History of Northeastern Thailand
Key People
Phase I
Phase II
Phase III
Phase IV
Missiological Principles/Theses

The Center for Church Planting and Church Growth in Northeast Thailand and the Issaan Development Foundation are two Thai sodalities working together in a joint effort in Northeast Thailand.

How did these organizations develop? What are they doing now? What missiological principles do they employ? These are just a few of the questions we will be exploring in this paper.

The terms sodality and modality have recently become popular terms among mission history circles but have come to mean different things to different people. Dr. Clinton defines a modality as a structured fellowship in which membership is broadly seen as inclusive and makes no distinction between age, sex or other factors. A sodality, however, is a structured fMissiological Principles/Thesesellowship in which membership involves an adult second decision (a special commitment) beyond modality membership which may include marital status or other inclusive restrictions. Dr. Pierson uses the terms in reference to mission structures (sodalities) and congregational/nurture structures (modalities). The mission structures are outreach or task oriented and the congregational/nurture structures are inward and nurture oriented.

Using Dr. Pierson’s definition, the Center for Church Planting in Northeastern Thailand and the Issaan Development Foundation are mission structures. Their outreach purpose is to enable the village churches of the northeast or Issaan part of Thailand in a holistic way to be self-training, self-supporting, and self-propagating. These two organizations are not the church but rather they work together to enable the church to grow both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Northeast Thailand, the home of the ‘Laotian’ or Issaan Thai, has had a patchwork history. Originally part of the Khmer civilization, it was later affected by Burmese Politics, and subsequently part of the Wiangchan kingdom. Today a northeasterner would say that he is Thai. Yet when he is at home or talking with friends he would use the Issaan/Lao language. Many families are split between the Lao and Thai sides of the Mekhong river, sharing similar customs, culture, and language but having a different ‘nationality’.

Northeastern Thailand is made up of 17 provinces on the Korat plateau with an average elevation of 300 meters (900 feet) above sea 1evel. Currently there are between 17 and 18 million northeasterners, or Issaan people as they call themselves.

Socially the Issaan people are considered the lowest on the status scale among the Thai due to a combination of historical oppression, geographical isolation, poor soil, lack of infrastructure and the persistence in the Lao language and cultural values. Issaan people once outside of the Northeast tend to carry this sense of inferiority with them. Their heart language of Issaan, distinctive from Thai, creates a strong cultural bond between them regardless of what provincial origin.

In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s the Thai Government fearful of a communist takeover attempted to consolidate the diverse peoples of the Thai nation by outlawing any written materials other than Thai. Northeasterners remember many book burnings. Today Issaan is entirely a spoken language, not written.

Yet the customs and culture of the Issaan people continue to the present. In addition to language their music with its distinctive sound is recognized immediately all over Thailand as ‘Issaan’. Their use and emphasis on the tying of sacred strings in any and all ceremonies (or so it seems) is also distinctively Issaan.

The Issaan people along with the other major peoples of Buddhist Southeast Asia share a similar cultural heritage. Some common aspects include: matrilineal kinship groups with patterns of village autonomy based on kinship ties, hereditary headmen and elders1 social control of water and land resources, spirit worship, and Buddhism.

Spirit worship and Buddhism have become inextricably mingled with the practices and rites of both religious systems widely shared.

Many Buddhists still regard the techniques of numerology, astrology, and shamanistic dealing with the spirit world as practically useful for satisfying mundane needs (health, good fortune, prosperity), even though all of life’s vicissitudes could be rationalized by reference to Buddhist Karma. The principles of the Theravada faith, including Buddhist ideas of merit and karma, provide a uniform framework for the totality of life views.

Since the first Protestant missionaries arrived in Thailand in 1831 Thailand has been seen as unresponsive to Christianity. "All the missions had the same experience - friendliness, good will, and an almost unalterable repugnance to the idea of conver-sion; the progress in all the churches was very slow." In addition the Christian religion was seen as a western version of the Buddhist religion. As a Thai would say , all religions teach people to do good. So why change?

Schreiter put it well when he said:

Good evangelization will also bring about culture change. If the message of the gospel is genuinely heard in the local culture, that message must find a place among the most fundamental messages of that culture, with concomitant change in codes, signs, and the entire sign system. In the midst of our concerns for contextualization, we must not be lulled into thinking that contextualization will leave the culture untouched and simply affirm the good values there. Christ can be found in culture, but making that discovery explicit will have consequences for the culture.

Schreiter has noted two changes that need to occur for Thais to become Christians. First the gospel must be heard in the local culture and not as a western religion. Second the change in religions must be followed by a change in how people ‘practice’ religion for there to be truly lasting change in the people.

