In the first article of the present issue, Prayer and Ministry in the Acts of the Apostles, Jose Varickasseril offers an analysis of the spirituality found at the origins of Christianity. The Lukan narrative in the Acts presents the efforts of the early Christian community to bear witness to Jesus. During the process they proclaimed the Gospel message in word and deed. The author argues that in the early community there was a harmonious blending of prayer and ministry. Time spent with God in no way hampered or lessened the time set aside for ministry. Rather the very energy and dynamism that the early community manifested in ministry were the fruit of communing with God. The spirituality at the origins of the Church which sees no dichotomy between prayer and ministry has perennial relevance. Varickasseril invites the readers to use the Lukan perspective of prayer and ministry as the primary lens for reading the Acts of the Apostles.

    Anto Poruthur wrote his article Contemporary Challenges for Mission in North India before the recent spate of atrocities on Christians, unleashed by fundamentalists in India, especially in states ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. The author was prophetic. He says, “When one looks around, there are certain serious developments taking place under our very nose of which a good number of Christians, including priests and religious are blissfully ignorant. The present article is not specifically for scholars and specialists in the discipline of Missiology, but for ordinary, simple faithful, working at the grassroots, to make them aware of what perhaps holds out for them in the near future and to have a sense of preparedness to face eventualities when they come.” What he wrote about north India has come true even for south India.