Ed Stetzer, a renowned church-planting expert and executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, recently interviewed Reach A Village Founder and President Bob Craft about keys to the staggering number of new believers and house churches being started by Thai Christians. This movement in Thailand was featured in the Christianity Today April cover story.
Craft said that, ultimately, it is the work of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, but he also shared some insights from the Thai Christians’ methods. For example, they keep the initial Gospel presentation simple and relatable to normal Thai life and experience. The Western Christian worldview and “Christianese” are avoided as they can inhibit the spread of the Gospel in Asia. Craft explains that terms like “testimony” and even “sin” can be confusing or misunderstood by those coming from a Buddhist background.The focus is kept solely on biblical truth.
“Keep in mind that in countries like Thailand, we do not leave the 99 to find the one lost sheep. We leave the one found sheep in the fold to rush back and try to rescue the 99,” Craft notes. “Thailand and other countries have vast populations in geographic areas or ethnic enclaves that have less than 1 percent believers among them.”