The gospel is having this effect in Northeastern Thailand. It is happening through the local village churches which are enabled by extension teachers from both the Center for Church Planting and Enablement in Northeastern Thailand (Center) and the Issaan Development Foundation (IDF).

So who were the people who started this Center and IDF? The initial team was composed of three people: Jim Gustafson, BanPote Weckama, and TongPan Phommedda. In 1971 Jim and Joan Gustafson came to Thailand as Evange1ical Covenant Church (ECC) missionaries from America. Jim Gustafson, son of Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) missionaries, had grown up in Laos and spoke the language already. After Thai language study in Bangkok he and Joan moved up to Udon Thani, a provincial capital in the Northeast of Thailand to work with the Church of Christ in Thailand (CCT) churches there.

Under early comity agreements the C&MA worked in the Northeast. Thus the churches Jim and Joan worked with had originally been C&MA churches and part of the Gospel Church of Thailand (C&MA). Internal conflicts within the Gospel Church of Thailand caused a number of churches to break away from this national body. The Udon churches subsequently joined the CCT during 1966 and 1967. Some people have described the problem as "a paternalistic attitude on the part of the missionaries toward nationals and an over-emphasis on self-support."

BanPote Weckama had become a Christian through the C&MA at age 18. Although he had started at the C&MA Bible training school in Khon Kaen he never graduated due to conflicts with the system and missionaries.

TongPan Phommedda also had become a Christian through the C&MA He studied with BanPote at the Bible School in Khon Kaen. After a few years there he started preaching in villages in the northeast and soon showed the gift of evangelist by planting dozens of churches in his home province of Chaiyaphum.

Phase I from 1971-1977 has often been referred to as the Traditional Thai Church Phase. During this time Jim and Joan Gustafson, BanPote Weckama, and TongPan Phommedda were affiliated with both the CCT and the C&MA.

The two main events of the period were the establishment of both the Christian Service Training Center (CSTC ) and an agricultural self-support program for that Center in 1971. The funding for the CSTC came from the Evangelical Covenant Church and the initial funding for the self-support program came from World Relief Canada (WRC).

A crisis occurred when the CSTC student body rebelled in May of 1976. During a twelve hour long strike they grilled the teachers and demanded that they be guaranteed a salary and a church on graduation. At that point it became evident that the students, 20 in 1974, had come to the CSTC to get jobs, not to grow in their ability to study and understand God’s word.

Jim Gustafson resigned as director of the CSTC. In October of 1976 BanPote, TongPan, and Jim began a Theological Education by Extension (T.E.E.) program of the CSTC from an empty orphanage building in Udon Thani that had been given to the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC). All T.E.E. efforts ended in March of 1977 with BanPote and TongPan resigning from the CCT and the CSTC. In May the ECC resigned from the CCT and applied for membership with the Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand (EFT), a loosely structured fellowship recognized by the Thai government. Both the CSTC buildings and the self-support agricultural system were left with the CCT.

Five key issues arose during Phase I from which dramatic future change resulted. These five were biblical theology, cultural barriers, theological education, church leadership, and socio-cultural development.

BanPote and TongPan’s lives had been turned around when they finally understood the biblical concept of the gospel of grace in Jesus Christ . For years, they had been Christians but had not understood this concept. For them salvation was a salvation by works, just as in Buddhism. Samuel I. Kim also referred to this problem:

The concept of ‘grace’ is an absolutely foreign and unfamiliar word in Thai mentality. According to Thai Buddhism (Theravada Sect) salvation of Nirvana must be achieved by one’s own merit. No one can purify or defile another person. The idea of being ‘bought with a price’ (I Cor. 6:20) is completely unknown. They do not understand the real meaning of grace. whatever good they do or service they render for others is a way to make merit.

Several cultural barriers to the gospel became obvious. One was that the form and expression of the Northeastern Thai church was basically Western. The language used was central Thai and not the people’s heart language of Issaan. In fact the Christian church (in its western form and focus) emphasized these differences away from local cultural forms and expressions and in so doing caused discontinuity and discord with the Issaan community.

The basic focus of theological education in the traditional Thai Christian form was not the Church but ‘education’ and personal advancement. The young men studying at the CSTC were there primarily for job security and saw their training as a stepping stone to boosting personal status by the acquiring of advanced degrees. Their desire was to know what ‘Christianity says’ and they had little interest in knowing how to study the Bible so as to teach from it.

