Rare honesty from a church planter

I’ve been reading the book “Church planting is for wimps” by Mike McKinley and in one chapter he bemoans the fact that most church planters are not honest about how things are REALLY going in their church plant. Most church planters overemphasize whatever good is happening and hardly mention the difficulties. Mike’s book was a refreshing change as he honestly recounts the damaging effects that church planting had on his marriage (and thus warns others not to make the same mistake.)

The following is an extract from a prayer letter from one of my missionary colleagues and I’m grateful for his honesty as I can truly relate to his sentiments.

“Dear Friends & Family,

“How is church planting going?” I donʼt particularly enjoy answering this question but I wish I did. With only about 3 months to go until our home assignment in the U.S., it is time to look back at our first full missionary term in Thailand and ask, “What has been accomplished? What do we have to show for ourselves as we head back home and meet with supporters?”


I wish I could tell you that new churches (or at least one new church) has been planted. Or maybe that a small group Bible study of some sort has started that we hope will grow into a church. Or at the very least, weʼd like to report about some promising new believers who have come to faith while weʼve been here. We know that in Thailand people are coming to faith, new small groups are starting, and churches are being planted. The statistics that came out for 2009 said that the number of Christians in Thailand is growing seven times faster than the biological growth rate of the country. That is great news. I just wish that we were seeing some of it in our neck of the woods.


Weʼve tried a lot of different things but nothing seems to have taken off.... [he goes on to list all the things he has tried]


With all the failures, one might be tempted to throw in the towel and go home. But the funny thing is, leaving the mission field has never crossed our mind. “And why not?” you may ask. Because the ultimate success of church planting in Thailand does not depend upon our efforts but the promise of God. Christ said, “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Mt 16:18). If Christ has said it will succeed, who are we to say it wonʼt?”

Fishing in Thailand

I'm currently on holidays in South Thailand at a guesthouse owned by our mission.  It is right by the beach and kid friendly with all meals and laundry included in the service, so it is much more convenient and relaxing than staying in a hotel.  On Sundays they have a church service at the guesthouse as all the guests are either missionaries for Christian workers.  The highlight so far as been hiring a local fishing boat and going fishing with one of my collegues and his father in law.  Caught a nice bream and lost another one big one.  Definately will be doing this again sometime.

Deep Church

There are so many books on church planting and church how do you decide what you should read and what you shouldn't?  On the front cover of the book "Deep Church" by Jim Belcher, it had Tim Keller's endorsement "This is an important book", and that was enough for me.

And being 3 quarters of the way through it, I agree that it is an important book.  It suggests a "third way", that doesn't have to be "traditional church" or "emerging church" but a "third way" with a mixture of both.  In my opinion though, Belcher in his "third way" leans much more towards a traditional model in the end and I wonder in reality what he offers is that much more different than a traditional church.

What I like about this look is that Belcher is very balanced in his assessment of traditional church and the emerging church.  Something which generally I find is handled very poorly.  Most of the time, writers say they are trying to write a balanced view and in love but in the end they fail on both counts.  They end up just taking snip shots at the other camp to justify their own positions.

Evidence of this balanced view is that on the back cover you have endorsements from people like Mark Driscoll (Traditional camp) and Rob Bell (Emergent camp).

Belcher's background is interesting.  He knows and dialogued with the some of the main emergent figures as they were just "emerging" but ended but being a Presbyterian minister and started his own church in this "third way" model.  But he was once part of ministry team of 17 at a 5,000 member congregation, then he became disgruntled and started a small organic church in his home.  He's really read up on all the traditional and emergent conversation, actually visited some the churches of the emergent leaders and talked to them.  Then he went out and tried to start a new church with the ideals of his "third way".  Once his church grew he faced the problem of some of his key original church planters being unhappy about the structure and vision of the church as it grew and the Presbyterian denomination had to step in to help resolve the conflict.  This is real experience and not just someone writing from theory.

So this is an important book to read especially in the traditional vs emerging church debate and one I'll need to go over again.

Home Schooling

One of the difficulties missionaries face is the education of their children so that when they eventually return to their home countries, their children can fit back into their home country’s schooling system. In Thailand missionaries have many different options depending on their location. In Bangkok or Chiang Mai there are excellent (but expensive) International School with either a British or American curriculum. Little supplementing would be needed for Australians such as ourselves.  There is a small international school in Lampang with a British program but after starting with this option for our boys we decided that it wasn’t the best for them as they were not learning enough time. After much soul searching and research (mostly by my diligent wife) we decided on our children going to Thai school supplemented by home schooling. 

So my wife goes into our oldest son’s school 3 afternoons a week for an hour to supplement my son’s education following the Sonlight curriculum (American). We hope it will be adequate but we won’t really know until we go back to Australia in 3 years time. One of the great things about OMF is that twice a year they organise Home Schooling Week where homeschooling families get together and have a week of homeschooling with the help of teachers from overseas. So we are off tomorrow to Bangkok for our first home schooling week.

Home Schooling Fun - Volcano Experiment