became sending movement During summer vacation, in 1965 and 1966, the friends of FMPB conducted outreach work among the remote corners in their own state, Tamil Nadu. One such team went to Pettamugulalam in Panchamalai (Periyamalai) a hill close to Hosur, about 100 km from Bangalore. It was here they were led by the Holy Spirit to station a missionary permanently. This challenge was brought to the notice of the friends who had gathered at Koilpatti on April 30th 1967 for a Mission Challenge Meeting (namely ‘Araikooval’) organized by the FMPB. Prompted by the Holy Spirit, Bro Harris Hilton responded to God’s call and became the first missionary with the full support of his wife Padma Hilton. They were dedicated and sponsored by the BHEL Thiruvarambur prayer group, Trichirapalli, Tamil Nadu. The first mission station was started on June 9th, 1967 at Periamalai. Mr. Harris Hilton, Dr. Pushparaj and Mr. Emil Jebasingh, then General Secretary landed in Periamalai and put a hut for them and called it as Moriah. They bought a piece of land from Chendurayane Chetty and called that place as Jehovah Jireh. Mr. Esau and John Jacob joined Mr. Hilton in the same year. The first office of FMPB was started in the house of Mrs. Swamy Adiyal in the Press street, Sayerpuram and it was registered as a Society, the registration number was S. 54/1968. The first fruits of the mission field were Mr. Raman and Allimuthu of Periamalai. They were baptized in1979 at Bethel, Danishpet. Trichirapalli prayer group leaders Mr. Hemachandran and Mr. Jacob organized first sponsoring Missionary prayer group and supported financially Mr. Harris Hilton family. The first convert of the mission was Raman, who was the runner in the Postal department. Mr. Simon Roberts became the full time promotional secretary. The yearly income reached up to Rs. 10,000/-.
As the vision enlarged and the burden to reach the whole of India arose in 1971, the first mission field was opened in North India. Mr. Hilkiah and Mrs. Daisy Hilkiah were sent to Bhasti in Uttar Pradesh on 23rd July 1971. In 1972, God gave a bigger plan to reach North India. A ten year plan was formulated which had the following goals:
• 11 states- Jammu Kashmir, Punjab, Hariyana, Himachal, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh,
Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Orissa.
• 220 districts • 440 missionaries • 10 years (1972- 81)
Evangelization of the nation was its prime target. Operation Mobilization trained the missionaries in Literature evangelism. So, open air preaching and distributing the Christian literatures in the form of tracts were started. Also Gospel portions, New Testaments and Bibles were distributed. Every missionary was given a target in proclaiming the Gospel. In the book Re-thinking of Missions, William Earnest Hocking had written that, “Of the many changes in the world during the last century, a century of sweeping changes in the life of the Orient as well as in the life of the West, there are peculiarly pertinent to the mission enterprise, an altered theological outlook, the emergence of a basic world-culture, the rise of nationalism in the East”. FMPB too affected with the changes in its missiological and ministerial perspectives and its activities. "For who has despised the day of small things?" Zechariah 4:9. We should not despise the day of small things, because the power of God can still render the feeblest instruments productive of the greatest results. FMPB started in a small way, the founding leaders met the need of the movement.
It is God who moved the hearts of the people to pray and give sacrificially. It is amazing to see the financial growth of FMPB. In 1960 the mission functions with few thousands of money. In 1978 there was an increase of 48% and then in 1989, the financial growth was 50% . Steady and slow growth of subscription through new membership made it possible. For the last three decades, there was no negative growth or stagnant in its income. Once supporting of the mission by Indians had been impossible and God made it possible with Indian missions.
There are several mission agencies equally raising the indigenous funds. FMPB raised more than 40 crores in the last financial year. Still, people are very enthusiastic in giving money for Church constructions and supporting the missionaries. Indian missions today reap because of the early western missionaries who had set models and paved way for the indigenous mission. It is the work of God in our generation. Ralph Winter appreciated this mission, saying ‘A mission society unmatched the world over for sacrificial giving and dedicated prayer. Its members don't think that it is a burden on them but they think that it is a precious privilege for them to give whatever they have to the Lord. This type of sacrificial giving has enabled many of the prayer groups to
support financially one missionary by each prayer group. This is the giving, born in prayer out of a love for Christ and those for whom He died.’
Motto and ethos of Friends Missionary Prayer Band Oswald J Smith said that, Jesus’ last instruction to the Church was to "GO!" This responsibility belongs to us all. It is not for one group or organization, but for every member of the body of Christ. And, if we are not going ourselves, then we need to be sending someone else in our place. So he said, "we are called to either GO or SEND." We cannot admit that no generation could pass without hearing the Gospel of Christ. His slogan was ‘You must go or send a substitute.
The influence of Dr. Oswald J Smith’s teaching on the pioneer leaders enabled to fix the motto of FMPB as GO OR SEND. Ethos of FMPB is the word of God, Faith, Prayer, Holiness, Sacrifice, Obedience and Simple Lifestyle. In the early February issue of Araikooval 1960, it was clearly mentioned about the members’ quality as: one should have the assurance of salvation, should have a passion for the perishing soul, should spend enough time to intercede for others, ready to surrender body, wealth and time to the mission. This salient feature of the movement attracted many to join as full time missionaries and members.