Meanwhile the older and more socially respected lay church leaders were denied Biblical training. Kim described the dilemma this way: "Success or failure of church growth in Thailand is completely dependent on the extensive spiritual nurturing and effective mobilization of the laity for witnessing." Yet the Udon church leadership’s basic concern was status and not service. They resented lay church elders receiving training for fear that they ‘may know more than us.’

Meanwhile the socio-cultural development was being stifled by the old self-centric values of the Thai church members. The church had a ‘give me’ mentality and wanted cash over self-help programs. They wanted things easy, quick, and much (large returns).

All seemed to be lost. Yet in dying a new life was found. BanPote, TongPan, and Jim were excited about the possibilities of specifically working with and training village church leaders. They had done enough of it on their own time during the evenings and with the year of T.E.E. to want to try again.

This time they had the backing of the EFT. This team of three established the Center for Church Planting and Church Growth in Northeastern Thailand (Center) in 1977. The main purpose of the Center was to enable the church through extension training. All teaching and training was to be done in the village.

In December of 1978 the CCT, under new leadership, agreed to return the rice mill complex that had been started in 1975 with the help of World Relief Canada. The mill had been sitting idle with no one capable of managing it profitably. With the rice mill and adjoining property a self-support system for the Center was started in earnest . In addition to the (renamed) Issaan Patina Farm, self-support projects were started in the villages.

By the end of the ‘contextualized’ Phase II from 1977-1982 an extensive support base had been established and the church was growing. By 1982 there were 60 churches and over 600 members. The long ignored issues in the Thai church that were mentioned in Phase I had been faced and exciting progress was being made.

Several church planting principles were articulated and became foundational for future growth. There was to be no mention of ‘Christianity’ or a ‘religious’ affiliation since just the mention of Christianity in the mindset of Issaan people communicated a ‘western’ religion. Instead of disrupting social structures the Center staff employed social structures and cultural forms to communicate the gospel. People were not given legalistic rules but were encouraged to evaluate their own relationship of Christ to their culture. For example, no one was forbidden to attend the local Buddhist temples (wat) or functions, but instead were challenged to consider why they were going. The meaning and intention behind actions was considered :much more important than the action itself. The communication .method was discussion oriented, one on one, with a focus on the religious members of the community.

The issue of incarnating the gospel in Northeastern Thai forms and expressions brought about the development of the department of Northeast Thai arts (music, drama, dance) and the Church. Hymns were written by Center staff using Northeastern folk tunes and instruments. These in turn were taught to the local church music leaders.

Phase III from 1983-1989 can be referred to as the ‘growth’ phase. Ideas born and strategized during Phase II started to become reality. The main focus of the Center was and continued to be the enablement of local village churches. Membership grew at an amazing rate from 900 members in 80 churches in 1984 to 2,292 members in 250 churches in 1987. See Appendix C for graphs showing Church Membership and the Number of Churches. The Center staff attempted to keep up with the growth by increased efforts to train leaders within these new churches. It was eventually decided that a mother/daughter church relationship would be more efficient and effective overall. The extension teachers from the Center became primarily responsible for training the elders in each of the mother churches. These volunteer lay elders in each of the mother churches would then in turn be responsible for going to their ‘daughter’ churches (churches born of their own local evangelistic outreach) and enabling them. In this way the extension nature of the Center was replicated in the churches.

An important event of the period was the formal establishment of the Issaan Development Foundation (IDF) in 1983. The IDF benefited the organization in several ways. It gave the work legal status with the Thai government, it allowed for the owning of land, and it provided them with an organization that was capable of legal representation. The IDF was not considered a ‘religious’ organization from the standpoint of the Thai government. Yet. its goals were to give financial support to the Center as well as to do community development. That target community was the church since only value-changed people would commit to work together. The village level development co-op projects were never closed to other people joining but non--Christians eventually either dropped out due to the interactive commitment involved, or they were challenged by the gospel of grace and became followers of God (their term for Christians).

During the last four months of 1989 enough profits were made from the Udon Patina Farm to totally cover the overhead expenses of the work of the Center and IDF without any outside subsidy. At that time 137 Thai nationals were employed within the Center and the IDF.

Key issues of the Phase III growth period centered around the definition and practice of holistic development, the desired characteristics of the Issaan/Thai church, and national/missionary relations.

The definition and practice of holistic development is constantly being refined at the Center and IDF. A flow chart of the process of holistic development is included in Appendix A. Additional principles include high labor intensity (the one ingredient poor unemployed people can give), low tech (easily obtainable materials), group oriented focus (laboratory for human relations and changed/ing value systems), church oriented (benefits flow from church to community at large), and inclusion of all efforts as an integral part of the holistic ministry which is the mandate of the local church.

