COSTA MESA, CA -- Back in the late sixties and early seventies, a quietly spoken pastor called Chuck Smith became the surrogate “Father” of thousands of hippies who flocked to the “Big Tent” at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, California, and found Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Out of this extraordinary move of God was birthed the modern-day worship music and contemporary Christian music when the converted hippies began writing their new music and then, after auditioning each song before “Pastor Chuck”, they played it in the tent scores of Jesus People bands were born and soon Maranatha Music was born, which brought this music to a wide audience.

The hippies, many of who lived in communes around the church, were then schooled in the Bible by Chuck Smith with his verse-by-verse teaching through the Scriptures and many have gone on to pastor some of the largest churches in America.

But on Saturday, January 5th, Chuck Smith, now aged 80, got one of the biggest surprises of his life when K.P. Yohannan, founder of Gospel for Asia, presented him with a package of audio CDs of his teachings in the Hindi language and told him that these CDs would be used to train thousands of his missionaries and pastors in India.

After the “Meet the Missionaries” event at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, at which K.P. was the main speaker, the two of them met and agreed to talk about this historic moment in missions in India. And what made this even more special was that were just a few yards from where the “Big Tent” was pitched all those years ago.

I began by asking K.P. Yohannan, how many people speak Hindi in his country and he replied, “It’s about six-hundred-million people,” adding with a smile, “That’s quite a lot of people.”

I then asked him how this came about.

“We realized that one of the greatest crises we have when revival breaks out and millions of people turn to Christ and then, when there’s not enough teaching of God’s Word, usually they end up in all kind of extreme cults which happen in many nations,” said K.P. Yohannan. “So we felt compelled to give to pastors something they can actually listen to and then be able to teach their congregations.

“I have to say that God’s very special hand has been upon Pastor Chuck Smith because of His walk with the Lord and knowledge of the Lord. What he teaches is not just words, it is life, and it is very powerful.

“So we want at least a hundred-thousand pastors to get a set of these CDs and we’ll be providing them eventually with a CD player so they can listen to a section of the Scripture, they can study it, and they teach it the next Sunday. So that way the Word of God will become the means for people to grow in their faith. So, for us, this is one of the most exciting things we have been involved in and, after one year of hard work, we have got it done.