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Ideologically, the Laos Mission believed that its convert churches could not provide their own leadership without many years of training and guidance by the mission. The leadership training the mission gave to potential church leaders failed because it did not actually train for leadership, because it emphasized evangelism to the exclusion of pastoral skills, because it failed to root the church in the Bible, and because it eschewed theological creativity and balance. The Laos Mission, then, failed to participate in any meaningful way in the late nineteenth century missionary movement's redefinition of the purpose of that movement. Creative missionary thinking shifted from simply spreading Christianity to the establishing of self-propagating, self-supporting, and self-governing indigenous churches in "non-Christian" areas.

This chapter focuses attention on the actual historical development of northern Thai church leadership, especially the clergy, in light of the issues discussed in chapters 4 and 5. Its examination of that development immediately involves us in the larger issues of self-reliance in evangelism, stewardship, and church government. My purpose here is to see how mission ideology and leadership training affected the emergence of indigenous church leadership.

The events of the Pastors' Revolt of 1895 form the most important single complex of events in the history of the northern Thai church since September 1869. Prior to the early 1890s, the church grew without much thought given to planning. The mission showed no concern that the churches either run themselves or have financial responsibility for themselves. But, by 1894 new ideas permeating the international missionary movement began to influence events in northern Siam. The mission itself had grown larger, more complex, and now it entered a time of ferment resulting from the clash between opposing interpretations of how to develop a self-reliant northern Thai church. The

Nan Ta, who received ordination in 1889 and proved himself to be a capable evangelist and church leader, who impressed and pleased the mission with his work. (1) Some of its members felt a need for more men like him, and in December 1893 the North Laos Presbytery ordained Kru Wong and "licensed" Noi Lin, both students of the Training School, and made them pastors of the Mae Dok Daeng and Wang Mun Churches, respectively. In the meantime, the understaffed Chiang Mai Station, considerably distracted with the Evander McGilvary case, called upon Nan Ta to take over most of the pastoral duties of the Chiang Mai Church while an elder took over the Sunday School. This was the first time that "First Church" found itself almost entirely in northern Thai hands, and the end of 1894 potentially marked the first signs of the emergence of a pastoral system for the northern Thai church. (2)

During 1894, several other men at the Training School prepared for the ordained pastoral ministry. Dodd, who opposed ordaining any more northern Thai, happened to be in the U.S., and Irwin's voice as head of the Training School carried considerable weight in the weakened Laos Mission. Irwin saw that the churches needed pastoral leadership and believed that the best way to get that leadership was to train northern Thai Christians for it since it was their work and responsibility anyway. He also believed that the churches could supply enough men for their own leadership. (3)

Then came the next annual meeting of presbytery in December 1894. According to McGilvary, the presbytery decided to ordain one or two more men, but when they began to select candidates they kept thinking of others nearly as qualified, nearly as ready. Presbytery did not want to discourage or disappoint them, and so it ended up ordaining six more men, for a total of eight, to the ministry while licensing another three. The presbytery assigned all eleven men to pastoral or evangelistic work. (4) It also voted to assess churches pastored by them for part of the salaries of their pastors since it was felt that the churches should begin to be responsible for paying their own pastors. Irwin, who also served as chairman of the Evangelistic Committee at this time, tried to make a number of financial changes in conjunction with placing pastors in the churches. First of all, he and other Chiang Mai missionaries (including McGilvary) visited the churches to explain the need for self-support and create enthusiasm for it.

Without planning or preparation, the Laos Mission and the North Laos Presbytery embarked in December 1894 on a daring experiment. Considering the fact that only Chiang Mai Station showed any enthusiasm for the experiment while missionaries in the other stations opposed the self-support and self-government movement, (6) things went surprisingly well. For his work in 1894 as "assistant" pastor (though with full responsibility), Nan Ta received a promotion to the office of "co-pastor" of Chiang Mai Church. Seven of the nine men assigned their own churches did well enough to be reassigned to the same churches for 1896. Some of the churches, however, did not respond as well in terms of financial support—although Mae Dok Daeng did pay half of Kru Wong's salary and Chiang Mai paid all of Nan Ta's. (7) Under the influence of Irwin in Lamphun, the Lamphun, Bethel, and Wang Mun Churches all supported their own pastors in 1896; and even smaller groups in the area pledged to join together and support pastors. Even after Irwin left Lamphun in 1895, both the Lamphun and Bethel Churches sustained their own pastoral leadership until 1899. (8)

