Thailand Ministry Summary: Purpose: The purpose of this document is to summarize the ministry opportunity that has been presented to Ben and Becca Johnson. Many of our supporters and supporting churches have asked questions about what we plan to do and why it is important. Our desire is for everyone to fully grasp the exciting possibilities God has placed in our laps! Summary: The Johnsons have been invited to join Thai church leaders in a ministry that has two significant components: 1. Cool Shade of Life Church: We have been invited to participate in the life and growth of a local congregation called Cool Shade of Life. We would worship at this congregation and participate in the regular worship, discipleship, and evangelistic ministries of this congregation. This, however, would not be the primary focus of our ministry. 2. National/International Church Planting Network: We have been invited to help begin a recruiting/training center that would recruit, train, equip, send, and support teams to plant churches in unreached areas of Thailand and ASEAN nations. This church planting network would: a. Recruit Thai church planters. b. Recruit missionaries from outside Thailand. c. Partner Thai and missionary families together to form church planting teams. d. Train and equip these teams. e. Send these teams to unreached areas of: i. Thailand ii. ASEAN nations (ASEAN stands for Association of South East Asian Nations and includes: Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines.) f. Provide continuing training and support for these teams. Cool Shade of Life Church: When we first arrived in Thailand, our MTW team did not yet have a church for us to attend or do ministry. So, while we began the work of starting a new congregation, our family began worshipping with a local, Chiang Mai church called Cool Shade of Life. We were introduced to the church because a childhood friend of ours was married to the associate pastor and we wanted to show support for their work. Cool Shade was planted 10 years ago by Pastor Ogaat Soiraya. It is a small congregation of primarily working-class Thais. Typical attendance is between 30 and 50 people on any given Sunday. Not long after the church got off the ground, Pastor Ogaat invited his brother-in-law, Pastor Yut, to join him as associate pastor. Much of the energy for the founding of the church came from this extended family (Pastor Ogaat and his wife Khruu Taay, Pastor Yut and his wife Jeanette, Khruu Taay and Pastor Yut s parents Dad Sombun and Mom Laaw.) As such, the church feels very much like a family as well.
Cool Shade was a daughter church of Chiang Mai Baptist Church. While it does have a Baptist history, the church is very careful to avoid labeling themselves as Baptist or anything else. This is not a lack of desire to hold theological convictions. Rather, they are trying not to confuse Thai people with terms they don t understand. Denominational loyalties like we have them in America are nearly non-existent in Thailand. You can walk into a church with Presbyterian on the front door and hear a sermon that sounds very Pentecostal. Likewise, you can walk into a Pentecostal church and hear teaching that sounds more biblical than the local Presbyterian church. If you want to know what a church believes, it is essential in Thailand to get to know that pastor and the church leadership personally. As such, names like Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist don t mean much, even to church members. This is all the more true for the vast majority of the population who are Buddhist. Cool Shade of Life does have some important theological distinctives: 1. Cool Shade is committed to teaching the Bible as the Word of God. It is central to what is taught in the church. 2. Cool Shade is committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Salvation is by grace through faith and not by works. The pastors also understand that they are caring for people who have no cultural context for how to live a Christian life. So they feel a burden to help their church live biblically. This is an important biblical balance for Thai believers. 3. Cool Shade believes in believer s baptism. However, Pastor Ogaat also respects baptisms that were done when people were children. And, while he personally disagrees with infant baptism, he respects those who teach it. In essence, he sees this as a secondary theological issue. 4. Cool Shade loves the women and girls of the church and desires to have them participate in ministry in every possible, biblical way. (There are some wonderfully strong women in this church!) But they also believe that preaching, teaching, and leading the church are roles reserved in scripture for qualified men. This position is very unique in Thailand. It is very difficult to find a church that does not have a woman in the pulpit or leadership in some capacity. We believe this complementarian stance is a very important stance for Thailand. 