ST THOMAS CSI CHURCH of HOUSTON a Brief History
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Introduction On behalf of the publications committee of the CSI Conference 2012, I am happy to introduce this souvenir to you. First of all, let me thank God Almighty for guiding us all the way. We extend our sincere gratitude to all those who helped us directly or indirectly to make this publication a grand success. Especially, we wish to thank all those who contributed to enrich this souvenir with valuable messages, articles, compliments, and advertisements. This souvenir is a reflection of the hard work and dedication of many members of the CSI Jubilee Memorial Church of New York. I would like to take this opportunity to express our special thanks to all who helped us to put it together. Our sincere thanks to Mr. K. K. Kuruvilla, for his earnest and sincere hard work,who collected the majority of the compliments and advertisements for this souvenir. Special thanks to Mr. Shinu G. Thomas and Mr. Regi P. George for the art work, layout and typesetting of the materials and getting it ready for print after countless hours of hard work. Credit goes to Miss. Sophia Solomon for the idea and artwork of the cover page. I wish to express our gratitude to Dr. Jesudas Athyal for editing the articles and assisting the editorial committee consisting of Rev. C. M. Eappen, Mrs. Brinto Eappen, Mrs. Mini Sam, and Miss. Silvy Philip. Mr. John Thakadiyil, our official photographer, deserves special mention and thanks as he deliberately takes good photographs wherever possible.I wish to express our thanks to Mr. Prasannan Gangadharan and Globalrings team for bringing out such a beautiful souvenir in a short time. We have undertaken a project called “Home for the Homeless” to build homes for a few needy and homeless families in India. We want to extend our sincere thanks to all those who participated in this endeavor by donating their time and money for this cause. We hope to build at least 10 homes for deserving families. Your continued support and donations will be highly appreciated. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome all the leaders and delegates to Orlando; which is known as the magical city. I hope that all of you will get a chance to enjoy at least a small portion of what this city has to offer. This is the twenty-sixth annual Church of South India Family and Youth Conference of North America and we thank the North American CSI community for entrusting the CSI Jubilee Memorial Church of New York to host this very important conference. After a period of uncertainty, we hope that this will be a turning point for the North American CSI community and that we can begin to form a stable structure for our congregations in this land of our choice. Words cannot express our gratitude to the numerous people across North America and abroad who helped us to plan this conference. We have great leaders for this conference and I am sure that we will have a blessed time together. A great team of volunteers from CSI Jubilee Memorial Church and from various other congregations have been working very hard and praying for the last few months to make this a wonderful conference. I earnestly request the whole hearted support and cooperation from all the participants. Greetings on behalf of the 26th CSI Family and Youth Conference of North America! May God Almighty bless us all abundantly as we carry out His mission that is entrusted to us! Koshy George Convenor A Brief History of The Jubilee Memorial Church of New York Dr. Rachel George, Secretary Greetings to you all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! On behalf of Jubilee Memorial Church I wish to welcome each and every one of you to the 26th CSI Family and Youth Conference of North America in Orlando, Florida from July 5-8, 2012. First of all let me thank God Almighty for His Grace and Guidance for this church in the past present and for the future. Let me thank God for giving us this opportunity for hosting 26th C S I Family and Youth Conference. Our congregation was inaugurated by the Most Rev. Dr. V. P. Dandin, Moderator of CSI on August 10, 1997 and named as the CSI Jubilee Memorial Church to commemorate the golden jubilee celebrations of the Church of South India. Our first worship service was conducted by the Rev. Johnny Joseph on November 17, 1996 at the United Methodist Church in Merrick, New York. In April of 1998, we were fortunateto get an independent place of worship at 147 Campbell Ave, Williston Park, New York, an annex of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. Our new worship place was dedicated by the Rt. Rev. Dr. K.J. Samuel, the deputy moderator of CSI on April 25, 1998.Within a short period of time, we were fortunate enough to buy a parsonage of our own, which was dedicated