Prayer

God, I cry out to you on behalf of the city of Bangkok

I ask you for its redemption

Would you change this city, from top to bottom, from inside out

Bring about a new creation, a new beauty, the vision of the new Jerusalem

I believe this city is not forsaken, but is a city sought out Read the rest of this entry »

I realize now that we (or at least I) cannot pray with perseverance for specific niches of the Kingdom of God in a place without also praying for the larger picture and maintaining connection with it.  As I’ll describe in a future post, I believe that’s because, as Paul teaches, the church is founded on the ministry of the apostles and the prophets, not simply the evangelists and the teachers, as we can often think.

Through the encouragement of a dear friend, I’ve been reminded recently of this vision from five years ago of praying for the entire city of Bangkok to be comprehensively transformed.  I’m back again to crying out to God for the salvation and redemption of every inch of Bangkok, even as it drains me of all energy in the process.  I invite you to join with me in praying for this city.  Its like climbing a mountain, taking everything out of you.  But yet so rewarding also as when you come to beautiful vistas and understand God’s heart for a place and are infected with the knowledge of his character and faith in what he’s going to bring about.

Again, I invite you to join with me in praying for this city.  Let’s pray for the knowledge of God’s goodness to spread to every corner and nook and cranny of this city….

So how did all of those prayers end up? What fruit do we now see in Bangkok? Well, I can praise God that instead of just one ministry in the red-light districts, I now know of at least 5 very active ministries. I can praise God that in addition to the two lines of the skytrain that existed back in ‘02, Bangkok now has a subway line and vigorous construction on one new skytrain line and an extension of one of the existing lines. Before the coup last year, there were plans to build 4 or 5 new subway lines that would serve a large part of the city, quite similar to my original prayers. Now, those plans seem to be on hold until a new government is elected at year’s end, but the city government has placed posters all over the city promising that the skytrain and subway is coming, just be patient. In our network, we have 4 house churches in slums that did not exist before. By next January, there could be 8 Servant Partners staff pioneering in slums here, compared to zero back in ‘02. There is also several staff from Australia’s Urban Neighbors of Hope ministering in the Klong Toey slum, Bangkok’s largest slum. The Bangkok Vineyard partnered with some missionaries from Hong Kong to begin ministry in that slum as well.  There’s a couple YWAMmers focusing on slums. A small established Thai-led ministry focusing on slum outreach is still continuing as it was 5 years ago. One of the senior pastors of one of Bangkok’s largest churches repented three years ago of listening to the missionaries who told him to focus on church growth and ignore serving the poor. He committed his church to learning about ministry in the slums and has since started a number of cell groups in slums.  The two Christian microenterprise development programs that were just starting back in 2002 (including ours), are still going and have helped hundreds of people from tens of slum communities start small businesses and avoid the usurious loan sharks.

The city is not yet transformed, but God is at work.  There is change.  His people are waking up.  Things are happening.

I’ve recently been refreshed in my vigor and boldness to pray for and pursue the comprehensive transformation of the city of Bangkok. This was the audacious desire that God placed on my heart back in the summer of 2002, my second summer participating in Intervarsity’s Global Urban Trek. As I look back on that summer, God did some amazing things in reworking our worldviews and giving several of us desires that are insane by human reckoning. Read the rest of this entry »