5. Cool Shade is committed to the local church as the center of gospel ministry in Thailand. They have seen many examples of ministries that pop up and do good things, but are disconnected from the local church. When those ministries eventually close, the converts who are often more committed to the ministry than to a church, have no place left to go. The leadership of Cool Shade is committed to the church being the place from which the gospel goes out to Thailand and the world. As such, they are committed to discipleship, evangelism, and church planting. As we got to know one another better, Pastor Ogaat and Khruu Taay saw that we were a good match for the kind of ministry they are passionate about. They began to pray that God would send us to them so that we could work together. Eventually, God answered that prayer when we began to discuss what a ministry partnership might entail. From our perspective, Pastor Ogaat, Khruu Taay, Pastor Yut, and Jeanette are all wonderful to work with. The three Thai people in these families are both humble and yet willing to speak forthrightly with us. This is a rare combination for Thai people who tend to avoid being even slightly confrontational. Pastor Ogaat, Khruu Taay, and Pastor Yut have no trouble whatsoever telling us the truth even if it means correcting us. And yet they do so in love. (Jeanette is wonderful too, but as fellow Americans there isn t much of a cultural difference to highlight in our relationship.) We also love all of these
peoples love for the big Church as well as the individuals in the local church. They all have shepherds hearts. Cool Shade is asking us to partner with them in the ministries of the church. More specifics will be decided when we return from home assignment in August. However, we know Ben will be invited to preach and teach, Becca will probably continue to teach children s Sunday school, and we will help grow the evangelistic ministries of the church. The hope is to have a push to grow the church large enough so that the member s giving would be enough to cover one pastor s salary without outside support. (Currently, Pastor Ogaat and Khruu Taay live on money Khruu Taay earns by teaching Thai. Pastor Yut and Jeanette live primarily off the support Jeanette raises as a Wycliffe missionary.) National/International Church Planting Network: While Pastor Ogaat has asked us to partner with Cool Shade to help in their local ministries, the primary ministry he wants to focus on is creating a church planting network. This network will consist of many different components: Siam Blessing ASEAN Foundation: Cool Shade of Life Church is a member of a foundation called Siam Blessing ASEAN Foundation. The church in Thailand does not have anything that compares to denominations like we have in America and Europe. There are some large, nation-wide committees that function to organize churches in Thailand and represent these churches to the government. But these committees are not organized by theological beliefs and are often rife with corruption, infighting, and power-politics. The Siam Blessing ASEAN Foundation allows the churches organized under its care to legally exist as well as have a like-minded fellowship. Organizing churches under a foundation like this is very unique in Thailand and has the benefit of keeping these churches out of the problems of the larger committees. The foundation s legal status also allows it to issue visas to volunteers and missionaries who work for its ministries. Siam Blessing ASEAN Foundation currently has 12 churches/church plants spread throughout Thailand. The foundation does have some non-church ministries like a children s home and a sports ministry. Legally organizing the group as a foundation gives them legal permission to participate in a very wide scope of religious activity in Thailand. However, the specific heart and passion of this group is church planting. The members of the foundation board are a very godly, very down-to-earth group of men. They range from wealthy, Bangkok businessmen (one of whom loves traveling to the US to attend Gospel Coalition conferences) to poor pastors from ethnic minority groups. Their love and respect for one another, despite their outward-differences, is a testament to the grace of God working in them. They are a funloving bunch. Like Cool Shade of Life, Siam Blessing ASEAN Foundation has a Baptist history. It was started by Pastor Thawat Yenjai, who is senior pastor of Chiang Mai Baptist Church and president of the foundation board. Pastor Thawat discipled Pastor Ogaat. However, as the foundation grows, there are a growing number of members and influencers from other theological backgrounds. For example, one of the members is
the pastor of a Thai Lutheran church in Chicago. So there is a freedom within the group to disagree on secondary theological issues, while working together to spread the gospel. When they heard that we, Presbyterian missionaries from America, were hoping to return and work with them, they were very excited. Church Planting Network: Pastor Ogaat has a long-term vision to begin a church planting network organized under the Siam Blessing ASEAN Foundation. The primary goal would be to recruit Thai pastors families as well as missionary families. These Pastor/Missionary families would be put together as a team and sent to parts of Thailand, and eventually other ASEAN nations, where there is little to no gospel witness. This would be accomplished by using the city of Chiang Mai as a launching point into the rest of the region. Chiang Mai is the perfect launching point for a few reasons. 