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.”