One of the risks of visiting a new congregation, even in the U.S., is that you are not in the loop. What I mean is that if something is going on that disrupts their ordinary published schedule, no one is going to think to tell you about it, even if you’ve been in contact with them ahead of time. Maybe you will show up and the place is packed and the service is extra long because they are installing a new pastor. Maybe you show up and the building is empty and a groundskeeper tells you that everyone went to another congregation across the city for the installation of their new pastor!
Our first visit to Promise Lutheran Church in Chiang Mai, we showed up to a locked building, and after messaging the pastor on WhatsApp, discovered that for this Sunday only, they held services at a different location where they are building the church they will move into later in the year. This is great news for them. In conversation with the pastor the following Sunday, we learned that the rent for their current space went up a lot recently. They took this opportunity to instead purchase some land south of the city and are finishing up building a larger, permanent home there. They hope to move in May of this year.
The current space is a storefront on a street next to a scooter shop, a salon/barber, and some businesses that look like they sell building supplies. They conduct worship on the first floor and have some classroom space in the back as well as a shop upstairs where they sell craft items made by participants in their vocational training ministry (see thaivillage.org to learn more).
This is a Thai congregation, not one made up of expats. The pastors and members are Thai people and, though the pastors and some of the members do speak English, the services are in the Thai language (with some English translation on a projection screen to help out the Lutheran missionaries here in Chiang Mai, as well as visitors like us). We chatted with two of these missionaries after service one week and learned that, like us, they do not speak Thai (yet), but come here after an English-language service at another Chistian church. They are fresh out of college and were sent here a couple of months ago by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod in the US to teach at a Christian school here in Chiang Mai.
It was interesting to worship in two languages, saying the Lord’s Prayer and Apostles Creed, and singing some of the familiar songs, simultaneously in Thai and English. It reminded me of occasions when our St. Louis congregation would have joint worship services with their sister Chinese congregation, and perhaps a bit like Pentecost!
