OP Missionaries

Paul looked at the text that pinged on his smartphone. It was a coded message from a man interested in attending the English Bible study that Paul led. After deciphering that this man had a Christian background, Paul sent a photo of the Westminster Standards with some characters blacked out for security. The man messaged back, “I’m Reformed too! We can work together closely, brother.”

In a society under an oppressive atheistic government, it’s shocking to find Christians who “want to be Reformed.” When the OPC Mission here began thirty-two years ago, in 1994, missionaries saw spiritual hunger, but no one that they talked to knew what Reformed theology was. Who would have guessed that God would be pleased to bring the Mission’s commitment to consistent Reformed teaching and practice into participation with a full-blown Reformed movement reaching every corner of this nation? The glorious Sovereign God knew and has used the Mission and your “yarpers” (prayers) to do something really big!

What follows is the story of this ministry from seed to fruit. For the safety of the members of the Mission, believers and friends, local churches and their leaders, names have been changed, but not the account of how God has worked so powerfully in the region we generalize as “Asia.” We hope that you’ll be as encouraged in reading as we are in sharing the good news of God’s building of his kingdom here.

A New OPC Mission

In 1994, “Paul” was called by the OPC Committee on Foreign Missions (CFM) to serve as a missionary evangelist in Asia. He was called to one country, but with the hopes of eventually serving that country’s neighbor—a land with closed borders and zero tolerance to the gospel. Paul had grown up as a Presbyterian missionary’s kid in Asia, where he met his wife, “Sue,” also Presbyterian. Both felt a calling to do gospel outreach to the people in this hostile nation, whose language they both spoke fluently. In the Lord’s providence, their ministry instead blossomed inside their first country of service.

They connected with a Christian businessman who was opening a university. Paul was able to use his degree in teaching English as a foreign language to obtain residency for his family and labor as an English professor in this program, teaching mostly the ethnic minority who spoke the language that Paul and Sue had spoken all their lives.

Despite being monitored for political and religious teaching—this country has also been closed to foreign missionaries for decades—Paul was placed in classrooms where he could teach English and establish relationships with students who spoke “his” language. What a unique opportunity to establish relationships and to spread the gospel!

Dozens of Missionary Associates—and One Missionary

Realizing that this evangelism model could be expanded to set up an office to bring in more overseas Christians to teach conversational English, Paul actively recruited dozens of native English speakers from the OPC who could teach and live among students. Beginning in 2000, Paul developed a robust mission team system, working through the OPC’s missionary associate program. Most missionary associates taught conversational English to obtain a visa and connect with students just like Paul did. They also supported the work of the Mission by teaching Bible studies one-on-one, teaching at the local churches, and organizing community-wide evangelistic activities.

Over one hundred and fifty people (including families with children) from at least fourteen different Reformed and evangelical denominations visited the Mission. Some served for at least a summer in the missionary associate program; many committed a year or more to assist the Mission. The Lord used them to sow the seeds of the gospel and bring many to church for the first time. One Bible study that Paul began saw hundreds of people exposed to the Word of God and brought into contact with the church—and this Bible study is still running, thirty-two years later.

In the fall of 2001, a missionary associate named “Titus” arrived in Asia. Titus, an OPC licentiate, was interested in missionary service but not sure of where to serve. Paul sent him an out-of-the-blue invite, and Titus came as a missionary associate, planning to stay for two years. One of his efforts was teaching an English Bible study at a local church. While the Bible study was not especially fruitful, Titus did meet the preacher’s daughter, “Milly,” who was fluent in English. They were married a year later, and Titus’s original two-year commitment turned into a lifelong call. In 2004, he was called and ordained to serve as an OP missionary evangelist, focusing on service in the majority language of the country.

In God’s providence, the Mission in Asia now had two missionary evangelists and could reach two primary language groups in that country.