1.) The vast majority of Thai Christianity is in Chiang Mai. As a result, it is a great laboratory for students to experience doing church in the Thai context. 2.) Because there are more Christians in Chiang Mai than in other places, there are also resources available for missionaries and teams. (Eg. Christian schools, homeschooling resources, counseling, theological libraries, publishers, ministry events and training, etc, etc.) 3.) Chiang Mai does have a sizable expat community. This means that western missionaries are able to have some western comforts that are not available in other parts of Thailand. This makes Chiang Mai a good cultural half-way point for western missionaries. Rather than throwing them cold turkey deep into a new culture, we can help them get their feet wet before they move culturally further up, further in. 4.) Chiang Mai is the crossroads for many different cultures in the region. As such many people come to Chiang Mai for education, work, and other opportunities. This makes it a perfect place to network and recruit people to grow this team. In Chiang Mai, we would create a training center where we would train teams in important church planting and ministry skills. We would also train missionaries in Thai language and culture. During this time of preparation, we would help to build solid relationships between potential teammates and match up teams that will thrive in ministry together. We would also begin investigating potential cities/sites for future church plants. As part of their training, Thai/Missionary church planting teams would be taken on site visits to see the locations so they can consider and pray about where their team would be best used. Our plan is to have Pastor Ogaat take responsibility for the Thai side of this equation. He would be responsible for recruiting Thai pastors and giving them and their families everything they need to know how to plant churches and work well with western missionaries. Ben would be responsible for the missionary side of the equation. He would be responsible for recruiting missionaries and giving them and their families everything they need to know how to live in Thailand, plant churches, and work well with their Thai teammates. After teams are sent to their respective ministry sites, Pastor Ogaat and Ben would provide oversight and support for them in their ministry. This would involve some evaluation of work via regular ministry reports, long-distance conversations via various technologies, and regular site visits by Pastor Ogaat and Ben.
Ben would also foster partnerships between churches in the United States (and other countries if God avails us of the opportunity) and our Thai church plants. He would also work to network and build relationships with organizations like Redeemer City to City (and others) who are passionate about church planting in Asia and could provide training and support for our endeavors. It is our intention that this church planting network would be the main thrust of the Johnson s work in Thailand. This would dovetail well with Ben s responsibilities as Thailand team leader. It is also a ministry opportunity that has us very, very excited! Northern Thailand Seminary: Over the past few years, a few senior members of the Siam Blessing ASEAN Foundation have begun building a seminary called Northern Thailand Seminary. The objective of NTS is to provide theological education for Thai ministry leaders who are seeking to begin ministry or are already engaged in gospel ministry. One of the struggles of seminary for Thai church leaders is the need to travel to the city where the seminary is. Many students or potential students are already engaged in ministries or jobs that they can t leave in order to study for extended periods of time. Rather than making students come to a central campus, NTS plans to take seminary on the road. The teachers will regularly travel to locations throughout Thailand in order to bring the teaching to their students. While the pastors who started NTS are Baptist, they aren t limiting the faculty to only Baptists. The Thai Lutheran pastor from Chicago is already on their list of teachers. Pastor Thawat, the president of Siam Blessing ASEAN Foundation, has already asked Ben if he would be willing to teach with them. One side benefit of NTS is that it gives us access to education for our church planting teams as well. We would have teachers right in Chiang Mai with us to help with raising up new teams. This is an incredible opportunity for us! It gives us the opportunity to bless pastors and leaders already doing ministry throughout Thailand. And it allows us to shape the future of Thai church leadership, and by consequence, the future of the Thai church! Important Questions: We do want to address an important question that we are already hearing in regard to these ministry opportunities: 1. Why would Presbyterian missionaries who are committed to a theologically Reformed understanding of scripture and ministry want to work in a non-theologically Reformed environment? This is a great question! The short answer is we are playing the long game! We are setting ourselves up to be theologically, ecclesiologically, and practically influential in the Thai church for a very long time. Reformed theology has almost no formal following in Thailand. The original Protestant missionaries to Thailand were Presbyterian. They began theologically reformed ministries. But shortly thereafter, other