Throughout 1895, however, an undercurrent of unrest built up among the pastors and their churches, and as the year went along Irwin became more-and-more isolated from important elements in the mission and the church. First of all, he ran into trouble with McGilvary over the issue of paid evangelists. McGilvary felt that Irwin had gone too far and too fast and in one or two cases had been unfair about cutting evangelists salaries and reducing the number getting salaries. At the same time, both the northern Thai pastors and the churches were uneasy and unhappy. The pastors felt they did not get enough pay. The churches felt they had to pay too much. And just to make things all the more exciting, the champions of the go-slow faction in the mission, Dodd and Collins, both returned from furloughs. Thus, the Laos Mission itself fragmented into two groups: Irwin and a group of younger and less influential missionaries (Campbell, Denman, and Freeman among them) against the strong voices of the second generation missionaries including especially Dodd, Collins, and Taylor. McGilvary vaguely sided with Irwin, but he displayed less enthusiasm for the changes Irwin sought.

Four issues rendered the "deliberations" of presbytery at its annual meeting in 1895 nearly chaotic. One, the northern Thai pastors demanded salaries of thirty baht per month, twice or more their current salaries. Two, the churches refused to pay these salaries although some churches did not object to doing so voluntarily. Three, a number of missionaries expressed anger with Chiang Mai Station for its letter on self-support arguing that Chiang Mat had improperly usurped power in sending it. Four, Irwin's opposition sought to reinstate the old paid evangelists system.

And an amazing thing happened: the eight pastors, with the full support of the eight organized churches, pushed through two motions in the presbytery meeting over the negative votes of the missionaries: first of all, they voted higher salaries for the pastors. Secondly, they voted that the churches could not be forced to pay those salaries, effectively shifting the burden over to the mission. It was a revolution and the only instance in which the churches and

Subsequent correspondence with the Board (which supported Irwin) voiced a number of criticisms of Irwin as his opponents sought to explain what had happened. They wrote that Irwin forced pastors on the churches and then forced the churches to pay for them. They argued that Irwin worked too fast and that the whole scheme for getting pastors into the churches had been only the idea of missionaries. They argued that he upset both the churches and the pastors, none of whom understood what he expected of them. (10)

An evaluation of the event suggests that the matter was more complex than stated in these criticisms. The presbytery meeting of December 1894 involved no coercion of anyone either in the matter of ordaining pastors or calling on the churches to pay for those pastors. The meeting enthusiastically endorsed the former and accepted the latter. The evidence suggests that the events of 1894 when so many were ordained or licensed did not result from Irwin's "planning" them. Rather, having taken such relatively drastic steps as ordaining men and placing them in churches, Irwin seems to have tried to preserve those gains while also making other changes. He knew that the strongest voices in opposition to his views were absent and that the time he had to effect change was limited. He had only a limited amount of time, and it seems that he used that time for all it was worth.

However, Irwin may be charged with not playing the game wisely. By pushing self-support in which the churches had to pay for their pastors and cutting off the funds of the elder-evangelists at the same time, he greatly weakened his standing with church leaders, the leaders from whom he needed support. Irwin must have known from his experience in Lamphun that the churches could have pastors and pay for them — it was not a matter of asking them to do the impossible. He was unwise in confusing the matter of self-government and self-support at the local church level with the touchy issue of paid evangelists, a matter of deep concern not only to the evangelists but also to most of the missionaries, people committed to winning converts

As for the other criticisms of Irwin, it is difficult to take them seriously. Every missionary agreed with Irwin's objective of a self-reliant church. Normally, they did not object to pursuing goals of their own without consulting the churches, and the criticism of Irwin that he pursued plans not wanted by the churches rings very hollow in this mission. The whole matter came down, finally, to trust and timing: Irwin believed the churches could be more self-reliant and should be so immediately. Dodd and the dominant voices of the mission believed they could not and should not.

In view of all of this, it is worth noting again that in those churches Irwin worked with personally, the Lamphun churches, considerable progress in financial self-reliance and the creation of a pastoral system took place. The weight of historical evidence consistently supports Irwin's trust and his sense of timing.

