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Here in Nepal as Su and I interview new team members one by one, we discover that some of them are still bound by stifling traditions. These traditions cannot be found in the Bible – they are the traditions of man. They were invented to give “clergymen” far more power and control over their congregants than the Bible permits.
For example, some pastors here don’t allow church members to lead a person to Christ unless they first call the pastor and let him do it in his formalistic way.
In Shamshergunj I saw a husband bring his wife to the pastor to lead her to Christ. The pastor told them to wait until Sunday so he could do it in church. I said to the pastor, “what if she dies before Sunday and goes to hell?” I wasn’t going to let him get away with that foolishness. So he made her kneel down, put his hand on her head and prayed a salvation prayer over her, as if he was imparting salvation unto her.
What is that? It was as if his impartation of salvation was more legitimate than if he led her in a prayer of repentance, faith and confession of Christ as her Lord.
Most pastors here in Nepal forbid their church members from baptizing anyone. The top honcho pastor must come from Kathmandu to baptize the new believer, and if he is too busy, tough luck, the believer will just have to wait until the honcho has time, and that could be 6 months or more.
Baptism is an appeal to God for a clear conscience and a declaration of faith that gives the new believer assurance and gets her off the fence and onto the Christian side. The convert is much less likely to backslide after baptism.
“These manmade traditions stifle church growth and movement growth. That is why India and Nepal are still only about 2-3% true Christians. I asked Terry Spinelli, my missionary friend who with Indian partners started a Church Planting Movement (CPM) in north India, who opposed them most – Hindus or Muslims. He responded, “Neither; it was the “Christians”. It was pastors bound by their traditions!”
We are finding the same thing in Nepal. Most pastors forbid women to baptize their converts. They say, “there is no example of a woman baptizing in the Bible”. I ask them “are you Jewish?” They admit they are not. I then say, “there is no example of a Gentile baptizing in the Bible”. So I guess if you build your doctrine on examples only, and every example or lack of example in the Bible is a mandate, you being a Gentile cannot baptize either. In fact no Nepali pastor may baptize if examples are mandates”.But they don’t get it. We say to them, “all examples of the Lord’s supper in the New Testament were in an upper room. Does that mean Christians cannot partake of the Lord’s Supper except in an upper room?” But they don’t get it and won’t break away from their stifling traditions. So India and Nepal will stay lost as long as Christians are bound by stifling manmade traditions.
That is why God has to raise up new leaders and new movements that are only bound by the Bible. We should not bind where God has not bound. Here in Nepal and India we and our teams are standing against stifling traditions, and in spite of bitter opposition from traditionalists, we are making significant progress. Jesus came to set people free. We came to do the same.
Su and I will leave the Kathmandu valley where we have been training three teams in a few days and travel to the Tarai plains where we have 21 more teams to train. We need your fervent prayers. Yesterday I was warned a man might try to physically attack me there because I stopped supporting him when I found out he is a swindler. He was submitting false reports hoping I would raise his support. The Bible is clear that we should not associate with swindlers and that swindlers go to hell (I Cor. 5:11 and 6:9-10).
Pray for our protection and for wisdom to fight these battles in the Spirit.
Your partners in reaching the world,
Mike and Su Keator
