Ark Family Ministries is committed to building strong, Bible based families. We believe that godly families will pass on the godly heritage to their children. This way several generations can be influenced to live out the Biblical principles.
The ChallengeFamilies in India are undergoing crisis.
Poverty, disease, influences of the secular media especially the western media, busyness, the lack of proper and adequate teaching on family life are some of the major causes for the conflicts in families and breakdown in relationships.
Divorce rate in urban India is estimated at 20%.
Sunday Times dated July 24, 2004 reports the following:
The divorce boom has been split wide open. As marriage melt-down sweeps across India and Asia, lawyers predict this is the biggest divorce boom on this side of the planet… 40 divorces are filed everyday in eight district courts of Delhi. Last year, 6,500 matrimonial disputes were registered in Delhi courts… One Indian psychologist says, “The reality of marriage is so unglamorous that the couples can’t adjust to it. There’s role conflicts, expectation conflicts and emotional conflicts.”
Even the Christian community is not immune from the above for example, in one church we know, all 4 young couples married that year separated before one year was over. The believing pastor was very distraught over this.
Rural families are facing tremendous problems due to dowry and dowry related deaths. Addiction to alcohol and unfaithfulness in marriage presents additional problems which often lead to conditions like HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS is spreading fast and has reached pandemic proportions in India.
Our BurdenDuring 1980s as we ministered to boys and girls, we had the joy of seeing many children understandingly and with true conviction receive the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior from sin.
In the process of discipling these children, we realized that unless the husband-wife relationship in a home was a strong and a growing relationship founded on the Word of God and centered in Jesus Christ, they would fail to have a significant and lasting impact on their children. We were convinced that the Christian faith was only one generation away from extinction IF the families were not centered in the Word of God.
With this burden in our hearts, we were able to conduct our first two family seminars in Gujarat state in 1989. The response to these seminars was so overwhelming that we recognized that this Bible based family life teaching was the key to growing strong families for Christ.
The Birth of Ark Family MinistriesWe have served the Lord in various capacities since 1974. It was in 1995 that the Lord called us in a very specific way to begin a ministry to build, strengthen and enrich families all over India. The challenge for this ministry was given to us from Hebrews 11:7, ”... Noah built an ark for the salvation of his family.” Just as Noah worked hard and was guided by the Lord to work for the salvation of his family, we were encouraged to challenge the Christian families to do the same.
Our GoalMinistering to families provides us with open doors to bring the unsaved to the saving knowledge of the Lord and also to build families in the Word of God. We realized that with God’s help and teaching from God’s Word, families can become all that God intended them to be… fruit bearing families to the glory of God.
As doors for evangelism are quickly closing down in our land, preparing families for personal evangelism is a powerful means of reaching the lost with His gospel.
The best way to prevent HIV/AIDS and other dreadful sexually transmitted diseases is to build strong, faithful families.
