What I'm reading - Siamese Gold: The Church in Thailand

Why has church growth in Thailand been so slow? Nearly 180 years of missionary work, yet only around 300,000 protestant Christians or less than 0.5% of the total population of 65 million.

“Siamese Gold: The Church In Thailand” by Alex Smith a former OMF missionary in Thailand tackles this question by examining the church’s history from 1816 to 1980. History has much to teach us. Otherwise we end up making the same mistakes.

I haven’t finished the book yet but it is clear that Smith views that the early missionaries focused too much on medical work or building schools rather than focusing on evangelism.

Here are some interesting quotes from what I was reading today.

This was advice given to American Presbyterian missionaries in a letter from 1846:

“Fear not to go forward as you are engaged in the Lord’s work, and go on this distant mission at His command; it is your privilege to plead the Saviour’s promise to be present with you. While you feel your own weakness and unfitness for so great a work, forget not the strength of His Almighty arm. Live near to Him, and you will have nothing to fear.” p.27

We so concur that it has been a privilege to serve in Thailand so far. It has been a difficult work, but probably not as difficult as the early pioneers. In around 1958, the American Missionary reported, “We doubt whether an amount of missionary labor equal to what has been employed in Siam (former name of Thailand) has ever before been expended with so little visible result” (quoted on p.42)

However things are changing in Thailand and there is greater hope. As our director in OMF Thailand wrote recently:

“Since 2000, over a thousand new churches have been established in Thailand. This means that a quarter of all the churches in Thailand today are less than eight years old. The number of churches planted in the past 20 years is greater than the number of churches planted in the previous 150 years.

All of this suggests that NOW is the time to send more workers. To meet the tremendous opportunities available, OMF Thailand will need 100 new workers over the next three years. 25 have already signed up so we are looking for 75 more. Looking further into the future, we would like to have 20 to 25 new workers each year until 2014.”

Becoming Global Conference at SMBC

Today I attended the "Becoming Global Conference" at my old Bible College, SMBC. It is an annual conference which helps the local church with missions. The 3 seminars I attended were excellent with each presenter having vast amounts of experience on their topics.

First I went to Bruce Dipple's (my missions lecturer from college) seminar, "Developing a missions programme that will intentionally strengthen your church". He talked about the false dichotomy of "here" and "over there" and how the missions enthusiasts can talk about the rest of the world but not be occupied with what's happening here, and how churches can be too occupied with local church growth and the rest of the world is forgotten. I was struck when he minded me that our partnership in mission is the Gospel (Philippians 1:5) not the missionary. It is wrong to have the missionary or their family at the centre of missions. No. We should have the Gospel at the centre of mission.

Some quotes: "Mission conforms to the purpose of God. It is God's mission not our mission. Missions finds Biblical basis in not what the church wants to do but in the misison of God. God's purpose is that the whole nations will come to worship him. It is not just in the great commission, but mission's basis is the nature of God."

I left the seminar full of ideas and a longing that churches would just do some of the things suggested by Bruce in this seminar. It would so impact local churches.

Brian Stark spoke on how to make short-term mission trips worth while. He argued that the goal of the short-term missions trip is to help those who go become more Christlike. It is life change of the people going, people sending, and those they go to serve. Short-term missions can have a significant impact on the individuals, the church and the community. That is, if it is done well. For it to be done well requires 2 years. 1 year for preparation and 1 year afterward to cast the vision after you come back. This seminar was really helpful in thinking about how to organise short-term missions. There was so much good stuff in this seminar.

Lastly, I went to Helen Macnaughton's seminar on how to help missionaries re-enter their home culture. There was one slide which struck me about the factors which affects re-entry stress.

The reason for return
Physical/emotional/spiritual health at the time of return
The stage of individual and family life cycles
The degree of preparation for return
The amount of accumulated stress from on-field experiences
The number of other stresses concurrent with re-entry
The opportunity of have good closure before leaving the field.

Gosh. Many of the above factors were not ideal for us and our re-entry.

I learned so much today at the Becoming Global Conference. So much more than I expected. Local churches would benefit so much from this conference. It is such a pity that so few go and miss out on this blessing.

Turning the tables on a market survey call

At 7:30pm I received a call from a market survey company asking if I would mind doing a 10 minute survey. I was in the middle of putting my 3 year old to bed and told her so. Could she call back later when it was more convenient? Normally I just say I don’t want to participate but this time for some reason I said it would be more convenient 30 minutes later at 8pm.

Before she called back the idea popped into my head that when she called backed I’d ask her if she’d mind if I asked her some questions first. I must have read somewhere that this is what someone did. I can’t imagine it being an original idea.

Anyway, when the time came and this girl dutifully called back and I asked her if it was o.k to ask her some questions first. I said that I was a missionary and I would like to find out what people think about Christianity. I could register the slight surprise in her voice but she agreed. The conversation went something like this.

Rich: “Are you religious at all?”
Girl: “No. Not at all”
Rich: “What do you think about Christians and Christianity”
Girl: “I don’t really know much at all”
Rich: “Oh, that’s surprising. Can I ask how old you are?”

