Arpit Waghmare, Operation Nehemiah

Churches in India have been changing.

Once lacking much depth of understanding of public integrity, church leaders are learning how to apply Scriptural truths about justice, integrity, and truth to their approach to financial integrity. Operation Nehemiah provides discipleship that is both theologically grounded and practically applicable to fundamentally shift the Indian church’s paradigm on financial integrity. Leading the charge are Arpit Waghmare, long-time FPIN member and Coordinator-Founder of Operation Nehemiah, and Ashley Vinil (Communications Strategist).

Operation Nehemiah is in the process of creating a substantial publication in collaboration with Biblica which will highlight content co-created by Indians for Indians about the topic of financial integrity in the church. The team is interviewing leaders in the Christian world, pastors, and experts on the topic, gathering almost 90 stories about challenges, failures, successes, and insights learned. Simultaneously gathering exegetical resources on the topic, the team will connect these real stories with their theological pair. In fact, the writing team started its theological research with the resources on public integrity that were shared by FPIN members before last year’s Micah Global Consultation.

The final publication will be a study on the books of Nehemiah and Ezra, interspersed with real-life stories and complementary exegesis that give a multi-faceted perspective on the Scripture, solidified by discussion questions for people to engage with in small groups.

The vision is to build upon the written publication with follow up multimedia and action-oriented content. One possibility is to publish videos of the real-life stories told and videos that explain the concepts in further detail. Another possibility for expansion is the development of an online structure that facilitates a learning experience for distant learners or seminary students. This substantial project is very exciting, as it not only provides a holistic view of financial integrity for the church in India, but also provides a model for creating bold and thorough discipleship content for this taboo subject.

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Operation Nehemiah’s vision does not stop with this publication. The hope is to co-create more and more authentic material that speaks to the specific challenges faced by the church in India, then to be a platform for sharing this content with catalytic leaders who will champion these discipleship journeys in their own context. Operation Nehemiah’s courageous and humble leadership is a model for those who, in their own local context, also work towards pursuing the healthy creation of awareness of how deeply corruption has entrenched itself in our churches and in our hearts.

Arpit is interested in collaborating with FPIN members – contact our Network Coordinator to get in touch with Arpit about:

• Providing fresh editing eyes – Arpit is interested in circulating a draft with folks who would be interested in reading through the current draft to identify areas for improvement.
• Sharing new or important theological publications – Arpit and his team are pulling material for their publication from existing work. He is asking for you to share important theological frameworks, break-through pieces, new writing, or other content you believe could be helpful to improve their work.
• Trying out their model – If someone in this network wants to do similar writing, workshop, and/or project development in their local context, Arpit and his team can share their processes, challenges, and key learnings!