by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Sam Mathew, Bishop of Madhya Kerala Diocese on November 13, 1999. With great appreciation we acknowledge the following achans who helped us during the interim periods: Reverends.Ninan Mathew, Dr. A. V. Thomas, C. George Koshy, Zachariah Koshy, Christopher Solomon, T.S. Ninan, Abraham Vema, Christopher Solomon, Dr. E.V. Eapen, AnandVeeraraj, Dr. Johncy Itty, Sunil Chandy, Christopher Segamony, Gideon Jebamony, Dr. K.T. Kurian, John Bhashker, Pushparajan, William Abraham, M.O. Jacob, Johnson George, P.K. Kuruvilla, Paulson Rajarigam, Jacob David, Prof. Thomas Ninan, Berry Parsons, T.C.Mammenand Dr.KoshyMathai. Rev.Sabu K. Cherian took charge as the first Vicar of our congregation in May 2000. Under his leadership, our church hosted the Millennium conference (the 14th CSI family and Youth Conference of North America)from August 10-13, 2000 in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. I would also like to acknowledge the followingachans who served as vicars of our church: Rev. George Cheriyan (2003-2006) and Rev.Yesudas P. George (2006- 2009).Since 2011, Rev.C.M. Eappen and KochammaMrs. Brinto Eappen are serving here with their two daughtersAnugraha and Arpitha. The following bishops also blessed us by their presence and prayers: The Most Rev. Dr. V.P. Dandin, The Most Rev. William Moses, The Most Rev. Dr. K.J. Samuel, The Most Rev. J. W. Gladstone, The Most Rev S.Vasanthakumar, The Rt. Rev. Dr. Victor Premasagar, The Rt. Rev. Dr. M.C. Mani, the Rt. Rev. Rodney Michele, The Rt. Rev. Dr. P.G. Kuruvilla, The Rt. Rev. Dr. A. George Ninan, The Rt. Rev. Dr. Sam Mathew, His Grace Most Rev Mathews Mar Barnabas, Rt. Rev. Thomas Samuel, Rt. Rev. Dr.Johncy Itty, and the Rt. Rev. Thomas K.Oommen. We are thankful to the North American CSI Community for entrusting us with the responsibility to host the 26th annual CSI Conference. We want to thank all those who helped us to make this conference possible, especially Our Vicar, the Rev. C. M. Eappen, convener, Mr. Koshy George and all the members of our Church. I would like to thank each and every one of them for their dedicated efforts and hard work. Most of all on behalf of the CSI Jubilee Memorial Church, I would like to thank all those who traveled from far and near to participate in this year’s conference. We sincerely hope that you all will enjoy your stay in Orlando and are spiritually blessed by this conference. God Bless! CMS and its influence in Kerala Church Dr K M George Introduction Rev. C V Eapen invited me to write an article to be published in the Souvenir in connection with the North American CSI family Conference, and he suggested the topic to be CMS and its influence in Indian Churches. As it is a very wide subject, the present writer decided to limit it a period what is called “Mission of Help” period or “Syrian period” (1816-1836). The dawn of the nineteenth century saw great evangelical revival in England. It had a strong following in the famous English universities of Cambridge and Oxford. The members were very keen about their Christian faith and were equally concerned about social reforms. It was a period when great social reformists like Wilberforce entered the arena; he became the leading champion for the abolition of slavery. It was also a period when Fellows and Graduates of those universities offered to go abroad to Asia and Africa as missionaries. For example, Henry Martyn of Cambridge came to India (1781-1812), John Chapman, a Fellow of St Johns came to Kottayam as Principal of CMS College, Kottayam (1841-53), his successor Richard Collins (1854-65) was also a graduate from St Johns. The third Anglican Bishop of Travancore and Cochin Bishop Charles Hope Gill (1905-24), and the fourth, Bishop E A L Moore (1925-37) was an Oxonian. The British Parliament granted Royal Charter to the East India Company in 1600 for complete trading monopoly in India. For the first few years no one had been permitted to enter the Company's territories without a license from it. The Company had not granted license to missionaries to India except a few British chaplains to minister to the spiritual needs of the company's staff. The reason for the rejection was that the shareholders of company were mainly interested in securing maximum profit in trade, and probably felt that mission work might create communal disharmony among the people of the company. Further, it was the opinion of a number of the shareholders that preaching the Gospel in India was unnecessary, because (i) Hindus and Muslims were as good as Christians, useless, (ii) because no respectable Hindu or Muslim would become Christian, dangerous (iii) because it would influence the people of India with a fanatic hatred of the English which would imperil their lives and destroy the British Empire.