Like a Tree Planted By Streams of Water :The Baptist Church Takes Root In Macao (John and Lilian Galloway 1908-1968)

In 2014 Macao Baptist Church celebrated it’s 110th anniversary. How did the Baptist church come to be established in the Portuguese, predominantly Catholic and Buddhist city of Macao? Through careful examination of letters and reports from the main protagonists, John Laurels and Lilian Reeves Todd Galloway, the process of establishing the Baptist church can be revealed and understood within the greater context of the Baptist missionary work in China. The Galloway’s work will be evaluated through a framework of missions eras presented by Dr. Ralph D. Winter. This work looks at the material in two major sections; first, the lives of the Galloways in Macao from 1908 to 1968, and second, the missionary methods of the Galloways over the same period. Using missiological methods of the Kingdom Mission era, the Galloways stood firmly in the Church Mission era focusing their efforts on Personal rather than Social Transformation efforts. Their work laid the foundation for a century of Baptist work in Macao by local Christians as well as foreign missionaries.