The story of Naga Christian Fellowship Delhi goes back to the 50s and 60s when a few senior Naga leaders like Kevichusa, SC Jamir, Rishang Keising, late H. Zopianga and others lit the spark. It was also with the enthusiasm and zeal of a then, young junior officer, M. Kikon posted to Nagaland House, Aurangzeb Road, along with some student leaders like Alemtemshi Jamir, Viketol Sakhrie, Keviyachü Liegise, Labu Sakhrie and others that in the long run NCF Delhi was formally recognised as a full-fledged Church by NBCC in 2002 with the appointment of Ricky Medom as Pastor.
In the Pastor’s words – “NCF Delhi was like a surrogate mother to the other units for years.” Cites like Bangalore, Calcutta, Guwahati and Pune followed up quickly when in 1997 NCF Delhi initiated and hosted the first gathering of all the NCF units across the country as a result of which the All India NCF Association was formed.
Today, there are 13 units functioning all over India with Bangalore, Bombay, Calcutta, Chennai, Delhi, Dehra Dun, Gauhati, Hyderabad, Mysore, Pune and Shillong having their own Chaplain/Pastor except for Gwalior and Ahmednagar which have no full-time chaplain.
Pastor Ricky Medom, who began serving as Chaplain for NCF Delhi a decade before he was appointed Pastor, served in Patkai College from 1985-1987 and was eventually invited to work with the Philippine Navigators as a full-time Missionary in Metro Manila till 1989. Then he received his Doctorate in Theology from the Asia Baptist Graduate Theological Seminary. Over the years, he has been a featured speaker in conferences and churches in the USA, Denmark, Japan, Indonesia, Switzerland, Thailand and the Philippines.
NCF ministry, he says, “is a trans-tribal ministry” and observing that, while within Nagaland there are language constraints and other tribalistic limitations, he feels that “when our people come out to the big cities, they are more open and are able to relate without any of these constraints.” Consequently, he explains that “we are able to reach out and provide a platform where all Nagas gather together irrespective of tribe or denomination or whatever differences we might have at home and fellowship with one another.”
“This would humanly be impossible within Nagaland itself,” he expresses.
And although NCF primarily targets our own people, it crosses over to other people groups and nationalities. Besides North Easterners and other Indians, NCF Delhi has also seen the presences of various nationalities like American, Brazilian, British, Dutch, Ethiopian, German, Korean, Singaporean, Iranian, Swiss, Filipino, Indonesian, Nigerian, Thai, Russian, etc.
The regular attendance numbers to about 300 every Sunday although there is potential for NCF to have a much larger congregation (700-800). However, the Pastor enlightens ‘that due to the lack of a proper meeting hall this has not materialised yet’.
Also, through the initiative of his wife, Viring Dela Rosa, the Sunday School department of NCF Delhi was started ‘to meet the needs of the few Naga families.’ This went on to attract other foreigner families residing in Delhi and soon enough, ‘this department has become a training ground for young students who love kids and invest part of their time and energy in teaching and encouraging the children’.
Interestingly, all the Sunday school teachers of NCF Delhi are from the student community. Others who help out are volunteers, some of them who come as interns sent by their Bible College/Seminaries. Presently, he is assisted by Aguimei Pamei, full-time Assistant Pastor and Zaseto Sasu, Chaplain of the Chakhesang Community as a part-time worker.
NCF Delhi has also been involved in Missions since its early inception. It commissioned its first missionary couple work with the Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA) who are now working with the Yemen Smile Project in Yemen, Africa. They then supported missionaries of the Rashtriya Susamachar Parishad (RSP) for several years and helped build the Lucknow Hindi Baptist Church in Mayabundar, in the Andamans.
Further, keeping with the Delhi Government’s initiative to bring education to the lower income population, NCF helped open several school on the outskirts of Delhi. Today it continues to support and run the Ebenezer Community School in Mehrauli.
Socially, the Ministry partners with the SHALOM DELHI Project of EHA reaching out to people with HIV/AIDS. Also, each year, when the searing heat of Delhi cools down, it holds its Food Festival.
Music, being the universal language that connects people, the NCF choir has over the years warmed the hearts and souls of audiences both within and outside the Church. They have been invited to various functions including the US Embassy, Bible Society of India, Cathedral Church as well as recordings by the Doordarshan.
In 1999, NCF spearheaded a Musical Programme to showcase the positive side of the Nagas by staging the “Musical Nagas: From the Naga War Cry to Beethoven’s Sonata”. Over 2000 people from all over Delhi turned up to experience the Musical extravaganza.