Partnering with Local State Churches

During the early years of the Mission, Paul, and then Titus, partnered with state churches instead of house churches. These two broad categories represent the two kinds of Protestant churches in this country: those officially registered and sanctioned by the government and those that are unregistered, unsanctioned “house churches” that frequently meet in homes. Certain compromises with the government characterized many of the state churches—such as allowing the government to vet all candidates for office—but other state churches, particularly in the ethnic minority that Paul served, maintained basic evangelical theology and practice. Paul found that the state churches in his area upheld some Reformed theology and practice and were more open to the Reformed teaching of the Mission. House churches, on the other hand, were free from government interference but tended to be all over the map theologically—Pentecostalism especially was widespread.

Then the Lord provided an amazing connection. Paul discovered that the senior pastor of the largest state church in his area had a tie to the OPC. The senior pastor’s mother had come to faith under the ministry of Bruce Hunt, OP missionary and charter member, when Hunt labored in this region prior to World War II. That connection provided a natural bridge between Paul’s work for the OPC and the local church.

An important aspect of Paul’s work at this time was leadership training in cooperation with local state churches. The earliest attendees of these classes were church staff. Paul taught men one-on-one, in small groups, and in several different situations in Bible schools. He taught in an official Bible school run by the state church and in a secret school. And he would participate in programs run by other missionaries. Paul most often taught the Westminster Standards, English Bible, the Gospel of John, and biblical language basics.

Paul’s teaching, as a foreigner, could have brought serious legal consequences for the churches. However, on the several occasions that a government inspector came, the church was given advance warning to avoid trouble—and so that the church could give a thank-you “gift” to the inspector for verifying that it met government standards. When the inspector was due to arrive, the students would bring Paul into a side room, give him plenty of coffee, and ask him to wait quietly. What the inspector said each time was clearly audible: “Use Christianity to help people to be morally good and to follow the [governing party]. Don’t have ties with outsiders.” After the speech was over, Paul would return to the classroom and continue his lectures.

A New Direction: House Churches

As Titus’s language abilities developed, he also began to teach and develop relationships among local leadership in majority-language state congregations. He taught on the Westminster Standards, 1 Corinthians, the character and spiritual life of pastors and elders, and Presbyterian church government.

On one occasion, Titus was invited to a friend’s ordination in the state church. The service included a female pastor who laid hands on his friend and a government official who proclaimed that the governing party was “the light of the world!” This was a pivotal moment for Titus. Compromise like this could not be tolerated. He began to think through how the Mission could work to establish majority-language Reformed churches outside the state system.

In 2009, Titus was introduced to “Phillip,” a minister in a much larger city nearby. Phillip invited Titus to come and work with him and the house church he served, a “little group” with three elders. At that time, relocating to serve a small house church didn’t seem like a wise move—and Titus was about to go on furlough with his family.

But the next year, Titus traveled to Phillip’s city and discovered that the “little group” was actually a vibrant church network that served more than eight hundred believers and was led by three capable, well-trained men who had generically been ordained as elders. Originally, this network had been fundamentalist Baptist, but the elders, having been influenced by Asian ministers in the United States, desired the network to move in a more Reformed and Presbyterian direction. Quite quickly, it became apparent that there was a compelling case for Titus’s family to relocate and serve this network, greatly extending the influence of the OP Mission.

In 2012, Titus’s family relocated to the city where Phillip pastored, for what would be a two-and-half-year stay. He served as an advisor for the elders, and at one point assisted Phillip in starting and overseeing a couple of small church plants. But Titus’s main responsibility was training the three elders of the church, with the goal of preparing them to be examined and ordained to form a presbytery based in that city. In 2015, Phillip and another elder were ordained as ministers, bringing Titus’s in-residence ministry in that city to a happy conclusion.

Proto-Presbyteries in the Southeast and West

Titus’s new location also served as a sort of base, from which he cooperated with other house churches all over the country who were becoming Reformed. In the winter of 2011, he traveled seventeen hundred miles to two cities, one in the southeast and another in the west. Each became significant to his ministry.

The city to the southeast held a network of churches that were in some trouble between themselves. There was division and infighting within the church, and Titus was being asked to advise them on moving forward in unity. The first few visits were nerve-wracking, but he helped them to write a provisional constitution. He also helped prepare the way for the first three men of this church network to be ordained as pastors in 2016.

