Sunday, February 3, 2013

How one traditional Thai church has multiplied to 700 house churches across Thailand





      Today Anna, Jeremiah and I spoke at our Thai friends, Nok and John's church near Bangkok.  This church of 60 members have been used of God to multiply over 700 house churches and 5,000 baptisms across 26 provinces of Thailand in just 3 years. Thailand with only 1% Christian population, ironically has one of the highest numbers of missionaries.  Most of these missionaries have never seen a spontaneous multiplication of churches. Most missionaries work exclusively with Thai pastors and church leaders (the few that exists), and most of these Thai pastors are extremely concerned about keeping control.  I know this is a fact because I once worked with a Thai church for 2 years while in seminary.   In reaction to this over control and Grace Killer attitude many foreign missionaries go to the other extreme and just avoid the national Church altogether. They start out "cold turkey" and attempt to do the pioneering mission work themselves. This often leads to one or two converts with very little impact and certainly not a movement. We westerners are extremely individualistic. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior." or "Personal Computers" or "My personal pan pizza"? I know this because I made the same mistake when I moved to Asia 11 years ago.  The Biblical pattern for discipleship is in families.  

     This church is one of the very few examples of a traditional pastor led church that has caught the vision of multiplying house churches and seeker groups.  Pastors John and Nok are not intimidated by their members baptizing and practicing the Lord's Supper in the homes of Buddhists in fact they encourage it and are proud of their superstar church planter memebers. They were not trained by me but by Bro. Kitbok from India.  Kitbok cast a vision for John and Nok to become coaches who train their members to become church planters and church planter trainers.  

     This fastest growing church in Thailand has been helping the fastest growing church in MY. Before we spoke several members testified how God healed many of their friends of liver cancer when they prayed over them in the name of Jesus.  We shared with them about what our Buddhist Background friends are doing in MY and how God is raising up worshippers among the Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish peoples of that country.  We are so blessed and honored to know this church.  In November trainees of John and Nok saw two villagers raised from the dead.  This happened in Pastor Klisada's networks. John and Nok told me that they trained 5 church members to baptize and disciple their family members in rural areas around Thailand. They train their members in easily reproducible lessons and then those new believers train others. See 2 Timothy 2:2 and Titus 1:5.   

     The strength of the Asian Church, in general, is that they share the gospel a lot more than we Americans do. Their church leaders typically have more vision than the typical Western pastor does, but in regards to leadership they are way more legalistic than most American church leaders.  They believe that only pastors can baptize and practice the Lord's Supper. Of course where Disciple Multiplication Movements (CPMs) are happening this is a barrier.  I was surprised to discover that American and western Pastors are much more willing to turn over leadership with others but I also know that most American pastors have very little vision to disciple the unchurched around them.  

     The few that do are often overly concerned with creating events to get people to "come to church".   Jesus never commanded anyone to "come to church".  He did however command the church to "Go and make disciples".  If your church is open to receiving training on jump-starting Disciple Multiplication Movements please let me know. A Disciple Multiplication Movement is a leadership training movement.  It is a miraculous movement where ordinary believers are trained to establish the church with signs and wonders following.  It is a Movement where ordinary believers are disciple their rightful role as Kings and Priests as in Rev. 5:10, and I Peter 2:9.
  
     In the past week I have written about the 3 Fears or 3 Barriers that most Pastors and church leaders are thinking about when someones shares the vision to see Movements of multiplying churches.  These fears are; Fear # 1 Losing Control.   Fear # 2 The lack of Money Fear # 3 Syncretism (Dual-lordship) or the fear of bad doctrine eroding faith. Fear # 4 The Fear of losing High Quality; preaching, worship music, and teaching programs.  If you are a CPM, or Disciple Multiplication Movement vision caster you would do well to get a handle on these 4 Barriers for traditional leaders. I got these from my mentor Dr. George Patterson. Wherever these fears reign, churches, mission agencies, ministries and believers are often bound by Satan to their buildings.  As followers of Christ WE are to be the ones binding Satan and invading his territory, not the other way around. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom." 2 Corinthians 3:17.

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