Another undertaking of NCF is the Delhi Tyrannus Hall, which is a residential dorm designed for Christian young men attending secular Universities. With its goal to help these young men grow in Discipleship through close supervision while they continue with their studies, DTH has produced key leaders serving as Advocates, Bureaucrats, Commercial pilots, Missionaries, Politicians, etc, since its inception in1997.
Drifting a little away from the real Mission, thoughts on the seemingly disturbing phrase Nagas use there in Delhi where they differentiate Nagas from Nagaland and Nagas from Manipur accordingly (although they’re all supposedly Nagas) surfaces. To this, Pastor Medom personally feels that “we need to develop a more global perspective, a more inclusive and hopefully a broader way of reading our common history if we are really to identify ourselves as Nagas - and not as Nagas of Nagaland or Nagas of Manipur, Assam, Arunachal, whatever.”
He emphasises that “to do this we need to first of all be aware of our own identity as God sees it and as He recognises it”. Regretfully expressing “I think we are going through a period when most of us have forgotten who we are really” he says “we have reduced our tribal pride to a pitiful and chauvinistic level where all we can think about is how to advance my tribe at the expense of everyone else.”
Further on to the struggle for Naga Independence, although confessing that ‘strictly speaking this is not my line’, yet as a Naga, the Pastor felt “it seems to me that the idea of a national Naga identity remains an Ideal rather than Real.” “Diversity should be taken as God-given, a blessing, rather than a bane or a hindrance to reconciliation,” he stated.
In his words – “We must do away with the worn out symbols of the Naga struggle for identity because old issues are racked up again and again to give the picture of a victim-mentality. Rather than holding on to the victim mentality, we need to seriously ask who is to blame for all the ills and crisis that beset Naga society. Is it outsiders? Intruders? Insiders?”
Stating that it is an exhausted argument to keep blaming others, he says “it may be true that external forces have adversely affected our traditional and cultural identity but it is equally true that this was caused by some of our own people who might have collaborated with external forces because of political and economic ambitions! We cannot forever keep blaming external forces!”
He feels that ‘worn out symbols like healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, peace and order etc, need to be replaced by new symbols’ while adding that “for too long these symbols have held us captive and paralysed.” As Christians, he expresses that “we need to look beyond ourselves and see the bigger picture from God’s perspective. Once we can do this, God’s Spirit can and will enable us to forgive each other and bring about a genuine and far-reaching reconciliation.”
To him as a Pastor “there is no greater joy than to see lives take a 180 degree turn and go on to become like Salt & Light in our world of chaos and turmoil” and faithfully pronounces that “to this we keep investing our lives and will continue doing so wherever we are and for however long the Lord allows us to do.
In the Pastor’s words – “NCF Delhi was like a surrogate mother to the other units for years.” Cites like Bangalore, Calcutta, Guwahati and Pune followed up quickly when in 1997 NCF Delhi initiated and hosted the first gathering of all the NCF units across the country as a result of which the All India NCF Association was formed.
Today, there are 13 units functioning all over India with Bangalore, Bombay, Calcutta, Chennai, Delhi, Dehra Dun, Gauhati, Hyderabad, Mysore, Pune and Shillong having their own Chaplain/Pastor except for Gwalior and Ahmednagar which have no full-time chaplain.
Pastor Ricky Medom, who began serving as Chaplain for NCF Delhi a decade before he was appointed Pastor, served in Patkai College from 1985-1987 and was eventually invited to work with the Philippine Navigators as a full-time Missionary in Metro Manila till 1989. Then he received his Doctorate in Theology from the Asia Baptist Graduate Theological Seminary. Over the years, he has been a featured speaker in conferences and churches in the USA, Denmark, Japan, Indonesia, Switzerland, Thailand and the Philippines.
NCF ministry, he says, “is a trans-tribal ministry” and observing that, while within Nagaland there are language constraints and other tribalistic limitations, he feels that “when our people come out to the big cities, they are more open and are able to relate without any of these constraints.” Consequently, he explains that “we are able to reach out and provide a platform where all Nagas gather together irrespective of tribe or denomination or whatever differences we might have at home and fellowship with one another.”
“This would humanly be impossible within Nagaland itself,” he expresses.
And although NCF primarily targets our own people, it crosses over to other people groups and nationalities. Besides North Easterners and other Indians, NCF Delhi has also seen the presences of various nationalities like American, Brazilian, British, Dutch, Ethiopian, German, Korean, Singaporean, Iranian, Swiss, Filipino, Indonesian, Nigerian, Thai, Russian, etc.
The regular attendance numbers to about 300 every Sunday although there is potential for NCF to have a much larger congregation (700-800). However, the Pastor enlightens ‘that due to the lack of a proper meeting hall this has not materialised yet’.