The Issaan village church was defined as "any village where we have believers." Volunteer lay leadership of the mother churches received weekly training from the Center and IDF. The leadership team was typically composed of seven people, (elder, deacon, church planter, youth, song and dance, instruments, and development.) These leaders grew spiritually as they both studied and taught the Word and related disciplines to the church membership. They also grew in unity as they met together weekly as individual church leadership teams and monthly as area church leadership teams.

Nationals and missionaries work together, strategize together, and implement together. The work is totally Issaan, so missionaries strive to be very sensitive to when their presence communicates the wrong message. Due to Christianity being perceived as a western religion, missionaries do not go to village churches to assist in enablement. Their main role is to enable the Thai staff to do their job better so as to enable the village churches. The Thai staff are in charge of finance and management while the mission manages the budget related to missionary existence. The entire organization is a focused and integrated entity in which both nationals and missionaries work together as an enabling team. See Appendix B for organizational charts of both the Center and IDF.

Phase IV is the present phase which arbitrarily started in 1990 and is called the expansion phase. Funding affiliations are changing with The Evangelical Assistance Relief (TEAR) funds of Europe starting to assist in the start-up of new development projects of IDF.

A weaning system for both churches and co-ops, (development projects) was worked out with the response from the churches being very positive. The first weaning of a mother church co-op happened in 1990. Many mother churches are now only getting monthly (instead of weekly) extension training as they are being progressively weaned according to maturity.

The 32 mother churches are divided into four geographical areas of eight mother churches each. Each area on its own initiative in 1990 formed a committee comprised of one member of each of the mother churches. These meet monthly to coordinate the work of their area churches and to plan monthly area leadership seminars.

Then in May of 1991 the four area committees decided to meet as a larger group on a monthly basis for the planning and management of all four area activities. The birth of an indigenous church body/denomination is now taking place at the pace and under the total initiative of the Issaan village churches. In addition a growing number of lay church leaders are being paid by their churches on a part-time basis for the work they do in both the mother and daughter churches. These payments are being made primarily in those mother churches that have members who are running a rural development co-op.

In addition to this growth in the village churches around Udon (a map of the mother churches is included in Appendix C), four new expansions have grown forth. 1) A sister branch of the Center and IDF has been started in the Roi Et area of the Northeast. 2) A sister work is being started in Northwest Laos in Luang Nam Tha province with help from World Concern. 3) A new work focused on the slums within the provincial capitals of Northeast Thailand has been started. 4) Plans are being made for a Holistic Development Research and Study Institute to be located in Udon.

Churches in the Roi Et area have been too geographically distant to receive weekly extension training from the Udon Center. In 1989 seven Thai staff members moved down to the Roi area to spearhead a sister Center in Roi Et. Plans are being made for the IDF to establish a sister farm and village development co-ops in 1992-1993 with missionaries and Thai nationals working together. As of December 1990 there were 27 Roi Et branch churches.

The IDF was invited to start a work in Laos in 1989. At the present time (June 1991) World Concern has sent the official project proposal to the Lao government. The plan is to start work in the province of Luang Nam Tha (30 miles from the Chinese border) early in 1992 with a spearheading team of one American couple and one Issaan couple both from the IDF.

The Center and IDF are in the process of developing a new holistic ministry to ‘squatter settlements’ (slums) in the growing urban areas of Thailand. After starting with two churches in the slums of Udon in 1989, four more were added in 1990. The growing problem of slums in the provincial capitals of the Northeast is being researched and will soon be addressed by this new thrust.

The need for a Holistic Development Research and Study Institute was formally written up in 1988. Reasoning behind the proposed Institute was two-fold, the internal need for basic research and resulting curriculum to teach the Thai and expatriate staff of the Center and IDF, and the external need to establish a research and study institute for the community at large. So many requests both locally and abroad ask for the opportunity to come and study how to replicate the system in Udon but presently there is no way to teach/train them.

The original proposed time flow had been full implementation of the plans for the Institute in 1992. Because of the major thrusts of Roi Et, Laos, and slums this has been pushed off for the time being. Yet in the next five years the Institute will come into being in Udon. At that point three inter-related sodalities will be in Udon Thani, Thailand, the Center for Church Planting and Church Growth in Northeast Thailand, the Issaan Development Foundation, and the Holistic Research and Study Institute.

Eight major missiological theses can be seen in the Center and IDF. These are: the two structures, theological breakthroughs, spiritual dynamic, mission structures, historical contextual conditions, key person, information distribution, and leadership patterns.

The two structures of sodality mission structure) and modality (churchly structure) can be seen throughout. The Center and IDF are made up of second commitment people, both nationals and expatriates. Their purpose is to enable the church (modality) while having the freedom to try new ways of doing that.

