This week a team from Chiang Mai came to teach us about church planting in Thailand. The Gospel has been in Thailand for 180 years. Today, out of a population of 65 million, only 339,000 (1%) are Christians. 42% of this number are hilltribe. World, we have a problem.

So what will it take to reach the core 75% of Theraveda Buddhists/animists in Thailand? A radical change of the Thai church as we know it. The group that came this week have all been missionaries at sone point an are from different parts of the world, but all desire to see house churches planted to reach all of Thailand. An interesting approach is incorporating the Thai Buddhist culture to fit Christianity. For example, the easiest thing that any Thai Buddhist knows is to obey karma. You get good in return for good and bad for doing bad. So trying to push foreign vocabulary on them like” sin, repentance and saved” only confuses them. The majority of Thais already have a stigma of church that it is the “faring” thing or the hilltribe religion.

The team’s approach is to meet the Thais where they are based off of the early church in Acts. They speak blessings over a person’s house or business (chanting prayers to God in a Buddhist style) and if they are welcomed into the house or received then they will share their testimony of faith. They will ask to be taken to the sick or oppressed in the house and people will be healed. They will ask te family if they want the Gospel and if they wish to know more then they will return the following day with the water ceremony (baptism). The team had many stories of this method working, going to houses where they were welcomed (even a massage parlor) where people became Christians. They are having fellowship,discipleship, and training in this same method in houses and businesses. Praise God! Pray that methods like this will be happening rapidly. Theretically, all of Thailand could be reached in this way in 6.5 years if more workers are called into this harvest. (Luke 10:2)

Spreadtheflame.com

One guy, Kennedy Paizs, creates art while in a market stall using familiar Buddhist emblems and designs, but with Christ-centered themes.

Pray for the encouragement of Thai Christians this week as many of our peers got rocked this week to evangelize in new ways. Pray for us, as we are so limited in Thai words, by that we can still bless people with our actions, especially in our outreach teams.