Serving as the research coordinator for the Thai church, one of my frustrations is knowing that very few churches are being started in unreached areas. The Thai church is growing, but mostly where there are already churches.

To make my point, 87% of Thai Christians live in sub-districts that already have two or more churches. In contrast 76% of Thai people live in a sub-district without a church. At the village level, the gospel has been planted in only 4% of the villages in Thailand.

This frustration caused me to look for church planting methods that are working in other countries -- to look for methods and principles that could be applied in Thailand. I didn’t have to travel far.

For the past seven years, I have been in contact with Bob Craft, the president of Reach-A-Village, an agency that has supported indigenous church planters for many years. He invited me to visit Cambodia and Myanmar and see what God was doing in these countries. It was amazing to see what local church planters are doing there and how effective they are at planting churches.

During my visit, I interviewed several church planters. I met people who have started 20 churches in five years. A group in Myanmar (see picture) has started 20 churches in just 10 months. (These are not made up numbers.) They showed me how they are using New Testament based gospel church planting principles and doing it in a very intentional manner.

Thus, Reach-A-Village and CrossTies Asia have agreed to a partnership. Working together the two organizations can enhance each other’s ministry. Reach-A-Village provides proven church planting methodology in a Buddhist context and CrossTies Asia provides demographics and research to back up the church planting. We have already worked together to fund Harvest Church databases for Myanmar and Laos.

Please plan on attending the CrossTies Asia ministry partner meeting on Saturday May 13 at the Church of Brook Hills. Bob Craft will be there and together we want to share exciting information about this partnership and its potential for making a lasting impact in the countries of SE Asia.

Please confirm your reservation by replying to this email / sending an email to dmartin@estar.ws / calling us at 205-483-2221 or Skype us at “dwimar”.
We look forward to seeing you there.

Thank you for being a Blessing,

Dwight & Mary Kay Martin

http://crosstiesasia.org