I am Pastor Sangwien Duangkham. Together with my wife Saratcha we founded Siam Bangkok Church 12 years ago. We have 3 children; 1 son and 2 daughters.

Siam Bangkok Church is located in  Bangkok, the capital city of  Thailand. We have about 10 million people in Bangkok, out of 67 million people in the whole country. About 95% are Buddhists, 4% are Muslim, Hindu and others and less than 1% are Christians.

The average sizes of the churches in Thailand are between 50-100 people. But we do have some big churches that have about 300-1,000 people. The whole world knows Thailand as the center of Buddhism.

Before going G12 in late 2004, my church had only about 20-30 people. We tried to follow the old FCBC cell church system for so many years but we fail. The church did not grow as we expected. It kept decreasing when many people left the church and I wondered why. But since going into G12, in just one and a half year my church now has about 100 people, a 400% growth. Praise the Lord !

It was in June 2004, God showed us the Vision when I attended the G12 Conference in Bangkok taught by Apostle Lawrence Khong. I found out that the Vision of G12 is more like a real family in Christ. It makes us want to sacrifice our lives for one another just like Jesus has done for his disciples and for us. I realized also that G12 can get along very well with the Thai culture. It releases women to serve side by side together with men. Therefore I opened my heart to accept and receive the G12 Vision.

Ever since I changed the church system from our previous cell church system to G12, I strongly feel God moving in my church. God has done so many things in my church. Many people got saved through our church ministry. The church is growing so fast. Every one of us can now feel the changes that are taking place in our church. The first thing is the fulfillment God gave to us with the G12 Vision. We all have the same goal now to have our own 12 disciples and to have 300 people in our church by the end of this year. Our people also can see the Vision clearly in our church and they are growing stronger in Christ. And by the year 2025, by the grace of God, we believe that we will be able to plant a church in every province of Thailand through G12 Vision. This is our new dream.

Now in our church we love one another more and more and have become more united. We are more open with our life to one another, so our relationships are getting closer. The atmosphere in our church is more family-like. People can feel the movement of the Holy Spirit. Our brothers and sisters-in-Christ are more active in serving the Lord. We are more zealous now to do the work of evangelism because we want to see more Thai people get saved and enlarge the kingdom of God in our nation.

In our G12 meetings, people enjoy themselves and have a lot of fun. When they come they do not feel that it is boring anymore. We are more open in some areas of our lives now and it is more real. We encourage one another; we worship, pray and praise the Lord together. We bless and strengthen one another.

FCBC helped us a lot during the transition through the encounters. They supported us by sending Pastors Richard and Jenny Ong to conduct the encounter camp for pastors, leaders and members of Thai churches on many occasions. In our church, we run pre-encounters, encounter camps every 2 months and post-encounters. And now we are in SOL 2.

We have received a lot of benefits from the whole process. Now we can see the people in our church changing and becoming more spiritually matured. We have seen so many miracles where God set His people free from their problems, struggles, evil spirits, difficulties and sexual sins. Many people have received both physical and inner healing. We have been destroying idols, pornographic materials and secular heavy metal music CDs. God has restored many family’s relationships.

Through G12, my wife and I now work together better than before. We know our own roles. My wife looks after all the women and I look after all the men. God restored the relationships between me and my wife, as well as the relationships with some church members. My wife is a good teacher and preacher, serving the Lord together with me with confidence.

We would like once again to thank Apostle Lawrence Khong, Pastor Nina and FCBC. Thank you for coming to Thailand to help us with the G12 conferences. We really appreciate your invitations both times last year and this year for the International G12 Conference. It is really helpful to multiply the Kingdom of God in our nation. Together we believe that the Great Commission of Jesus Christ will be fulfilled in this nation and the rest of the world.

May God bless you.  

Testified by: Pastor Sangwien Duangkham, Siam Bangkok Church

Posted on: 24 March 2006