How do you work yourself out of a job as missionary? By making sure local Christians can lead the church as soon as possible, and are taking responsibility for further church planting. But how do you do that? It is one of the big questions almost all missionaries struggle with.  Daniel McGilvary, the apostle of Thailand, has the following suggestions in his almost 100 year old autobiography.1.    Give more responsibility to local Christians.

Every missionary wants to involve local Christians in ministry as much as possible. But after being on the mission field for 50 years, McGilvary concludes: we did it too little. Nowadays, many missionaries may have to draw the same conclusion. It is always easier to trust yourself than to trust someone else. Involving other requitres planning and training. There are always practical reasons why it is not convenient. But not sharing ownership of the ministry never pays off in the long run.
2.    Train new believers.

McGilvary is looking back to a period when many in North-Thailand started to believe. But this movement petered out. The greatest lack of the mission was well-trained local leaders. The mission had done too little in that are. People will not and cannot be responsible church leaders  without getting any input. They need training.

3.    Do not require higher education from potential church leaders.

One of the reasons there were too little local leaders was that the mission emphasized western norms of education. All the while, older men with a traditional Buddhist schooling were available, who already shouldered a significant load in the churches. Yet they were not recognized and not trained as they should.
It is important to from the beginning work with the people the Lord has given, and not just equip young people for leadership positions in the far future. An added advantage of calling older men to be elders in the church, is that they already have a respected position in society. That opens up at least as many venues for ministry as formal education.

4.     Mentor mature men.

One of the reasons McGilvary saw so much fruit in his ministry, is that he spent a lot of time with men who were respected in the community. In that way he slowly formed them into pillars of the church. He did that by taking them on evangelistic trips, and by spending time with them in studying from books. He had most success when he did this one on one in personal ministry.
5. Don’t make training too formal.
As soon as McGilvary tried to change his mentoring programme into a theological school, it faltered. People got involved who did not yet have the trust of potential students. Instead of one on one, they tried to have groups of six to eight students. It became an instutions with rules and by-laws that were incomprehensible to the Thai. It became too formal, too western, and it flopped.