I started my doctoral journey at Bakke Graduate University with a city immersion course in Seattle in January of 2009. During that experience, I was introduced to the work of a 2007 BGU graduate, Dr. Timothy Svboda, and a ministry wheel concept of decentralized urban ministry that he had implemented with other leaders in Chennai, India. I was so inspired by that approach to city transformation that I applied the model as best as I could in my own city of Pittsburgh, and I have shared the model with many groups as I have taught about urban mission in different cities around the world.
After the Seattle course, I studied in San Jose, Costa Rica, and Mexico City, Mexico, with a fellow BGU doctoral student, Dr. Marimuthu “Muthu” Arumuganadar, who had traveled to Latin America from India to study city transformation. We became friends and graduated from BGU together in 2012. Shortly after graduation, he invited me to come to Trichy, India, to teach about city transformation with him at a school for urban mission that he had established in that city. Although I was in Trichy to do some teaching and training, I actually came away with more learning as I saw first-hand the transformational impact that Muthu was making in his city. I stopped in two other cities in India, Mumbai and Pune, to visit some friends on my way back to Pittsburgh. While I was there, my host took me to a highland area between Mumbai and Pune where he said, “Look out in all directions, Bryan. We are standing in this beautiful countryside between Mumbai and Pune, and some day soon, probably within the next ten years or so, this area will all be populated with buildings and people. This region will be a megacity of 50 million people. Are we ready to accommodate that kind of rapid urbanization? As Christians, we need strategies to reach so many people.”
As I flew out of Mumbai in 2013, I wondered to myself, “Who will God send to reach people in this world-class megacity?” I was honestly overwhelmed by the intensity of the population growth in the brief time that I had spent exploring Mumbai, Pune, and the surrounding countryside. I knew that God was already at work there, so I knew God would raise up visionary leaders to seek the shalom of this megacity. Little did I know that, a few years later, God would call my friend, Muthu, his wife, Kavitha, and their children to move to Mumbai to serve as visionary leaders in that region. He got to work right away implementing the ministry models that he had learned as a student at BGU, and that he had pioneered in his previous city, Trichy. I admired from afar as he shared updates about the sophisticated strategies that he was implementing, all while being led by the Holy Spirit.
When COVID arrived in 2020, many leaders were shaken to the core and confused about how to respond. Muthu launched a city-wide initiative in Mumbai that galvanized leaders in different sectors of the city to coordinate relief, development, and advocacy efforts. He courageously stepped into that chaotic moment with humility, passion, risk, creativity, and strategic thinking. I was leading BGU’s academic programs in 2020, and I created a class called Transformational Strategies for the Ice Age that I designed to help leaders in cities learn about best practices and opportunities to engage in city transformation work during the pandemic. I invited Muthu to share with our class, and we were all amazed at what God was doing through his ministry initiatives in Mumbai. The rest of the world learned so many good things from what was happening in Mumbai at that time through what Muthu shared.
When I stepped into the President role at BGU a few years ago, I was excited when Muthu accepted an invitation to join BGU’s Board of Regents. He has served as an advocate for the mission of BGU globally in that role, and it also gives BGU the opportunity to continue to elevate his work in Mumbai and throughout India. Recently, Muthu mobilized more than 150 leaders from throughout India to be a part of a Mumbai City Consultation. The gathering was the next step in his calling to train Christian leaders to address the complex challenges associated with rapid urbanization in India. I was thrilled to see that Dr. Timothy Svboda was able to join the consultation to share more about his expertise with sophisticated city transformation models. Dr. Jacob Bloemberg, a 2018 BGU graduate who is currently serving as a convener and catalyst for the Lausanne Cities movement, was also able to join the gathering to support the consultation and to connect the impact that is happening in Mumbai and India to the broader work of city transformation that is taking place in other megacities around the world.
From all accounts that I have heard, the Mumbai City Consultation was a success. I join with many others around the world in celebrating what God is doing in Mumbai, in that region, and throughout India. It is sometimes difficult for me to describe what we do at Bakke Graduate University because the scope of what our students, faculty, and graduates do in their communities and in their organizations takes place on a scale that seems hard to quantify. Yet. I know it when I see it. I saw it in Seattle in 2009; I saw it in San Jose, Costa Rica, and in Mexico City later in 2009; I have seen it in my own city of Pittsburgh; I saw it in Trichy in 2013, and I am currently seeing it in Mumbai. It is transformational leadership for the global city. And it is amazing!
Dr. Bryan McCabe
BGU President
