There are not a few church groups in Thailand who are desperate to get a building regardless of how small their group is.  Scripturally, there is nothing wrong with having a building in and of itself but when a small group of believers gets the idea in their head that they need to have a building to be considered a “real” church, then much of their time can become focused on finding money in order to get a building.  But does a church need a building in order to be a “real” church?  According to the Bible, the church is the body of Christ, and all believers are members of that body (Eph. 5:29-30).  The church is people.  Nowhere in Scripture do we see the term “church” equated with a building.  Certainly, if a group of Christians wants to get together on either an occasional or regular basis (such as a weekly worship service), they need someplace to meet.  In Acts, we see people meeting both in the temple and in homes (Acts 5:42) but there is no Scriptural mandate or prohibition about the type of buildings that believers should meet in.   As for those groups of believers in Thailand who end up focusing on getting money for a building in order to be a “real” church, their time and money would best be spent elsewhere - specifically, focusing on growing in Christ and sharing the Gospel with others.  Scripturally, evangelism and discipleship are much higher priorities than getting a “proper” church building (which, I might add, does not even make the list of necessary elements of having a church in the New Testament).

As a young missionary, I (Karl) like talking to veteran missionaries to get their perspective on things.  At our recent OMF Thailand annual conference, our guest speaker Larry Dinkins spoke on cross cultural evangelism and overcoming barriers in communicating the Gospel to Buddhists.   Larry & his wife Paula came to Thailand as new missionaries in 1981 where they did church planting and theological education until 2002 when they needed to go back to the U.S. for Paula to receive treatment for cancer in her bone marrow. The treatment for Paula’s cancer has been successful and she is in remission.  As a result Larry and Paula have been acting as mobilizers and recruiters for OMF in Southern California as well as the Midwest.  They are involved in Thai churches in the U.S. and have made numerous trips back to Thailand as well.  

(UPDATE, Feb 2012:  Since this article was written in 2009, Paula has gone to be with the Lord, and Larry has subsequently returned to Thailand to continue to minister among the Thai people).

After listening to Larry speak at the conference, and later in a recorded lecture, I became curious and sent him an email, asking, “If you could go back to your first term on the mission field, knowing then what you know now, what would you do differently?  How would you go about planting a church in Central Thailand if you had to do it all over again?”   Larry was kind enough to email me back and here’s a bit of what he had to say:

I love reading articles about missions that both point me back to Scripture and demonstrate intimate acquaintance with the realities of life and ministry on the mission field.  "Putting Contextualization in its Place" in the recent 9Marks eJournal is one of those article.  The author presents an excellent explanation of how contextualization is found in the pages of Scripture, and is not an idea hoisted onto it.  He then goes on to explain how and his team put this principles into practice in their setting in a Central Asian country. The article covers a lot of ground and is worth reading in its entirety but I wanted to share with you one particular section that I found to be a good reminder of what my attitude and approach should be in living with and trying to serve the Thai people. 

 

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PAUL'S PRINCIPLES FOR CROSS-CULTURAL MINISTRY

Perhaps the most widely-quoted passage of Scripture that teaches about contextualization is 1 Corinthians 9:1-23:

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord?  2 If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. 

One of the wonderful things about living in Thailand is the fruit.   Thai fruit is everywhere and is usually very delicious.  This is especially true in our current house where we have three mango trees, two jackfruit trees, and several banana and papaya trees.  This past week we invited over our new short term worker, Brent, and showed him how to pick mangos from the trees in our backyard.  He had a great time doing it and even lashed together a new mango picking pole from two bamboo pole brooms that are usually used for cleaning cobwebs off of the ceiling.  Our previous mango pole broke after termites ate the center out of it.

When I went to a local Buddhist merit making festival, I noticed a great number of children and school groups participating in the event.  Parents brought their little ones to participate and some schools brought all their students as a group, dressed in school uniforms.  The following Bible verse came to mind:

 

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it”
(Proverbs 22:6 ESV)

This morning I got up early and walked down to the main temple in Phra Phutta Baht to see the annual Flower Offering Merit Making Festival (ประเพณีตักบาตรดอกไม้) and take some pictures.  The two parallel roads leading up to the temple were filled with people waiting to put flowers and dry food goods offerings into the bowls of 3,000 monks who were assembled for the occasion.  See below for some photos followed by a bit of commentary.