In spite of the fact that Irwin failed to bring about radical changes in northern Thai church history at the time of the Pastors' Revolt, the event itself proved to be a key event in the history of the church, a key "non-turning" point if you will. For out of the event and its aftermath a myth spread about the pastoral abilities of the men ordained in December 1894. Hence, the Pastors' Revolt dominated mission thinking about developing northern Thai leadership for years afterwards.

The "myth" (I use the word in the popular sense) claimed that all of the ones ordained in 1893-1894 failed as pastors and soon gave up pastoral work and active ministry. Speer quoted Laos Mission members as claiming that within a year of placing those men in churches their pastoral relationships had to be dissolved—that is, at the time of the Pastors' Revolt. (11) Commenting on Kru Chai Ma's failure with the Khamu (see Chapter 3), the Lampang Station Report observed that his moral lapse, "serves as an index of the Laos character and invites caution in developing and using the weak material at our command." (12) Fourteen years later one missionary commented on the events of 1894-1895 by saying that, "Experience has shown that there are no Lao men as yet competent to be made pastors." (13)

Kru Wong...served Mac Dok Daeng as pastor/stated supply for three years, but he had to leave because of problems with the church, namely, he did very little pastoral visitation. He went to Nan to work with Irwin and started the Christian community at Muang Thoeng where he became embroiled in controversy (see Chapter 3). Inactive from 1903, he retired to Chae Hom and sometimes helped the Christian community there. (14)

Kru Lin...served at Wang Mun for four years, but he did very little work and the people disliked him. He later assisted Dodd in the Kengtung Station for a while, but he was largely inactive from 1898 until his death in 1910. A greedy man, he caused the mission headaches with his demands for help when he migrated with a small group of Christians from Lamphun to the Wiang Pa Pow Church in 1901. (15)

Kru Chai Ma (from Bethlehem Church)...performed ably as an evangelist under the Lampang Station and as an assistant pastor for the Lampang Church for five years. He disappeared from mission records entirely after his "lapse" among the Khamu in 1901. (16) [See Author's Note ]

Kru Pook...served as a very capable pastor at Bethlehem Church and in later years as an evangelist for Chiang Mai Station. When Kru Pook died in 1912, missionaries praised him for his excellence as a pastor and evangelist. (17) Oddly enough, no one commented that his abilities and personality served as an "index" of the "Laos character" as had been said (above) of the lapsed Chai Ma.

Kru Supa...worked as an excellent, irreplaceable pastor at Bethel Church until he died in 1900. Although he had his share of problems at Bethel, Kru Supa overcame them to do commendable work and proved himself an invaluable asset in the Lamphun area churches. (18)

Kru Pannya...had some trouble finding himself as a pastor at first. Eventually, he became the outstanding assistant pastor at Chiang Mai Church and an instructor in the Theological Training School. In both of these capacities, he received fulsome praise for the quality of his work, and for a time he took up

Kru Chai Ma (from Mae Dok Daeng Church)....had his problems at first, as well. After a year at Chiang Rai, he moved to the Muang Phrao area to work with the Chiang Dao Church, but he soon lost interest when the church did not pay his salary. However, in about 1901 Chiang Mai Station began to employ him for work in the Chiang Dao-Muang Phrao area, and as the years went by this elderly man became an increasingly capable and respected pastor. (20)

These were not the men of the myth, but, rather, older men ordained into the pastoral ministry without pastoral training for churches that had no heritage of having pastors and often did not want to pay them. In spite of all of these limitations, they proved themselves able pastors more often than not. Campbell, who witnessed the events of 1895 as a young missionary, commented twenty years later that the mission put these men in churches and left them there with no visits, counsel, or support from the mission. He concluded that with greater mission support a pastoral system could have been made to work in 1895. (21) The weight of his testimony becomes all the more conclusive when we consider that the three men licensed to preach in 1895 all proved to be capable pastors, particularly Kru Chailangka. (22) If to this little pot of bubbling leadership we add the many years of service of Nan Ta, we find that out of eleven ordained and licensed men only three proved to be failures as pastors while at least five proved to be from good to outstanding local church pastors.