The city to the west held a church of around eight hundred attendees whose pastor, although well-known and established, wanted to become formally ordained in a Reformed church. Titus assisted in preparing church history exams for him and then was also asked to join a ministerial credentialing committee composed of this newly ordained pastor and two missionaries from a church of like faith and practice. By 2013, thanks to the work of the committee, two more pastors were also ordained in this city; then three ruling elders were trained and ordained, two sessions formed, and a presbytery was established adopting the Westminster Standards and a book of church order. That credentialing committee became the candidates and credentials committee of the presbytery in the west, but, not wanting to be separate from the work ongoing in other cities as well, it also assisted in the examination of ministerial candidates and the establishment of presbyteries in other parts of the country.

In the summer of 2016, Titus’s family moved to the west to cooperate more closely with the churches and missionaries there. He assisted in the editing of the presbytery’s book of church order for use of other presbyteries and, in 2017 and 2018, helped organize the first two pastors’ fellowships—a provisional-general-assembly-like meeting—of the forming Presbyterian Church. When the chairman of the candidates and credentials committee stepped down due to other commitments, Titus was asked to serve as chairman, a role which he still holds today. With this committee, he has examined more than one hundred and thirty men for licensure and ordination.

Reformed Christian Literature

How did Titus become the “church government guy” that Reformed Christians in this country knew they could come to with their questions? It was due, in part, to the Mission’s writing, translation, publication, and distribution of Reformed Christian books and pamphlets—one of its most fruitful areas of ministry.

From the earliest days of the Mission, Paul aggressively reprinted and distributed thousands of Bibles, tracts, and Reformed literature, all in the language of the ethnic minority that he was serving. When Titus arrived, the work of distributing literature in the language of the ethnic majority greatly expanded as well.

Initially, Titus had the literature photocopied at a printshop with the permission of the original publishers. However, in early 2003, someone suggested that it would not be difficult to produce books with glossy covers from digital files, and a new phase of literature production began. The first title was a book of essays on Reformed theology, by a variety of authors. From that point on, the Mission translated, edited, and printed dozens of books and booklets. Notably, Titus’s introduction to Presbyterianism, published in 2010, helped to establish Titus as a resource on Reformed and Presbyterian church government.

In total, the Mission has distributed over thirty thousand books, the majority of which have been printed by the Mission itself, and has maintained a database for the standardization of theological terms. Currently, Titus is a board member of a publishing company that is distributing in electronic form several titles produced or edited by the Mission.

Church Planting in the Northeast—a Bold Step

While Titus was making connections and serving Christ’s church throughout the country, Paul was experiencing changes in the local churches in the northeast.

Throughout the early 2000s, many of Paul’s students inside the state church wanted a more thorough theological education. While appreciative of what they were receiving, they wanted formal biblical training. Paul, who had a growing relationship with a denomination of like faith and practice in the country where he had been raised, recommended that the men study at that denomination’s theological academy.

Over the years, as the men Paul discipled returned to their home country from their seminary studies abroad, many of them found that the dichotomy between what the Bible taught and what the state churches practiced was just too stark. Older state church leadership voiced respect for the Reformed standards as the most faithful summary of God’s Word. However, in reality, they often would not follow that teaching when it did not match their management style, money-raising methods, or church-growth strategies. They felt they had to keep smooth ties with the government to keep their church buildings and licenses to operate. But many of the younger men, trained by Paul and the Reformed seminary abroad, were now coming to Paul and saying that their consciences would not allow them to be ordained in the state church. They felt God was calling them to plant a new Reformed church outside of the state system. They asked the OP Mission, “Can you help us?”

The answer was “yes,” but also that this bold step must be taken in a way which would please God—respectfully leaving the churches from which they had come, causing as little disruption as possible to the ongoing work, and focusing on evangelism rather than seeking to snatch believers from other churches.

Good ecclesiology is important in missiology. Because these men, not yet officers in the church, could not plant a church alone, the OP Mission lent its ordained missionaries to establish a new church, gather the people to worship, and receive the sacraments in the context of church accountability. With approval of the CFM, in 2014 the Mission began to hold worship services in both local languages and continued to cast the net by evangelism to gather in the people God was bringing.

