In 1985 Rev. Viju Abraham covenanted to pray regularly with three other Bombay pastors for their church and city. These four had seen that the church in their city faced two massive problems. (1) How to reach all the ethnic groups of their city with the gospel of God's grace in Christ. (2) How to demonstrate the love of Jesus to those in need by both word and deed. In a City that includes a vast array of people groups and whose population is predicted to reach 17 million (70% of which will be shanty town dwellers) by the year 2000, these problems will have no easy solutions. As the prayer meetings progressed the number of participants grew from 4 to 60 and a plan of action presented itself in the form of the Urban Ministry Center.

The goal of the Urban Ministry Center is to stimulate and assist the churches of Bombay to carry out their evangelistic mandate. This assistance is a stool which rests upon three legs.

First there is training, which is done through seminars and school courses in local churches. A video about Bombay entitled "City from the Sea" has been prepared by the Center and is used in these seminars to help the residents of Bombay feel good about their city and Christian ministry within it.