From 1962 - 1969 in church in Guatemala was encountering a leadership problem.  There were not enough leaders for new churches starting up throughout the country.  Some orphans were chosen to study at the local Bible School with the hopes they would become leaders for these churches.  However, when they completed their studies they found churches to serve in the city more interesting than returning to the country churches. In addition, the Bible schools were not producing enough ministers to meet the rate that the church was growing. 

In the 1970’s, the church in Africa was facing a similar problem.  The church was growing quickly and the Bible school was not able to prepare and train leaders in time.  Many lay leaders were doing the duties and the responsibilities of pastors or leaders of churches though they had not received any training.

    During that time they tried to fix the problem by opening teaching via postal mail and mobile Bible schools in which the teacher travelled from one place to another in order to teach the Bible every 4-6 weeks.  But these ways of training were inadequate for the needs.  Leaders then came across information of how Latin American churches were teaching and training their people to serve in the church.  Students would leave their homes and go to a fixed location to receive training every week.  This way of studying and training was called “Theological Education Reaching the Student at Home.”  In Africa, missionaries Rev. Ralph Winter and his colleague Rev. Fred Holland worked with this program and later organized it calling it  “Theological Education by Extension” or in abbreviation, T.E.E.  Presently there are many organizations using this program.

The church in Thailand, today, has a similar problem as the church in Guatemala and Africa encountered.  We have a shortage of leaders in our churches.  Our bible Schools cannot keep up with the growth of the churches and the need for pastors.  Many of the leaders in our churches have not received any training.  Many leaders would like to go to Bible school but are not able to leave their work and families to go study for 4 years.

    In 1989, there were 3 women in one of our churches who wanted to be discipled.  At that point in their life, they had not thought about the possibility of discipling other new believers - they just wanted to study the Bible. Dr. Leok Har Chan, a missionary from Malaysia discipled these women.  While she was studying at the Alliance Theological Seminary in America she discovered a discipleship curriculum called “Abundant Life.”  After returning to Thailand she taught this curriculum to these 3 women in English.  Later she thought that it would be better to translate the material into Thai so that other Thai people could use it too.  After these 3 women finished the Abundant Life book, they began to study other topics from the Bible.

Rev. Norman Ford, a missionary in Thailand suggested Dr. Chan use “The Life of Christ” curriculum to continue teaching the 3 ladies.  This curriculum was part of the S.E.A.N. program which is an abbreviation for Study by Extension for All Nations.  

    In the 1990’s Dr. Jerry Soung began using the Life of Christ material with the Hmong in Northern Thailand.   He used the Hmong translation of the materials that he had used while he was a pastor in America before coming to Thailand as a missionary.

    In the year 2000, the Siam mission received finances to translate all of the S.E.A.N. materials in the Thai language.  Rev. Larry had returned from the states at that time and helped with the revisions and updating of the materials, putting them in book form

     In  2002, Rev. Larry and his team finished the translation of books 1 to 3 and began to translate other materials from S.E.A.N.  The first Center for Leadership Development was begun at the Mahapawn Sukkhumvit Church in Bangkok with Dr. Leok Har Chan and one of the pastors, Miss Pawinee Chetsuthayangkul, serving as the center leaders.  They began training 4 lay leaders of the church.  Since that time the number of centers and center leaders and students have gradually grown.

The center for Leadership Development or CLD began with a vision to develop leaders in thai churches. We emphasize training lay leaders to serve and build disciples of Jesus Christ.

The process of this leadership program is beneficial for the church to develop a team of leaders who can serve together with the pastor.  We provide an opportunity for the local church to organize the leadership training program in their church with the idea of building new leaders from within who are equipped and able to serve.  We provide theological materials for the students of the local church.  We are a center for Biblical studies emphasizing the development of new leadership in the local church.  We recognize the lack of pastors, lay leaders and program to develop leaders in the local church.  Most churches do not have a plan to develop lay leaders over and above teaching evangelism and discipleship.  The Center of Leadership Development is organized in a simple format that can be used to train lay leaders in the local church both theologically and with ministry opportunities.  This program is designed to help new leaders gain skills and knowledge in shepherd care, teaching, discipleship, preaching, small group leadership, church planting, evangelism, etc.

Core Values for Leadership Development

    The Center for Leadership Development (CLD)  strongly emphasizes the following 10 Core Values in the life and service of its students.  The heart of developing leadership is found in the following 10 values

1.Maturity

    A shepherding leader must be spiritually mature.  Their life must reflect the life of Jesus Christ and clearly produce the fruits of the spirit

2.Obedience

    The best way to train a spiritual leader is giving them the opportunity to follow God’s will completely.

3.Apprenticeship

    The ability to pastor is learned by learning from good examples and practice.

4.Integrity

    Leadership training helps develop character resulting in trust and respect.

5.Transparency

    Mutual openness facilitates character formation.

6.Accountability

    Regular evaluation shapes a good leader.

7.Community

    Spiritual formation emerges from group interaction.

8.Teachability

    A good leader does not depend on him/herself alone but is a humble lifetime learner.