What do Christians lack as a community

What do  Christians lack as a community

Rev Alex P Oommen, Pastor CSI Tholassery on transfer after three years was given a send off on 12^th may2024. We followed that on YouTube. It was fantastic.

 

What surprised me was how Tiruvalla has been transformed. Many, who spoke, expressed themselves in chaste English, something invisible in the 1960s.

 

Nevin, from Mundiappally, a rural village with minimum infrastructure, had recently succeeded in the civil services examination with rank 225. He did his Schooling at the Believers School at Kuttapuzha, yet another village. He did his degree Hons at St Stephens, Delhi and was doing his PG there when he attempted the Civil Services exam.

 

When I had joined for my Pre degree, after a month, a close relative had enquired whether I was having any religious activity in the College. I did wonder whether I was going to the college for that.

 

Well, I have often wondered why Christians rarely aspire for the Civil Services. True, an IPS officer had once told me it offers the finest job and opportunity in India. But one had to invest four years of life into it, he said. The crux is here. Christians long for immediate results. It is either the Gulf or the US or Canada or Europe or Australia or New Zealand they set their eyes upon. Money is the motive.

 

Banks are, today staffed with Engineers both in the clerical or officers’ cadre. Once I came across an Engineer employed by TCS who left it to join banking service. What is unfortunate is those engineers mostly belong to communities other than Christians. They have the practical approach to diversify whereas Christians stick on to the notion an engineer has to work as an engineer alone. They are not prepared to go for a crack at Civil Services because it involves hard work and probable uncertainty. Each year, when the results of the Civil Services list come out, one doesnot find many Christians there.

 

I believe Christians in India are in need of a shift in their focus.