May 2016 Prayer Letter

Written by Karl Dahlfred on 05 May 2016.

DOWNLOAD PDF - MAY 2016 DAHLFREDS PRAYER LETTER

Dear Friends & Family,

Greetings from the largest sauna in the world! April temperatures in Thailand reached a 65 year high, with the “feels like” temperature reaching into the 110s ºF. We have air conditioning in our bedrooms, but last month was still fairly miserable. This month we are praising God for slightly “cooler” temperatures.

Introducing the new Thai Christian Catechism

คำสอนเพื่อชีวิต Thai Christian Catechism For the past couple of years, I have been working together with Dr. Natee (pastor, Grace City Bangkok church) and Mr. Chaiyasit (elder, New City Fellowship Church in eastern Bangkok) to write a new catechism in Thai for Thai Christians. I believe that the question and answer format of catechisms can be a very useful teaching tool to help people grasp the Christian faith, but translations of Western catechisms like Westminster and Heidelberg end up sounding clunky and unnatural in Thai. For that reason, the three of us have written a new Thai Christian Catechism from the ground up, borrowing from Westminster at times, but organizing the catechism differently and covering slightly different ground in terms of what is included or not included, and how it is expressed, seeing as 17th century Britain is different from 21st century Thailand. We wanted a biblically faithful and accurate catechism, that is readable and accessible for modern Thai Christians. I hope we have accomplished that. The catechism has been privately published with assistance from Kanok Bannasan, and our church will be teaching through the new catechism over the next several months. It will also be available for purchase through Kanok Bannasan, and we hope that other churches will find it useful in giving their church members a solid foundation in the Christian faith. Pray that this new Thai Christian Catechism will be a blessing to many people.

Church Discipline and Bible Reading

Grace City Bangkok church continues to grow numerically and spiritual, though not without issues. One of our newly baptized believers is under church discipline, which makes us sad and drives us to prayer. On a different note, our church has been experimenting with using the same Bible reading plan church wide, where all members are in small Bible reading discussion groups using the LINE smartphone app to facilitate discussion of the passages during the week. It is somewhat successful so far. Pray that our church members would develop a love for regular time meditating on God’s Word.

by Christ’s grace,
Karl & Sun Dahlfred

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