And so the conversation went on for a little longer. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting her to be so non-religious and know so little about Christianity. She was only 26 years old from Tasmania. I’ve heard that Western culture is becoming more and more post-Christian but this was my first experience of someone who knew so little about Christianity (I didn’t sense any dishonesty from her part).

Note to self: Prepare a better set of questions for those know nothing about Christianity.

N.B. Market survey was about the upcoming byelection in our area and about my voting preferences. What did I think about Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Turnbell and lots of names I didn't know. It wasn't 10 minutes though, more like 20.

Reentry photos

Hmm, which cheese to chose...

Unbelievable choice
(tip given by a person at this weekend's church camp - always look at the bottom row. It usually has the cheapest items)

Lisa braves the self-checkout at Woolworths
(Tip from Rich: Don't remove the bag until the green light comes on! Otherwise you give a message on the screen saying "Alert, incorrect weight", please wait for assistance)

What I'm reading - The Reentry Team

I picked up this book at OMF conference about helping missionaries when they return from the mission field. It is a very sobering book but extremely helpful. Some of the re-entry stories are so sad, but the positive stories so uplifting. If you have missionaries returning for home assignment and you want to understand a little of what they might be going through this is a great book to read.

There is the common story of short-termers who come back after 6 months on the mission field to have his friends comment that they had thought that he had back-slidden because he hadn't been at church or they ask if he had a great vacation. Unbelievable yet it happens all to often.

There was another story where a missionary family comes back and because prices have gone up so much they cannot afford even to buy groceries. However God provides when there is a grocery store which provides them with free fruit and vegetables which are slightly bruised or imperfect which they would have thrown out but still perfectly edible. They shared with friends about God's great provision. This is what happened next. "We had been home all of six weeks when we received a call that the pastor and associate pastor of our sending church wanted to see us. Because we hadn't met with the missions committee yet, we thought this was going to be their interview with us to see how our work in Africa had been. To our utter amazement and shock, this was not the case at all. It seems that several members of the church had heard my testimonies of God's faithfulness in providing for our needs. Somehow, though, the story had gotten changed around and these leaders were very much on the defensive, wondering why we were spreading rumours that 'they as a church' had not been providing for us and that the missionaries were eating out of garbage piles! Not even in this situation did these godly men ask us if we needed anything, nor how our work in Africa had been, nor even if the stories the members had told them were true. They were just upset that their care for us had been challenged" (The Reentry Team - Caring for your returning missionaries, Neal Pirolo, p.95-96).

Many churches do reentry for their missionaries very poorly. However, in many cases this probably due to ignorance rather than intentional neglect. This book could go a long in educating churches. Missionaries need to be making their churches aware of this resource, and people in their churches need to be reading it. I've read that the attrition rate of first term missionaries is almost 50% (either returning early or at the end of their first term not return to the field). We've praying that we don't add this statistic and God willing we can return in March next year.

Don't leave your shoes at the door

This past weekend we were at the OMF National Conference at Chatswood. Our two sons were in childcare and our middle son (3 years old) insisted on taking his shoes off before going into the playroom even though the childcarers told him that he didn't have to. Taking his shoes off is pretty ingrained now in his little mind.

The conference speaker, Marlyn was relating a similar experience with her daughters when they went back to Canada. Her father took his granddaughters to Sunday school and when he brought them back after it had finished his comment was "they are a bit disobedient aren't they". Apparently the girls refused to sit down in the Sunday school during story time when asked to by the teacher. Maryln explained that on the contrary that they were being very obedient. In the Philippines where they worked they had to train their children to never sit on the floor at church because it was very dirty with chicken poo and other nasty things (they worked in a tribal setting). Imagine the confusion and the conflict in their little minds when things like this happen on their re-entry.

50 great Christian books online for free

John Piper through his Desiring God website has 50 great books at the following website downloadable for free here. Many of John Piper's own books but others as well such as biographies of people such as Wilberforce and Edwards. I've download, "Don't Waste Your Life" by John Piper and have been struck by his call in the opening pages and pray that I may not indeed look back at my life and cry at how much of it I had wasted. I also heartily recommend, "The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern world" and in particular Tim Keller's article.

Fish & Chips - So good

Don't get me wrong. I love Thai food. But after 2 and half years of it, one of the great things about being back in Australia is the variety of delicious food so readily available. Today I bought fish and chips (plus some calamari rings) from the seafood shop at St Ives Shopping Village. It was so, so good.

3 way language block

Just a moment ago I received a phone call at home. It was for my mum. I answered the phone in English, but then the woman caller spoke Korean so I switched to Korean. She wanted my mum's mobile/cell phone number. I started reading the number from the piece of paper on the fridge and I got stuck half way through on the number 5. The word which kept coming into my mind was "haa". But that didn't seem right to me. I tried again but the same thing. I said it out loud but it was definitely not right. Finally, after stumbling a few times, I gave up and started to read the number in English. I couldn't understand it. What was wrong. How could I forget basic numbers in Korean. After a minute or two I realised what it was. "haa" was 5 in Thai. No wonder it felt wrong. "Awe" was 5 in Korean. Hopefully I won't have too many of this language mix ups in the future.