Love's Labours Lost?

I officially am writing this letter for your reading enjoyment the day after Valentine's Day, and in all honesty, the contents herein may actually have a dash or two of love sprinkled about. But, enough of introductions: let's get to the meat.


Future Considerations

Well, it has been two weeks since my last update, and as I mentioned in that letter, there would be a good chance that I would be able to tell you what will be happening to me in 2009. Unfortunately, as my relationship with ministry in Thailand perpetually seems to be, there isn't simple, straight-forward answer. :)

Our offers of contract extension were to be given out at the beginning of this past week, and to my chagrin, I was away from campus attending a library automation conference for the first half of the week, which really only delayed the inevitable. When I returned to GES, I asked our English administrator, Michelle, what the scoop was with me. Quickly, she informed me that there indeed was an offer for my return to GES on the table, but she stated that it came some provisions. We met on Thursday to discuss what these provisions were, and it turned out to be one of the three fears I had anticipated. The provision was that I could return to GES in the same position as I occupy currently, provided that I sever all ties with the church plant dealie that I was working with. *Uugh.*


Politics

Here's a little more information, for those of you who'd like the elucidated version. The people who had started up this church plant used to attend the church in which the owners of GES hold leadership positions. The origins of the church plant stem from a small group that began as a ministry from this church. As the small group grew in numbers and depth, the church's original idea of constantly changing where the group met became unfavourable, so this small group asked the church if it could meet at one place. The original answer was one of approval, and due to the stability of location and meeting time, this small group began to grow even more until the church leadership decided that the group was big enough to be split into two small groups. The group, however, didn't want to divide, so as the church re-organised this part of its congregation, the group as a whole decided to continue meeting as a group of believers independent of the church's ministry.

At the same time that this was happening, there apparently were some pretty unpleasant church politics simmering in the background. I heard stories of how members of the church were doing and saying things to people of this small group that made them feel unwelcome & condemned—in fact, so much so that I saw some people pushed to tears over the way they were being made to feel by members of the church. As a result of the way they were feeling, many members of this small group started to attend other congregations scattered around Bangkok & even into the provinces while still meeting as a collective whole on Friday evenings for worship and Bible study.

It had been on the heart of many of the members of this small group to start an outreach ministry in the communities where they lived. They recognised the huge mission field that was around them and were compelled to do something about it after I had made a random comment one night saying, "Wow, those are a lot of really good plans." Later, I was told that my comment was interpreted as "You sure talk a lot, but are you going to do something about it?"—something that I never had intended, but I guess happens when conversing to someone through a second language!

Because of my inadvertent prompting, the small group came to an agreement that it would be a profitable decision to turn their small group into a community church—one where people would be able to come and share life together at any time of the day: a church whose doors were rarely ever locked. And that's precisely what they did.


Miscommunication(s)?

We now need to put this church plant into the proper light. The church that where many of these people had come from recently suffered a painful church split where the brother of GES's owner took a large portion of the congregation & also decided to make their own church somewhere. I'm not exactly sure what the timeline was for the event surrounding the church split, but I know that it occurred in the recent past. When the leadership of the church again saw a second group of its members leaving, it immediately perceived it as a personal attack, which I believe was an unfortunate misunderstanding.

Compounding this understanding were the events that surrounded my (and the king's) birthday weekend. Members of this small group had asked GES teachers to come with them to visit Lopburi & do some ministry activities with the church up in that province because it was a long weekend. We had been asked at the beginning of November if we wanted to go. It just so happened that a week or so later, the church from which these people had come declared that weekend to be the celebration of its 40-year anniversary. The GES owners suggested to our administrator to maybe have some of the staff come & help out. Unfortunately, the manner in which they presented the notion led our administrator to believe that this was an optional "would be nice to do" activity, so when she told us at a staff meeting, this was how she presented it to the staff. Things now turned ugly when the church leadership discovered that the members of the "contentious" small group had taken 6 GES teachers with them out of the city on the same weekend as their 40th anniversary celebrations. Again, the church leadership perceived this as a defiant attack against the church, which I'm pretty sure wasn't the case.

In retaliation, the owners of GES decided to forbid the children of one of the families in this small group from continuing in their classes until they paid more money, for the owners give their church members something like a 25% discount. This, in turn, upset the church plant community, who went to the school owners to try & reason/understand what was going on. From what I've been told, this meeting was anything productive, as both sides ended up hurting & insulting each other and the meeting ended with people walking angrily out of the room.

The tensions and problems have now progressed to the point where the school has told its Thai staff that they are forbidden to associate with members of this church plant under penalty of losing their jobs. I at first didn't believe this when I heard it, but it seems to hold some weight, since the same provision has now been extended to me—a member of this church plant who only recently has caught wind of these underlying problems.


My Desire

My desire in this situation is to see reconciliation and restoration of unity between all believers in the Body. Unfortunately, when I asked if the owners would be willing to meet with me & the "contentious" small group, I was told that it was out of the question. In all honesty, I'm confident that the whole situation lies in misunderstanding of events & defensiveness due to previous hurts—in both parties. But what do I do when my existence in Thailand is contingent on forsaking associations with a group of Christians who have upset my bosses—knowingly or not? I mean, if I say "no" to coming back, I throw away all of the foundational work that I have done with my ministry at GES _and_ with the discipleship I've started to enter into with the leadership of this church plant (by the way, my reservations and uncertainness with the members of this congregation have since evaporated due to a new openness that has flowered in the past two weeks. It's an openness that I can accredit only to God, seeing as it's engrained into Thai culture to keep dirty laundry and short-comings buried as deep as possible. Then again, is that really Thai culture, or is it inherent to the human condition?). If I say "yes" to coming back without investigating/trying to promote reconciliation, I submit myself to an unethical use of power whose goal is anything but noble, and in so doing, I abandon part of the body of Christ because someone tells me "Don't associate with them, or else."

My resolve is to investigate the matter & see if there indeed is anything that can be done to promote unity within the Body. If I discover that resentment, bitterness and "low-dealings" indeed have been undertaken by members of this church plant and that the motivations for the plant are less than noble, I will exhort them to practise humbleness and seek forgiveness from the church that they came from. If no such motivations are present, I will be compelled to ask the owners or GES again to meet for purposes of reconciliation, as it would then appear that this desire for perpetuated division and persecution is the result of bruised egos. In either case, the premises set by Jesus in Matt 18:15-17 & by Paul in Titus 3:10-11 perforce will be followed.

So what does that mean? It means that if the church plant is in the wrong and has no desire for reconciliation, then I wash my hands of them & I return to GES for another year. It also means that if this church plant indeed is willing to seek restoration, but if the owners of GES are not, my choice is limited to the adherence of the Biblical decree: I would no longer be willing to associate myself with GES and its authorities due to a poor spiritual standing. And then, there's outcome number three: if both parties are willing to cooperate & be united as a common Body of Christ (whether meeting in one place or severally), then I would be coming back to serve another year at GES.

So there you have it: two outcomes have me returning for another year, and one has me coming home. This decision will be made as late as Friday, when the owners expect my response to the job offer.

Please keep me & these two parties in prayer. I beg you. Petition the Lord for His will to be done.

Thanks.