Responding to God’s call for full time ministry, Pr. Joseph Balachandran left his job in a motor company at Chennai in 1971 and started his ministry in, the most backward district of Madurai, namely Usilampatti and its surrounding villages. After ten years of hard labour of sowing the seeds of the Gospel through “Jesus Lives Ministries” and establishing many churches in unreached areas, he moved to K.Pudur, Madurai as per the Lord’s guidance and started a house church in 1981 with just his wife and four daughters worshipping as members. Slowly one by one people came and after 9 months they started worshipping in a small shed on the terrace of a nearby house of one Mr.SusaiUdaiyar. After a few months, on a Sunday afternoon the shed fell down by a storm with the miraculous escape of the Sunday school children. In a week’s time the Lord provided the terrace of Mr.Jeyapaul in EMG Nagar, rent free, to build a larger shed and the church started to grow from such humble beginning.

Regular fasting prayers, Bible studies and worship services were held for spiritual nourishment of believers. As the church ministry started to expand with the congregation growing larger, the need to procure our own land to build a church hall was felt. The Lord provided the seed money in the form of a gold chain through Evan. Glady Eswararaj to purchase a small piece of land at Alagar Nagar 5th street in 1986. Enabled by the cheerful and sacrificial giving of many God’s children, the first Church hall was built and dedicated in 1989 by Pr.Thomas and Pr. Owen Roberts.Pastor had a special call/burden to train those called for full time ministry and from 1993, a seven month residential ministerial training course was started on the church premises. The Lord helped us to procure the adjacent land to build the church office and the ministry training hall with a small kitchen. Later one more floor was added to this building tomake provision for classroom and guest room.Regular outreach meetings and Gospel campaigns were held in villages and big cities not only in Tamil Nadu but also in other states particularly Maharashtra, Orissa, and Bihar & UP.As a result around 150 branch churches have been planted as per the call of our Pastor.Publication of monthly magazine has been regularized. In addition song books, tracts and other spiritual books are also periodically published. Seminars on topics like leadership & preaching are regularly held in addition to youth and family camps.

The enormous growth of the church over the past 30 years with the church hall overflowing with people in the three services on Sunday mornings, with some seated in the corridors, outside spaces and nearby rooms, gave the burden to “enlarge the tent”. Hence the nearby land was purchased and in course of time the task to build a large worship hall was initiated utilizing the existing building and land space.The present “Hallelujah Tower” is a miracle the Lord provided us as an answer to our prayers , honoring the faith of our Pastor and other believers. About 800-1000 could worship together in the A/C hall. Praise the Lord.