"Something is happening in Vancouver"
What does it mean when 250 Sikhs respond to an altar call?
By Rob
Clements
Special to ChristianWeek
BURNABY, BC– When senior pastor Ernie Culley of Glad Tidings Church walked into the sanctuary on Sunday October 26, he couldn’t believe what he saw. "The ocean of turbans and saris that were already filling the pews staggered me," he says.
And when the morning speaker, guest Charles Ndifon, gave an altar call, Culley was "blown away" by the response.
"We didn’t get an accurate count, but the altar area was flooded with Indo-Canadians and a few others as well. I counted a block of about 60, and then noted that that size group of people was replicated several times, and came up with an estimate of between 200 and 250 standing there," says Culley.
Ndifon, a Nigerian born revivalist and healer who now lives in Connecticut, reportedly has a video of everything that transpired. (He could not be reached for comment before deadline.)
By the end of the week, say witnesses, more than 250 Indo-Canadians–mostly Sikhs–had responded to salvation altar calls in English and Punjabi. Several members of Glad Tidings, an independent charismatic church, were reporting that they had been healed of various illnesses, and at least one member of the church was reporting via the internet that "full-blown revival" had broken out in Vancouver.
Nearly six weeks later many people–including Culley himself–are still asking themselves what it all means.
Open door
"Something is happening in Vancouver," he says. "I in no way believe that in any mass altar call, all the respondents are making genuine heart commitments to our Savior ... but at the very least we now have an open door of dialogue with a people group that was closed tightly to us before."
There are more than 180,000 Sikhs living in the lower mainland of British Columbia. Vancouver’s Sikh community, which arrived in Canada more than a century ago, has proved relatively resistant to Christian evangelistic efforts. The community received a lot of media attention this fall, when conflicts intensified between conservative and modern Sikhs over worship practices, and an outspoken Sikh newspaper editor was murdered.
According to Culley, the unexpected Sikh turnout at the church was largely the result of the efforts of one Indo-Canadian man who Culley has asked not be identified. The man, who believes he was healed of cancer and that his niece was healed of blindness at a Charles Ndifon crusade at Trinity Christian Centre in Victoria, invited many of his friends and relatives to hear Ndifon speak at Glad Tidings.
While most of the Sikhs who responded to the altar call have not come back to services in the following weeks, some have. Culley says Glad Tidings is trying very hard to provide a safe area for them to explore the claims of Jesus, providing them with Punjabi Bibles and resource materials. Several Indo-Canadian pastors have also volunteered their help.
"We truly realize that we are in a process here and that this thing will not be brought to a conclusion over night," explains Culley. "We are committed to the task of gently leading these beautiful, precious people to a true knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ."
Cultural considerations
Culley, who has served in missions and evangelism in South Asia, says it’s not uncommon in other cultures for people to attribute healing power to a particular person, rather than seeing healings as a display of Christ’s power. For that reason, he says he has been making a special effort in subsequent weeks to reinforce and teach who Jesus really is, focusing on Christ’s exclusivity and uniqueness.
"Many Sikhs who have come into the Christian faith have come through similar events," explains Vern Middleton, who lived for 11 years in India and now teaches World Religions at Trinity Western University in nearby Langley.
"First generation Sikhs, especially, are very family oriented and that’s how news often spreads."
Middleton says he doesn’t discount that healings have occurred, but he, like Culley, is concerned that an intensive discipling process takes place. "A lot of North American faith healers go to India because they can make their mark by drawing huge crowds and taking lots of pictures to bring home."
In India, he says, the discipleship process is more important than the conversion event. "There is a receptivity to supernatural, but unless there is an intense discipleship process [new converts] only last about three months."
