Valentines Day

On Valentines Day (Sunday morning) a few of us went out on an adventure. The goal? We wanted to locate the Hope of Bangkok, which is the largest church in the Kingdom of Thailand. The Hope of Bangkok was originally founded by Dr. Kriengsak. As of 2005, this group of Believers had grown to approx. 6,000 members and had planted more than 100 hundred churches. That is significant, as Thailand only has approx. 60,000 Christians in the whole nation!

Their growth has been evidenced by manifested gifts of the Holy Spirit, healings, words of knowledge and miracles. This move of God’s Spirit has created openness among the Thai population. Because of this, they have been open to hearing the word of God preached clearly and powerfully, which has resulted in an acceleration of smaller cell groups and a thrust towards friendship evangelism. They are seeing that God is real and more powerful than their many spirit guardians, spells and curses!

CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS: The church meets in a massive Hotel conference room. This cell group was approx. 2,300 strong. The service lasted three hours! We were greeted with enthusiasm and quickly chauffeured around to meet people, including one of the pastors. We had pictures taken, register as visitors, given a gift and shown to our seating area. After being seated, those who did not have a Bible were offered one which could be used during the worship service.

The gathering was mostly Asian, so we were seated in a location with headsets for English translation. A church member stayed with us through out the whole process. During the congregational “meet and greet” at least 40 people came to us, showering us with candies, flowers and welcome cards. Thai culture has a very strong emphasis on honor, which can be overwhelming if you’re trying to remain incognito!

We arrived to the church about 9:30am and left about 12:30. The music was upbeat. They were joyful and the people freely expressed themselves during worship by waving their hands and clapping. Some knelt in prayer by their seats and others danced up front by the stage area. The Pastoral Team was up on the stage (to one side of the worship band) and fully engaged as well! Prayer, a video and some fun community activities (games that involved people getting up and interacting with others) were next. I had never seen this done in a church setting before, but it made perfect sense.

The entire congregation really enjoyed this fun, social interaction and there was a lot of laughing and casual conversations. An hour of preaching was followed by more music prayer, communion and a call to commitment and repentance. MANY people came to the front for prayer. The Pastor (who was still on the stage/podium area) got down on his knees when it came time to pray.

These light fixtures remind me of Thai fishing baskets.
Jesus said, that we are to be fishers of men!