We now begin to see the depths to which Laos Mission ideology and ecclesiology went: it so rigidly defined the church as child-like that it could not see the plain reality in front of it. And that is prejudice, which is precisely one of the points of this study: that the Laos Mission prejudged the northern Thai church as child-like and, therefore, incompetent, when the facts did not warrant that judgment. Robert Speer, on his official Board visit in 1915, confessed himself "dumbfounded" by this prejudice. He stated that he did not accept, on the basis of Board experience in other mission churches, the statement that the "Laos" could not raise up a capable ordained clergy. He found the mission's belief that it would have to run the church for another fifty to one hundred years "disconcerting." The elimination of pastoral leadership in northern Siam deeply troubled him since such leadership was a source of strength for other "native" churches. (23) In point of historical fact, Speer had reason for his doubts. The possibility of capable pastoral leadership was there. The mission, simply, failed to accept its existence.

The Pastors' Revolt of 1895 had serious repercussions for the development of pastoral ministry in northern Siam. It also initiated the debate over how the mission could get the churches to take more financial responsibility for themselves. When Irwin began pushing pastors for the churches, he linked with it the idea that the churches should support those pastors. Irwin tried to move even further down the road of self-support when he cut off the paid evangelists, again, arguing that the churches and not the mission should take responsibility for the evangelists. The principle of self-support transformed itself into a debate over means and timing. Appropriately enough, it also gave birth to another long cherished myth.

According to that myth, the mission claimed (and believed) that it had "tried" the Nevius Plan, an advanced program for ecclesiastical and Christian institutional self-support, and it failed. Writing fifty years after the fact, Taylor misremembered many of the events of the Pastors' Revolt of 1895 while contending that the Laos Mission in 1894- 1895 tried the Nevius Plan with the result that mission work came to a "stand-still" for a decade. By claiming that the Nevius Plan did not work in the North, he actually meant that the mission tried to institute financial self-support and failed. They felt that the reason they failed was that the churches were not "ready" for self-support. (24)

"We tried the Nevius Plan and it failed." This statement betrays a fundamental misunderstanding both of the "Nevius Plan" and actual events in the North. Briefly, the "Nevius Plan" resulted from the work and writing of John L. Nevius, a Presbyterian missionary in China, who in 1885 began publishing his ideas for changing mission work. He became influential in missionary circles, particularly among American Presbyterians, and the best known application of his principles was in Korean Presbyterian missions. Nevius proposed four fundamental goals for mission work: one, missions should keep their churches from depending upon the missions financially; two, missions should emphasize Bible study and Christian education using more knowledgeable Christians to teach the less knowledgeable ones; three, missions should not establish foreign systems of church government and church work; and four, missions should work to improve the economic life/independence of the churches. Nevius did not say that missions should not have paid evangelists although he himself tried to limit the numbers hired. He did support the idea of the churches paying their own pastors when they themselves decided that they wanted pastors. (25)

It is unlikely, in light of later events, that the majority approach of "gradualism" would have made much headway. However, events overseas now intervened: during the 1890s the American economy fluctuated considerably so that by 1897 the Board found it necessary to cut mission budgets. At first, many of the missionaries in northern Siam expressed considerable alarm over the heavy reduction they experienced, but within a short time most of them showed a more positive attitude. The budget cuts had forced the mission to spend less money on paid evangelists and direct local church support with the result that the churches had to take on more financial responsibility for themselves. (27) Particularly in the matter of paid evangelists, the mission adopted a stringent policy of limiting them to one per station, and more generally it greatly reduced the number of mission employees. (28)

However, the mission's enthusiasm for fiscal self-support did not last very long. The mainspring of the drive to return to the good old days of numerous mission employees came from the mistaken impression that volunteer evangelism could not win as many converts as paid evangelism. Dr. Peoples, writing in 1903, claimed that the policy of limited paid evangelism instituted in 1897 was "suicidally parsimonious", and as a result, he requested that year's annual meeting to reverse the policy by allowing him two paid evangelists for Nan. A special committee deliberated on the issue and came out in favor of increasing the numbers of paid evangelists as did another special committee appointed in 1905. (29)

One person, at least, objected to the widespread sentiment to return to the system of mission paid evangelists. In 1904, when the movement back was just beginning, Dr. Briggs pointed out that the mission was about to make