Also, through the initiative of his wife, Viring Dela Rosa, the Sunday School department of NCF Delhi was started ‘to meet the needs of the few Naga families.’ This went on to attract other foreigner families residing in Delhi and soon enough, ‘this department has become a training ground for young students who love kids and invest part of their time and energy in teaching and encouraging the children’.
Interestingly, all the Sunday school teachers of NCF Delhi are from the student community. Others who help out are volunteers, some of them who come as interns sent by their Bible College/Seminaries. Presently, he is assisted by Aguimei Pamei, full-time Assistant Pastor and Zaseto Sasu, Chaplain of the Chakhesang Community as a part-time worker.
NCF Delhi has also been involved in Missions since its early inception. It commissioned its first missionary couple work with the Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA) who are now working with the Yemen Smile Project in Yemen, Africa. They then supported missionaries of the Rashtriya Susamachar Parishad (RSP) for several years and helped build the Lucknow Hindi Baptist Church in Mayabundar, in the Andamans.
Further, keeping with the Delhi Government’s initiative to bring education to the lower income population, NCF helped open several school on the outskirts of Delhi. Today it continues to support and run the Ebenezer Community School in Mehrauli.
Socially, the Ministry partners with the SHALOM DELHI Project of EHA reaching out to people with HIV/AIDS. Also, each year, when the searing heat of Delhi cools down, it holds its Food Festival.
Music, being the universal language that connects people, the NCF choir has over the years warmed the hearts and souls of audiences both within and outside the Church. They have been invited to various functions including the US Embassy, Bible Society of India, Cathedral Church as well as recordings by the Doordarshan.
In 1999, NCF spearheaded a Musical Programme to showcase the positive side of the Nagas by staging the “Musical Nagas: From the Naga War Cry to Beethoven’s Sonata”. Over 2000 people from all over Delhi turned up to experience the Musical extravaganza.
Another undertaking of NCF is the Delhi Tyrannus Hall, which is a residential dorm designed for Christian young men attending secular Universities. With its goal to help these young men grow in Discipleship through close supervision while they continue with their studies, DTH has produced key leaders serving as Advocates, Bureaucrats, Commercial pilots, Missionaries, Politicians, etc, since its inception in1997.
Drifting a little away from the real Mission, thoughts on the seemingly disturbing phrase Nagas use there in Delhi where they differentiate Nagas from Nagaland and Nagas from Manipur accordingly (although they’re all supposedly Nagas) surfaces. To this, Pastor Medom personally feels that “we need to develop a more global perspective, a more inclusive and hopefully a broader way of reading our common history if we are really to identify ourselves as Nagas - and not as Nagas of Nagaland or Nagas of Manipur, Assam, Arunachal, whatever.”
He emphasises that “to do this we need to first of all be aware of our own identity as God sees it and as He recognises it”. Regretfully expressing “I think we are going through a period when most of us have forgotten who we are really” he says “we have reduced our tribal pride to a pitiful and chauvinistic level where all we can think about is how to advance my tribe at the expense of everyone else.”
Further on to the struggle for Naga Independence, although confessing that ‘strictly speaking this is not my line’, yet as a Naga, the Pastor felt “it seems to me that the idea of a national Naga identity remains an Ideal rather than Real.” “Diversity should be taken as God-given, a blessing, rather than a bane or a hindrance to reconciliation,” he stated.
In his words – “We must do away with the worn out symbols of the Naga struggle for identity because old issues are racked up again and again to give the picture of a victim-mentality. Rather than holding on to the victim mentality, we need to seriously ask who is to blame for all the ills and crisis that beset Naga society. Is it outsiders? Intruders? Insiders?”
Stating that it is an exhausted argument to keep blaming others, he says “it may be true that external forces have adversely affected our traditional and cultural identity but it is equally true that this was caused by some of our own people who might have collaborated with external forces because of political and economic ambitions! We cannot forever keep blaming external forces!”
He feels that ‘worn out symbols like healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, peace and order etc, need to be replaced by new symbols’ while adding that “for too long these symbols have held us captive and paralysed.” As Christians, he expresses that “we need to look beyond ourselves and see the bigger picture from God’s perspective. Once we can do this, God’s Spirit can and will enable us to forgive each other and bring about a genuine and far-reaching reconciliation.”
To him as a Pastor “there is no greater joy than to see lives take a 180 degree turn and go on to become like Salt & Light in our world of chaos and turmoil” and faithfully pronounces that “to this we keep investing our lives and will continue doing so wherever we are and for however long the Lord allows us to do.
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