During this time, Paul thought the Mission could continue working with its old friends in the state church, even as the Mission cooperated with house churches and planted a new church outside the state church system. But that did not prove possible. When the Mission’s partners in the state church realized that the Mission wanted to plant a new house church and was strongly opposed to the non-Reformed practices they had fallen into, they felt they needed to act. In 2015, the state church leadership summoned Paul and told the Mission to either agree to ordaining women as ministers and to the teaching of ongoing revelation, or leave. The Mission had no choice but to say goodbye to the state churches with whom they had worked for over fifteen years, and to focus almost exclusively on working with the house churches.

It was also in 2015, in the fall, that the work of Paul and Titus began to come together. The ordination of the first pastor in the provisional presbytery in the northeast not only meant that the desires of the young men for a new and faithful church had been realized, but also they were introduced to the work happening in the other parts of the country. Titus and Paul had invited Phillip and another pastor from the presbytery to the north to attend the service. To this day, while no formal ties have yet been made, the pastors seek advice from and occasionally visit each other.

Attacks, Arrests, and Exits

In 2018, the organized presbytery in the west came under intensifying persecution from the state. The government launched a major attack upon its most prominent church and its associated seminary. It arrested dozens of people, including the pastor, and ransacked their facilities.

Just before the arrests, Titus had traveled to the other side of the country to work with Christians there. He was en route to a pastors’ gathering in the east when he, and the other pastors, learned about the arrests in the west. So great was their concern for the future of the church, not the present, that the pastors in the east persevered with their plans to meet and revise the book of church order—while in prayer for their persecuted brothers and sisters in the west!

Because of the close connection that Titus had with the seminary, however, the Mission and the CFM determined that it would be best for him to take an early furlough. He departed with his family three days later. Then COVID hit. That, and logistical issues involving the family’s visas, made a return to Asia impractical. From 2018 until now, Titus has labored for the church in Asia from a base in the United States, including helping to prepare men for their licensure and ordination exams. Under an alias, he is well known among the country’s Reformed Christians.

In the northeast, the house churches in the city where Paul first began his ministry need to keep their size below forty-five for security reasons. With such small numbers, the church has not yet been able to become financially independent. One congregation was shut down twice by the police—the second closure was such a great trauma to one of the ordained pastors that he had to lay down ministerial office. Although it has been eleven years since the establishment of the provisional presbytery, her affiliated Mission works are not yet particularized because they do not have elders. The training of men to be elders is underway again and should be completed by the end of 2026.

At times, to make the indigenous church thrive and grow, the Lord removes the foreign missionaries and makes the church stand on her own without external help. He is glad to use willing servants from afar, but he does not need them. In addition to Titus now laboring from the United States, in the last five years Paul has had to leave the country twice—the first time, in 2021, was because the university where he taught for twenty-seven years was closed. Currently, he is looking for a way to continue his ministry inside the country.

The Fruit of Three Decades of labor

While the OPC through its missionaries has sown seeds over the years, no one could have foreseen the abundant fruit God would produce in this country.

Now in the northeast, where Paul began his ministry with very little, there are three Presbyterian church plants, two worshiping in the minority language and one in the majority language, which are served by three ordained ministers. These ministers, along with a minister laboring out of bounds and Paul, constitute a provisional presbytery. This is primarily the fruit of the OPC Mission through her evangelism and church leadership training. They use the OPC’s Book of Church Order as their own and recently began the hard and important work of adapting it. The congregations of this presbytery are characterized by their songs of praise expressing glory directly to the Triune God and their unity on Reformed theology and biblical practice.

Elsewhere in the country, forty-eight ministers of the gospel and approximately the same number of ruling elders, along with ninety licentiates, are organized into seven presbyteries (two of which are provisionally established) and constitute a forming Presbyterian denomination comprised of about seven thousand people. This body is the fruit of multiple mission organizations and missionaries, including the OPC Mission through the labors of Titus. However, it is especially the fruit of the work of the church herself and the work of the Spirit in the hearts and lives of men and women who want to faithfully serve their God and Savior Jesus. May God be praised! May the church ever be reformed and beautified by his Word and Spirit!

