By Torie Speicher*

Shiny, yellow Ambassador cabs wait in a queue and dirt-stained, homeless men sleep on benches at the airport.  The smell from the toilet permeates the baggage claim. Welcome to Kolkata!

Stop there, though, and you will miss the colonial architecture that blurs the Hindu temples into the background and nods to the British influence as the former capital of British India.

Chai (tea) is sold on the narrow street corners in disposable cups made of unglazed clay and Subway sandwiches are eaten inside the new, glass and steel-structured mall.

With 14.3 million people (according to the 2001 Census), Kolkata is the third largest city in India. That’s almost twice the population of New York City. Next to tall buildings costing millions of American dollars, large families bathe with buckets on the street and hang their clothes on the railing to dry. Most people in Kolkata’s slums live on 80 cents a day, according to Urban Slums Reports: The Case of Calcutta, India.

There’s more to Kolkata than the contrast between wealth and poverty.

“The greatest need of the city is for the church to boldly share about Jesus in their daily lives,” Lonnie Tepper,* an international worker, says.

“It’s the souls of the people of Kolkata that are most important. Despite rigid class pressures, their economic status is only temporary. God will not get angry if we ask greater things like salvation of their souls,” said Dural Iyer,* a pastor who first came to Kolkata in 1968 and is originally from South India.

Christianity is not new to Kolkata. For more than 200 years, its roots have struggled to spread. William Carey, the father of modern missions, came to West Bengal in 1793. It was 10 years before Carey saw anyone come to faith in Jesus.

Today, there are more than 100 churches and maybe 5000 people attending them, said Rand Carruth,* an international worker, estimates. That means less than 1 percent of the people of Kolkata are believers.

National pastors Vaskar Datta,* Upendra Basant,* Dural Iyer,* and Ohit Sanyal* are not content with these numbers. Basant prays for strongholds and for the church to multiply in the city, where the path to church planting has been slower than in the villages.

“Although Kolkata city has seen William Carey walk through these areas and really turn the Gospel into their language, it has not been moving,” Sanyal, a church planter for seven years, adds. “The traditional path of church planting has kept the Gospel within the walls of the church.”

At age 78, Iyer clings to the power of God for the change that the city needs.

“Only God’s love can change the hearts of the people. And, it only will bring changes in the society. It is the message of God’s love that brings the revolution,” Iyer says.

No one comes to Kolkata and leaves unaffected by the needs.

“The needs of the city are endless — economic, social, infrastructure, and ecological but all of these (though important) are temporal,” Tepper says. “The problems and needs of the city will be met as God’s church spreads.”

Many pastors in Kolkata understand that the timing has never been better for a fresh vision of discipleship.

“Because there is a spirit of mediocrity in churches, many say, let somebody else do it. Instead of Lord, here am I, send me, the church is saying, Lord, here am I, call him, send him, use him,” Sanyal says. “Our people in Kolkata need to get greedy for souls.”

The goal of church planting in Kolkata is to partner with nationals to grow ownership among Bengali believers, which will lead to churches of every tribe and tongue in West Bengal.

“If we can’t help bring the idea of the Christian faith being owned by every Kolkata believer, then the story stays the same,” Carruth says.

Church planting is about relationships. Christians have to choose to want to work together to see a common goal. Through the church, the many needs of the sick and dying, impoverished and destitute, and abused and enslaved will be met.

Carruth’s prayer is to see that Jesus will start His church through ordinary people who are working regular jobs — not just pastors.

“When we think about 200 and some years have been since William Carey came in 1793, we feel a little bit hopeless for those reasons, but we have confidence in something bigger than a program and our own worldly effort. We have confidence in the spirit of the Living God. It was he who called many of us out of darkness into light, out of America to come here. He has called many Indians to believe,” Carruth says.

Many believers are seeing the need for change and are stepping away from the traditional mindset.

“God is really moving. People are actually shifting the boundaries of the church out, just like Isaiah chapter 54 says to enlarge your tent and take away the curtains that people may see what is happening in the church,” Sanyal says. “We need to take church to the street.”

In one year, Sanyal has seen 12 house churches begin in the city, house churches that are focused on discipleship and growing the church.

Sanyal believes the church has the power to minister to the world and encourages Christians to step outside the walls of the church and sit beside sinners in the streets. His friends are not all preachers. They’re also farmers, electricians, vegetable vendors, snake catchers, rickshaw men.

“We want to tell people that God has called them to preach. So that a carpenter will think, I’ve got the Word, the Scriptures, the training. I am the man. I should do it,” says Sanyal.

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*Name changed.

Torie Speicher is a writer serving among South Asian peoples as a volunteer with International Mission Board.