missionaries followed who disagreed with the theological distinctives of Reformed theology. They were very influential in turning Thais away from names like John Calvin. Today, what you ll find in Thailand is people who tend to avoid theological camps. We ve run across people who would turn up their noses at the mention of Presbyterian or Calvinist, but would be surprised to find out they actually agree with many Reformed theologians. So in one sense, it would be easy for us to come to Thailand and start a church that said, Presbyterian on the front door. We could raise the money to support the start up phase. We could recruit a pastor who would be willing to teach what we want him to teach. And we could do outreach events to fill the pews. In the end, we would be able to say we planted a Presbyterian church. But what we would probably find is that the Thai people involved in this church were more committed to us as missionaries and friends than they were to the theology we taught them. This would most likely become evident when we returned to the US. The pastor s theology might drift from distinctly Reformed to something generically Protestant. And it has happened that entire churches fizzle out and close their doors after missionaries leave. These are sure signs that the passion for the work came from the missionaries rather than the Thais. What we are learning, then, is that it is important to find something the Thai church is already doing and support them in that work. If Thais started it, then Thais are passionate about it. If we help, we are simply contributing resources to accelerate what they re already doing. If we pack up and go home, they still have a ministry that is viable because it was started by them in the first place. Obviously, it is important to partner with Thai-created ministries that are doing something we agree with big-picture. In this situation, Siam Blessing ASEAN Foundation is looking to plant churches built on the Bible as the Word of God. They are trying to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the unreached people of Thailand by means of planting churches. It s tough to argue with that. Our place in this picture is to be Reformed Influencers. In its document, Making Disciples of All the Nations: A Plan for Reformed Foreign Missions, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church Committee on Foreign Missions lists situations in which they are willing to send Reformed missionaries into non-reformed ministry contexts: If there is not an indigenous Reformed church with whom we can work in good conscience, but there is an indigenous evangelical church which earnestly desires OP ministers to come and work with it, the mission shall labor to reform such church from within through the means listed immediately above, (the preaching of the Word, the gathering of believers for worship, personal evangelism, the formation of Bible studies to provide systematic instruction in the Reformed faith, catechetical instruction, the training of biblically qualified men for church office, the writing, republication, or translation of appropriate biblical literature, and other scriptural means.), bearing in mind the considerations listed below. (http://opc.org/cfm/making_disciples.html) While Ben is an ordained minister in the OPC, we do not work for the OPC Committee on Foreign Missions and as such are not strictly subject to the OPC s standards for doing Reformed mission work. However, we do see value in the distinctions this document makes and offer it as evidence that, even if
we were working directly for the OPC Committee on Foreign Missions, our proposed ministry would meet the OPC s requirements. There is a place and a time for Reformed missionaries to work in non- Reformed settings. In our ministry context, being a Reformed influence can happen in a lot of ways: 1. Ben s job will be to recruit new missionaries. You can bet that Ben will be looking for theologically reformed missionaries! 2. These missionaries will be working with Thai pastor teammates. You can bet these missionaries will be sharing their Reformed convictions and loving their Thai teammates out of those same Reformed convictions! 3. Ben and Becca will be training new Thai/Missionary teams to plant churches and reach Thai people with the gospel. You can bet he will be sharing how solid Reformed theology makes church planting powerful! 4. Reformed missionaries will be going to far flung corners of Thailand to help plant churches. You can bet evangelism, discipleship, and church planting will be done in a way that shares the glories of Reformed convictions! 5. Ben and potentially other Reformed missionaries will have opportunities to teach pastors from all over Thailand through the work of Northern Thailand Seminary. You can bet every one of those pastors who sits in a class Ben teaches will hear the word of God from a Reformed perspective! 