Nevertheless, the mission did gradually shift back to the paid evangelist system and in the process quietly dropped the whole push for self-support. After 1900, mission records hardly mention the matter at all for more than a decade. In 1909, Briggs concluded with some discouragement that the larger issue of self-support would have to wait for at least another generation as the churches were just not prepared for it. Bachtell in Chiang Rai commented in 1916 that the whole idea of self-support was a new one for the northern Thai church. After 1900 the only one who remained committed to the goal of self-support in practice was Irwin who worked towards that goal in Nan and then Phrae.(31)

The retreat from fiscal self-support for the churches reflected the Laos Mission's primary commitment to evangelism, that is, to the converting of large numbers of non-Christians. The fear expressed by Peoples and Taylor (above) and widely believed in the mission was that unless the mission paid for its evangelism the churches would not engage in it and the numbers would cease. In point of fact, a number of missionaries in the 1890s had pointed out that paid evangelism actually discouraged the church from taking responsibility for evangelism because most Christians saw it as a profession, one they did not get paid for and therefore did not engage in. The paid evangelists (usually elders) themselves discouraged others from doing "free" evangelism and often showed that they worried more about numbers than the quality of conversions of those numbers. (32) On the other hand, the missionaries themselves observed (in other contexts) that most new Christian groups came into existence through the (unpaid) efforts of converts who took their new faith home with them or Christians who moved into a new village. (33)

Yet the belief persisted that paid evangelism worked better. Campbell wrote in 1913 that the accumulated experience of the mission proved the wisdom of hiring paid evangelists in numbers. (34) This in spite of the fact that mission statistics indicate that in the period 1899 to 1902, after the brief dip in church growth immediately after the Pastor's Revolt, the churches grew at a

It was not a coincidence that the "movement" for self-support lost its steam as the mission reinstated paid evangelism in 1903 and afterwards. The mission felt it could not entrust the churches with evangelism. It also felt that the churches showed little inclination towards supporting themselves more generally. Thus, once again the mission took action to preserve its major concern, evangelism, while acquiescing to the churches' passivity in the matter of self-reliance. The majority in the mission was not willing to sacrifice its conversion rate for a self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating church because it feared that the sacrifices needed for the latter would destroy the former. Push evangelism! Go slow on the rest! Again, the results of this policy of putting other matters before the life of the church resulted in ultimately frustrating the goals of the mission. The evangelism-over-all policy resulted in, among other negative repercussions, a church that could not sustain evangelism.

Nevertheless, the myths of the incompetent pastors and the improvident churches remained firmly in the minds of a generation of Laos Mission missionaries. The power of the myths was that they confirmed the mission's adherence to structures and procedures that remained unchanged as a result.

Take a core sample of the northern Thai church: Lampang, 1911. The Christians of Lampang Station were organized into two churches, the Lampang Church and the newly founded (1910) Muang Yao Church. The Revs. C.R. Callender and H.S. Vincent served as co-pastors of the city church while its six elders and two deacons functioned as "an efficient board of advisors." The two pastors were just initiating a new scheme by which the two full-time

This core sample indicates that a regional ministry grew up to serve the "regional church" describes the main features of that ministry:

+ church leadership proceeded from the center, the station and its "city church," outward. Thus, the urban Christian community dominated the rural communities. Church leadership, including pastoral leadership, was sent to churches rather than called by the churches. The churches passively accepted those sent rather than actively supported those called.

+ at the very center of the urban center stood the missionary pastor-evangelist in whom was vested all authority over the Christian communities. The session of the city church functioned as merely an advisory body while those who visited the churches as quasi-pastors were employees of the station. All real power rested in the hands of the missionaries.

+ the model for church leadership and pastoral care came from that of the itinerating evangelist-missionary who moved from community to community.

+ the system removed capable local leaders, such as Kru Noi Wong, from their local churches and gave them itinerating assignments while failing to fill the leadership "breach" left by the absence of a capable local leader.

This system had two important consequences for the churches: first of all, it encouraged dependency on the mission and the city churches for formal leadership and effective program. Secondly, it did not localize the church, which remained, for all practical purposes, institutionally and structurally an amorphous conglomerate of disconnected, scattered small groups.

