The Bihar Out-Reach Network (BORN)
S.D. Ponraj preparing to baptize new converts in the traditionally sacred waters of the Ganges
Bihar is a large state in the northeast section of India. It has a population of 100 million and more than 40 thousand villages, and all but a few of its 100 people groups are unreached with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Though these are a people who have proved highly resistant to the gospel, the Bihar Out-Reach Network (BORN) is beginning to make important inroads for the kingdom.
The vision for BORN came about in June 1992 at the first statewide mission conference ever held in Bihar, the Bihar State Conference on Church Development. It included representatives from all the Protestant denominations and mission societies in the state. Its organizers included S. D. Ponraj, who had arrived in the state after having served for 17 years with the Friends Missionary Prayer Band in South India. Ponraj felt called to Bihar by God, and he believed that God spoke to him through Ezekiel 37, the passage that tells of dry bones coming to life again. Bihar was considered by most to be “the graveyard of missions” because so many had failed there. Ponraj believed that God gave him the assurance that Bihar would no longer be known as a graveyard, for it would be transformed, following Ezekiel 47:1–12, into a beautiful vineyard.
Others at the conference caught the vision, and the idea for BORN was created, a network of churches and mission organizations working in Bihar. It was not until 1995 that the BORN organization was officially formed, and not until 1998 that the organization set up an office in the capital city of Patna and made Ponraj its director. It was legally registered as a society in February 2002, with 35 founding churches and mission organizations. Today there are about 60 active member organizations.
BORN’s primary work has been to train church and mission leaders in the work of evangelism and church planting. It uses a variety of techniques, emphasizing orality, development of indigenous leadership, youth and women, the Dalit caste, and targeting specific people groups. Until recently it has not emphasized physical infrastructure (institutions or churches) but, rather, the training of leaders. Accurate statistics are hard to come by, but a rough estimate of BORN’s success might be that it started with about 50,000 Christians and now has about 100,000 to 120,000.
In order to consolidate its gains for the gospel, BORN is now in the process of creating the Bihar Christian Church, an organization that Ponraj would eventually like to merge with the Church of North India, the PC(USA)’s traditional partner. At the same time BORN continues to train evangelists and reach out to new peoples and villages with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
BORN is supported by both the Office of International Evangelism and the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship. To give to the work of BORN make your donations to ECO E040067.