6. Ben, Becca, and other Reformed missionaries will have the opportunity to preach, teach, and care for the members of churches like Cool Shade of Life. You can bet their pastoral care will be shaped by a Reformed understanding of how to shepherd a flock well! 7. Ben, Becca, and other Reformed missionaries will have relationships with those who lead our Chiang Mai church planting training center. You can bet that there will be opportunities to discuss how to train new church planters and missionaries in a way that is Reformed! The difficult part of this kind of ministry is that it forces us to be humble. It forces us to question what is truly the most important thing. For example is it more important to have Presbyterian on the door of a church we plant, or to have a church full of people who have a true, life-changing understanding of biblical truth? It can feel better to have Presbyterian on the door because that is something we can do quickly, and it is easy to offer as evidence of the fruitfulness and value of our work. Growth in faith and spiritual maturity is much harder to measure. But this is the fruit we should be striving for. The question is, are we willing to take the humbler path and see Baptist or some other name on the door if it allows us the opportunity to work toward more important, longer lasting spiritual fruit? 2. Why are we changing from MTW to Serge. When we first moved to Thailand to begin our work, our intention was to work with MTW to plant reformed churches. The longer we were here the deeper our relationship with Cool Shade of Life and its leadership became. Over time, we heard more and more about Pastor Ogaat s vision for everything described above. It s a very long story, but we began feeling a stronger and stronger calling to join in this work.
We approached our MTW team about remaining an MTW team and working on different projects. But MTW felt that it was necessary to focus on one work at a time. Because of this we asked MTW about the possibility of changing to work with a mission organization that would be able to partner with us in this work. In the end, MTW was sad to see us leave the fold but sent us off to another organization with their love and blessing. We have been pursuing a relationship with an organization called Serge (formerly known as World Harvest Mission). We are excited to pursue a working relationship with Serge for many reasons: 1. Serge s beginnings are in both the OPC and the PCA. We love being Reformed and Presbyterian and Serge will allow us to do continue to be our theological selves. 2. Serge missionaries must agree to either the Westminster Confession or B.B. Warfield s confession of faith. While Serge allows for some flexibility in the theology of its members, it allows team leaders (like Ben would be) to set the theological climate of their team. We are answerable to our sending church and, in Ben s case, his presbytery for theological accountability. Serge would never push us in a direction that our church/presbytery would disagree with. 3. Serge has a passion for applying the gospel to the every day lives of missionaries and the people to whom they minister. It is the heart of what they seek to do. We deeply desire to see Thailand affected, in this way, by the gospel. 4. Serge uses a methodology that will work very well in Thailand. They focus on networking and relationship building with existing ministries, churches, and church plants in a given area and then becoming a gospel-focused help, resource, and encouragement to these fellow workers. This methodology honors the work the church is already doing in a given country, it honors the existing national church leadership, and it promotes unity and partnership in the body of Christ. 5. We have family and friends in Serge and they seem to have had very positive experiences in the organization. One of the benefits of the above ministry vision is that it would pair very well with Serge s networking/supporting methodology. As we recruit and send Thai/Missionary teams to different locations, those locations would become centers from which Serge missionaries would be able to use Serge s networking/supporting methods to grow community and help national church planters in that area. Pastor Ogaat understands this methodology and is not only supportive of it but excited to see how we can put it to work to grow the church of Jesus Christ in Thailand. He is also fully supportive of Serge maintaining its own independence to pursue ministries outside of this church planting vision. As of now, Serge does not have any missionaries in Thailand. This would mean we would be opening a new team in a new country. The plan Serge discussed with us is to make Ben team leader for our team. As Serge is a team focused organization, one of our first jobs would be to begin recruiting new team members to join us in this work. We have submitted our applications to Serge and plan to attend their assessment week during the first week of March. Lord willing, we should know, at that point, whether we are accepted as Serge missionaries. But things seem to be moving in a pretty positive direction. We know this document is long. But we hope it is helpful in answering any question you may have regarding our new ministry, the change in mission organizations, and why this is all so worthwhile.