Paul and Titus are OP missionaries writing under pseudonyms.

Missionary Associate and Child of God
By an OP member

Most missionary associates in “Asia” didn’t give much thought to imminent death even when serving close to the border of an enemy of the United States. We lived on the safer side, and most of us worked as college teachers. In fact, our sense of security was so normal that we dismissed a boom beneath our city as an earthquake. The US headlines reached us later: “Nuclear Test.” It was serious enough for an item to be scribbled on our faculty meeting’s agenda—evacuation plan. What would we do if war broke out? One teacher smiled and, while pointing upwards, said, “We have an evacuation plan.”

For OP missionary associates supporting the Mission, our everyday job was to teach English well and be a witness of Christ. We prayed that God would let us have conversations in and outside class about his grace to rescue sinners. The hundreds of students and people in the community that we were teaching had never heard the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. For them, the message of their paternalistic atheist state was to achieve a good life through hard work and self-reliance—anything else was for the weak.

So, I shouldn’t have been surprised at the look of shock on one former student’s face when we read John 1:12–13, and I said, “Yes, I’m a child of God.” Trying to explain that Christians were adopted by God and that this made them his children did not mitigate her surprise. It was a moment of clarity for me to see that such a gift of God, which I took for granted, was beyond her comprehension!

Living as a Child of God in a Paternalistic State

Living self-consciously as a child of God was crucial both for my own Christian witness and for the discipleship of the young believers and the seekers accompanying us to the local church.

At first, it was just a necessity to ask students who voluntarily came with us to the local state church to translate the sermons for us. One woman, “Mercy,” began coming to increase her English skills. For me, our twenty-minute walks to and from church became opportunities to share what it meant to worship God. I’d explain about the sacraments or the order of worship. On the way back, I’d ask questions about Mercy’s translation or the sermon topic, partly to see what she understood. Soon she joined a weekly Bible study with other students in my home.

Simple questions led to conversations that taught us about the people we served in this community. I’d been Mercy’s teacher for one semester when she was a freshman. I’d listened and learned from her and other students that many aspired to escape their circumstances through education, wealth, and influence. Many were left-behind children, their parents obliged by economic need to take jobs in far-off places. I prayed for the opportunity to offer the life that money cannot buy.

One young man saw something otherworldly in another missionary associate who was a seasoned OP minister. When I asked the young man what he thought about his teacher, he told me curiously that his teacher was “a good man.” He’d never met a man who would adopt and raise foreign children as his own. He saw a good father but didn’t realize that he was also seeing a man who was himself a child adopted by the Lord.

Bringing People to Church

The Mission had a clear goal that our evangelistic activity would lead people to the local church for ongoing discipleship. Mercy had made a private profession of faith while we were still attending the state church, but it was time for the next step. The Mission had planted a house church committed to biblical and Reformed worship. Going to the church plant could bring government scrutiny, yet my task was now to invite Mercy to attend the church’s Bible studies and Sunday worship.

I also attended the church plant to support the fellowship of believers—to pray, enjoy meals together, share lives, build friendships, and bring in the lost so that the seeds sown could organically flourish within the church community. Sometimes discipleship meant answering simple questions like, “Is it okay if someone kicks my chair at church?” Sometimes it meant encouraging someone like Mercy to consider whether she was ready to be baptized as a child of God even if her family and society might oppose it.

As missionary associates, we prayed regularly that the Lord would be pleased to use that pattern of going to Sunday worship and being his witnesses, sometimes under persecution and ridicule, as a sign pointing others to look upwards to his sovereign evacuation plan. We knew our own weakness, and we rejoiced and trusted the Lord to do what nobody in their own strength can do. In the face of something worse than a nuclear test, we prayed for him to bring all his children out of death into eternal life in Jesus Christ.

The author served as an OP missionary associate in Asia. New Horizons, May 2026.