Because of its incorporation into the regional ministry system rather than remaining a purely local church office, the office of elder developed into a surprisingly complex position. When it became apparent that a pastoral system was not emerging in the church, many of the duties and functions of the pastoral office, sometimes including observing the sacraments, fell to the local elders even as they also often worked as itinerant evangelists. It has even been argued that a system where local elders served as de-facto pastors, "...harmonized with the social structures under which the people lived." (38) In fact, the elders did not evolve into pastor-like figures partly because they lacked pastoral training but also because the regional ministry system co-opted many of the best for work away from the local church. By the mid-1890s, the mission hired significant numbers of elders for itinerating evangelism, and by 1905 large numbers of them had been incorporated into the itinerating vaccinator-evangelist program of the Chiang Mai Hospital. (39)

The regional ministry model came to fruition in the ministry of Howard Campbell, pastor of the Chiang Mai Church. He developed a team-ministry approach in which he served as senior pastor and supervisor to a team of elders and clergymen. In 1908, for example, the two northern Thai clergymen assigned to the church plus four elders served under him — three in city work and three in rural work. Campbell not only itinerated but also gave much time to counseling and conferring with this team. It was typical of the regional ministry model that he spent about one-third of his time away from Chiang Mai. (40)

From about 1900 onwards, the few remaining northern Thai clergymen became fully incorporated into the regional ministry system so that they too

By the late 1910s, the institutional structures of the Laos Mission, educational and medical, received most of the mission's attention. All members of the Chiang Mai Station except Campbell, for example, were directly and deeply involved in institutional work. (42) The churches received far less attention. There was, in the closing years of the Laos Mission, no effective attempt nor even any will to attempt to correct the inadequacies of the regional church-regional ministry complex. Therefore, the northern Thai churches remained dependent on outside, foreign, and urban leadership.

Did it have to be this way ? The events in Phrae after 1900 give some interesting insights into the answer to that question.

Phrae Station opened in 1893, and for the next ten years it went understaffed and suffered through numerous personnel changes and some very difficult interpersonal tensions. It acquired a reputation as the weakest station in the mission, one that added numbers to its church only slowly. The Phrae Church in 1903 had just 151 members that were scattered widely across the countryside. (43)

In 1904, the mission transferred Irwin to Phrae, and he immediately moved to turn it into an experiment in his confidence in northern Thai church leadership. For a number of reasons, it looked as though the mission might have to close the station, thus Irwin saw that he had an opportunity to prepare the church to run its own life. He started by placing all administrative responsibility for the church in the hands of the Session, improving the church's oversight of local rural groups by having them select their own heads, and turning himself into merely an advisor to the Session. (44)

During the first year of the experiment (ending June 1905), Irwin felt that the Session did a reasonably good job of running the church. The elders shared in pastoral duties, and even though the rest of the mission predicted that the church could not run itself even for such a short time, things worked out well. The elders were all now able to lead worship and preach, and since all of the ones he had chosen to share in pastoral work had temple religious training he felt sure they could take on this added responsibility. He was sure of success. When the Session asked him to please take back full responsibility for the church, he refused and merely gave them suggestions for improving their administration of the church. (45)

He felt particularly proud of the church when, in a unique departure from standard procedures in other stations, the church itself conceived the idea for an all-member convention (then popular in other stations, see Chapter 7) and organized the entire matter without him. Even the question box,

In December 1905, the mission closed the Phrae Station, and Irwin returned to the U.S. where he resigned from the mission for reasons of health. Phrae became an out-station of Lampang with Roderick Gillies in nominal charge of the church. Gillies appointed one elder, with permission to administer the sacraments, head of the church. The church was not very happy about all of this claiming that the mission had "orphaned" it. (48) But, for the next year, 1906, things went along fairly well with Nan Chi serving as moderator of the church and the Session fully responsible for all aspects of its life. Two problems did arise: the Session largely ignored the village groups; and it proved difficult for the Session to discipline church members without a missionary to back them up. The church pleaded for the missionaries to come back. Margaret Gillies, after a visit to Phrae, expressed an opinion of the church quite different from that of Irwin. She pitied the poor people; they acted like sheep without a shepherd. Yet, she did note that they seemed to do a good job on their own in spite of it all. (49)

