Be the Church Where You Are 

On the streets of urban Bangalore, where I grew up, numerous small stores displayed makeshift signs advertising Xerox copies for as little as forty paisa to one rupee per page (i.e., less than 0.012 USD). I don’t recall ever seeing slick billboards or magazine advertisements for Xerox photocopy machines, but these simple Xerox signs made me associate the name Xerox exclusively with photocopying. It wasn’t until much later, during an Indian train journey, that I learned from an enthusiastic Xerox marketing executive that Xerox was a company. He proudly explained that one of the primary reasons for Xerox’s success was their branding strategy, which made the name synonymous with photocopying—similar to how “Google” has come to mean a web search. However, this very strategy ultimately contributed to Xerox’s downfall.

Michael Hiltzik, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, wrote: “The copier was probably the most successful industrial product of its time … Xerox’s entire being was geared toward building and exploiting the copier.” In the late 1970s, Xerox built Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and employed energetic intellectuals with a mandate to create a new world. At one point, 58 percent of the world’s top one hundred computer researchers were employed at PARC. These talented young researchers eventually invented groundbreaking technologies that we take for granted today, such as Ethernet, a prototype of the personal computer, a commercial version of the mouse, and laser printers. But sadly, Xerox executives’ preoccupation with selling photocopiers blinded them from seeing the immense potential of computers.

Meanwhile, a twenty-four-year-old college dropout observed a demonstration of these innovations at PARC, and, after ten minutes, realized their world-changing potential. This dropout was none other than Steve Jobs of Apple, who went on to market much of PARC’s inventions. Jobs stated, “They were basically copier heads, they just had no clue about a computer and what it could do, and so they grabbed defeat from the greatest victory in the computer industry. Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry. It could have been … a company ten times its size.” 

We could say this scenario is reflective of the church today. Just as Xerox became synonymous with photocopying, the church has sadly become synonymous with buildings and infrastructure. Consider how the word “church” is used today:

• “What church do you go to?” (referring to an institution or organization) 
• “What time does church start?” (referring to an event) 
• “Look at that beautiful old church” (referring to a building) 

Through our language and practices, we have unintentionally confined and reduced the concept of church to a location for just a few hours a week, when the biblical term ‘church’ refers to a people rather than a place; the identity of Christ followers rather than an institution; the body of believers rather than a building.  Just as Xerox executives failed to recognize the latent potential within PARC, Christians at large have overlooked the awesome resurrection power that has always been within them. We need to look beyond the four walls, beyond specific times and locations, and exemplify who we were truly destined to be. The church is not where we go for a service but we (i.e. God’s people) who serve wherever we go. 

My Journey of Disciple Making and Being Church

When we launched Radiance, a church plant in 2005, I thought planting a “mega church” would be ideal in Whitefield-Bangalore inspired by the book The Purpose Driven Church, but it didn’t take long to realize that this initiative would be expensive, time-consuming and not practical for us. Whitefield, at that time, was becoming the back office of the world— with call centers and multinational companies. Young professionals were flowing in from everywhere, but who were most likely not going to be permanent residents. 

On observing the context, we realized that Radiance need not strive to become a large ‘local church’ within four walls, where we could  minister to a steady local community on Sundays, but rather we can train and empower few to directly ‘link-up’ with their maker, beyond ‘the cloud’, to serve as disciple makers and function as his church, anywhere and everywhere  at any time. While the Jerusalem Church grew exponentially beyond its borders despite persecution, (Acts 8:1-4, Acts 11:19-21) I figured Radiance could possibly grow exponentially well beyond Bangalore as people migrate to other towns and cities.  

At first, I thought Radiance itself needed to be a global movement. But as I studied scripture on how the early church multiplied across the world in a short span of time, empowering local leaders to oversee responsibilities, I realized that we need not limit ourselves to promote our own brand. We can serve as catalysts to initiate or inspire multiple, diverse, interdependent movements across the world, by emphasizing the need for every member to serve, using their God given gifts, even while harnessing current technology. It is about building His Kingdom by spreading a simple but dangerous idea, which Christ and the early disciples used, that small is indeed big,that houses can change the world. This simple ideology could be passed on, by collaborating with other missional churches and agencies to accomplish the mission of God which is to the whole world. It’s about being church in the marketplace. Being church in the office. Being church in the public square. Being church in a coffee shop. Across every layer of society— glowing forth, shining like stars holding forth the word of life. (Phil.2:15) 

What This Looks Like Today

As we embraced a broader vision, God enabled us to influence various people and agencies. The following are a few examples-

Sanchita who comes from a Hindu background, on reaching out to us, through a church finder website, eventually opened her home along with her husband, so a few of us could gather together as a church, when they were in Bangalore. After they relocated to Kolkatta they continued to meet in their home and had the joy of sharing their faith with extended members of her family. The gospel was shared in a contextual manner in natural settings which the extended family members were accustomed to, as opposed to taking them to attend a legacy church where the culture would often be ‘western’ or unrelatable to her staunch Hindu family members. Being especially gifted in writing and web designing she along with her husband are now producing creative content through https://hopeunlimited.in/ to share the gospel, to a much wider audience. 

George Philip, who at the time was the director of Trans World Radio-India, in 2009, inspired by our practice of meeting as a church in teams at various locations, eventually helped launch thousands of discipleship groups in about 150 languages across the country. he conceptualized and coined this initiative as ‘Radio Homes’, where 5-6 radio listeners come together to fellowship with one another as they listen and discuss a series of Bible messages stored on SD cards. Radio Homes are now multiplying in other countries with the aid of other partnering agencies.

 Arun a Theological student who had joined Radiance when he was in Bangalore, on relocating to California joined a Chaplaincy program for Veterans. He along with his colleagues and leaders, are now currently considering creative ways to adopt the idea of how small teams of Christ followers can mutually encourage one another and grow towards their appreciation of Christ. 

Then there’s Andy, on moving to Chicago to complete a PhD, during the pandemic in 2020, decided to continue meeting with friends on Zoom, some of whom were from other faith backgrounds, who were situated in Bangalore and Australia.  Despite the lockdown, their relationship with Christ and fellowship with one another grew immensely and they continued to meet even after pandemic. Today all of them are now actively participating in local fellowships with deeper insight and clarity of focus.  

These are but a few stories of how ordinary people on being connected with Christ continued to grow in their faith journey, as they discipled others.  It grew well beyond our borders with little or no financial involvement. The outcomes were far greater when we intentionally kept our gathering simple and small, but the vision grew to encompass the whole world. The transformation continues to take place from the ground -up with ordinary people knowing that they are authorized and ordained of God to carry out his mission. The results speak for themselves, but sadly the church at-large, like the executives of the Xerox company have fixated their view of church as a four walled entity where people need to be ministered to instead of releasing them to serve as active followers of Christ. Mission agencies and educational institutions are now coming to terms with this rising tide. They cannot deny the rapid growth of disciplemaking movements across the world. Just as Jobs lamented about Xerox executives“…they just had no clue about a computer and what it could do”. I hope none of us would be found guilty of not having a clue about the immense potential of what the church is destined to do.