The major theological breakthrough has been the concept of grace instead of merit (works) . A well-known Thai proverb says, ‘Do good get good. Do bad get bad’. God’s grace replaces that since no one can ever be ‘good enough’. Through God’s grace and forgiveness Christians can try new ways of doing things. knowing that if they fail there is forgiveness and a new start. Through God’s grace Thai values are confronted with Biblical values and people’s lives are changed.

The experience of God’s grace is a major spiritual dynamic in the church. In addition to the renewal brought about by this theological breakthrough there are other accompanying elements of lay church leadership, responsibilities given according to gifting (ability), new hymnology, culturally appropriate worship and ceremonies, etc.

At the beginning the Center and IDF were considered a ‘fringe’ group. Some in the Church called them heretics. Today there is a growing understanding and approval for what they (with God’s help) are attempting to do in Northeastern Thailand. Yet many people get confused over the difference between form and meaning. Worship services don’t ‘sound right’ because the instruments used are Issaan. Yet the congregation may be singing the Apostles Creed, or scripture, or someone’s testimony, or a theological concept.

The mission structure was specifically chosen by Jim Gustafson, BanPote Weckama, and TongPan Phommedda. They wanted the freedom to enable the church in a variety of ways and not be tied down by some churchly structure. Within this mission structure nationals and missionaries work side by side for the same goal of enabling the church to be the church and reach out holistically to the community.

The historical contextual condition was right for this type of movement. In the 1960’s and 1970’s the younger generation in the Thai church was asking many of the questions that the Center and IDF seek to answer.

Why have there been no theological books in Thai, written by Thais and for the Thais? … Isn’t that a shame that even the Sunday school materials are all translated from English? ... Why do some people like to use English words in their sermons which the Thai congregation cannot understand? Are the Thai words not acceptable for God? Can’t we use sticky rice and plain water for communion? Are God’s blessings only in the pieces of bread and wine? … We must realize that non-Christians call us Christians traitors of our country and servants of Westerners.

The key person in this renewal movement is Jim Gustafson. Through his study, understanding, and teaching of scripture the biblical Concepts of grace and value changes were unlocked for the northeasterner to use. Jim’s love and understanding of Northeastern/Lao culture and language have been big assets. His firm belief that all people are equal and his refusal to have any form of paternalism has kept the Center and IDF truly a northeastern Thai work.

Northeastern village society is basically an oral society. Information is spread primarily by word-of-mouth. As such the church has spread along normal family and friendship ties. Information and publicity about this growing church movement has been spread through the annual EFT meetings when delegates from these churches are present and they talk. Their questions about the western nature of the other churches and explanations about their churches has done a lot to bring credibility to what is happening. Most people no longer consider them heretics, or of the ‘fringe’.

The leadership patterns used are new for the church in Thailand. Volunteer lay leaders lead these churches. Leaders are chosen from the churches usually based upon their gifting (abilities) in that particular area. They are the socially respected ones, and often the church has chosen women and young people when they saw it as appropriate.

To counter the Thai value of education as a stepping stone for leaving an area and bettering oneself (at the expense of the surrounding community and church) no certificates or degrees are given. Instead the enabling staff of the Center and IDF receive weekly training which they are responsible for passing on to the lay village mother church leaders who in turn pass it on to their daughter church leaders In this way the village church believers are receiving teaching and training from their own leaders who are staying in the village. The emphasis is ‘down and in’ not ‘up and out’. Through this holistic ministry (that includes the village development co-ops) the leaders of the churches are able to stay in their villages all year long and not leave to find work in other areas of the country or world.

How was the sodality of the Center for Church Planting and Enablement in Northeastern Thailand and the Issaan Development Foundation made? Through encountering resistance (and being thrown out) from the traditional western Thai Church, through contextualizing both church planting and enabling in a holistic way, and through consistently striving for and trying new ways to enable the indigenous church in Northeastern Thailand to grow in the grace of God.

Bibliography

Cady, John F. Thailand, Burma, Laos, and Cambodia. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966.

Kim, Samuel I. The Unfinished Mission in Thailand. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985.

Neill, Stephen. A History of Christian Missions. Great Britain: Cox & Wyman , Reading, 1986.

Schreiter, Robert. Constructing Local Theologies. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985.

Smith, Alex G. Siamese Gold, A History of Church Growth in Thailand: An Interpretive Analysis 1816-1982. Bangkok, Thailand: Kanok Publishers, 1981.

Tambia, Stanley Jeyaraja. Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-East Thailand. Cambridge, Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1970.