Yet, by 1907 Roderick Gillies and the rest of the mission were convinced that the Phrae experiment had already failed and regretted that the mission had ever "abandoned" Phrae. Previously convinced that the experiment could not have worked, the mission now laid plans to reopen the Phrae Station before, as some feared, the church there died. (50) The whole matter took on urgency when it seemed in 1908 that things were rapidly deteriorating in Phrae. Two more elders quit the church (one had already left previously) and village work remained totally neglected. But, then, reports from Phrae in 1909 showed that the situation had stabilized with Nan Chi, Ai ("Elder brother") Loom, and their wives showing themselves increasingly capable leaders. They still eagerly awaited the promised return of the missionaries; yet, the condition of the church was improved with women's work being particularly strong. (51)

For a brief five months in 1910, the Callenders re-opened the Phrae Station, but they soon had to leave. The station remained closed. The pace of renewal at Phrae did not suffer, and in 1911 the church had its best year yet

Finally, the mission reopened the Phrae Station in 1912 with two families assigned to it. According to the record, all of the problems the station faced and dealt with during its first year had to do with station administration, buildings and grounds, and medical and educational work. It had to find a new site for the station, build new buildings, and reestablish institutional work. On the other hand, church renewal, the justification for reopening the station, received very little attention. (53)

At first things seemed to go exceedingly well, as the church increased rapidly because of the medical work of the station during a period of intense epidemic. Growth was rapid enough so that the church group at Ban Pa Pung was constituted as a full church with 95 members in May 1914. Things were not quite as rosy as they seemed, however, and Marie Parks expressed considerable discouragement in 1915: firstly, most of the new converts had been more interested in medicine than religion and showed little interest in spiritual matters; secondly, because of mismanagement of funds the station was left without money for evangelistic, educational, or medical work. An article in the Laos News, "official" magazine of the mission, indicated that the Phrae Church and especially the Ban Pa Pung Church both suffered for want of good leadership. Meanwhile, the station largely ignored its two churches because of its heavy load of institutional and administrative work. (54) Events over the next four years proved Parks' discouragement well founded, and by 1920 the situation had gotten nearly out of hand as the Phrae families were reassigned to open the Chiang Rung (Yunnan, China) Station and temporary replacements had to be brought in. (55)

Irwin's experiment at Phrae was the only instance in which a missionary consciously prepared a church for and gave it responsibility for its own government. The conditions of his experiment were not encouraging. The Phrae Church was weak to begin with and showed no enthusiasm for self-government. Irwin had only two years to work with the church, and for six months of the period he was incapacitated by illness. Furthermore, the other members of the mission did not expect the experiment to succeed and did not really support it. Gillies, one of those skeptical from the beginning, was assigned to look out

All of these liabilities make the results of the experiment all the more convincing as the record indicates that by 1911 the Phrae Church had made good progress towards self-government. It grew. It developed its own leadership and its own program. The church's situation may not have been greatly exciting in 1911, but it was encouraging. Yet, one missionary commented on that situation to the effect of how much better it would have been, as good as it was, if missionaries had been present! Acknowledging that "native" leadership had performed acceptably, the missionary still assumed that anything the church could do the missionaries could do better. (56)

Given what actually happened in Phrae, the proposition that the missionaries could run local churches better than local church leadership is hard to accept. What happened was that the missionaries confused the Phrae Church's desire to be irresponsible with what it could actually do on its own. Where Irwin gently refused to allow the Phrae Church to use him as a convenience, the rest of the mission took the plaintive cries from the church for missionary leadership at their face value. They believed that those cries proved the necessity of missionary leadership. The record described above shows that the mission, in actual fact, could not lead the Phrae Church better than the church could lead itself. Perhaps, rather, I should say that even poorly trained lay leadership given the opportunity to lead proved to be better than mission "leadership" because the missionaries ignored the church. Between illness, personnel changes, building up the physical plant, and running the institutions, the station had no time left for the church. (57) Again and again, the pattern of the Laos Mission was that it prevented the emergence of indigenous leadership while failing to exercise that leadership itself.

Self-propagating. Self-supporting. Self-governing. The ideals. One of those patterns in the records of the Laos Mission that eventually sinks in to the researcher thus betraying an underlying tendency in the mission is this: when members of the mission wrote about these three ideals of self-reliance they frequently dropped the last one. They wrote of the goal of a self-propagating and self-supporting church, that is, a truncated "Two-self" movement. (58) The Laos Mission vigorously avoided doing those things which might actually