wfn.org | Taipei's Kikwang Presbyterian Church to Send Missionary to Thailand

["pctpress" <pctpress@ms1.hinet.net>]

Taiwan Church News 2726, 24 through 30 May 2004
Reported by: Li Hsin-ren.  Translated and Rewritten by David Alexander

Over the last six years the Northern Synod of the Presbyterian Church in
Taiwan (PCT) has supported a mission project among the Aka people of Northern
Thailand.  It has mostly involved short-term appointments of technical
experts
and medical workers.  Mr. Lin Jing-fu, executive secretary of the Aka Mission
Committee says that the work is beginning to bear fruit and now requires an
evangelist.  This year the synod wishes to send one on a long-term contract
and has a candidate ready and willing to go.  Mr. Kao Sun-hsing (Ko Sun-heng)
will graduate from Taiwan Theological College in Taipei early in June and has
been judged qualified for the position.  But an administrative knot must
first
be untied.

Candidates for ministry in the PCT must graduate from an accredited
theological seminary with the Master of Divinity degree, after which they
serve two years of "internship" in a local church or ministry agency before
being examined for ordination to the office of Minister of Word and
Sacrament.
Unless a new graduate chooses to fill a church vacancy in the Peng-hu
Archipelago or in a College Campus Ministry center he or she will be assigned
by drawing of lots to open positions under the supervision of a local
presbytery (district). No provision has heretofore been made for graduates
desiring to serve as cross-cultural missionaries.

Ki-kwang Presbyterian Church, a congregation in the Seven Stars Presbytery,
has stepped up to solve the problem.  The church's board of elders will
request an evangelist from among the new graduates to be sent to Thailand. 
No
"name" can be mentioned in the request, but it will be understood that this
is
for Mr. Kao. He will then need to be exempted from the normal "drawing of
lots." This will require action at Presbytery, Synod and General Assembly
levels.  Basically a new administrative category will have to be created for
a
group of one person, Mr. Kao.  If all goes as hoped his membership and
supervision will be placed under the board of Kikwang Church and he will be
posted to Thailand by the Presbytery.

The Rev. Shih Lien-cheng, head of the General Assembly's Evangelism Committee
(which oversees the procedures by which new graduates are assigned), said,
"Current procedures limit the choice of graduates to Peng-hu, Campus Work, or
the draft. We've not had to deal with overseas mission for new graduates in
the past. It seems that all we can do now is to respect the regulations in
place until the General Assembly meets next spring. Of course we must attempt
to respond to the current situation, but for the sake of fairness to all
graduates, I hope we can respect the systems that exist."

Kikwang Church has a history of helping untie knots.  It was founded in a
ground floor apartment that would have been unsalable because the mother and
two children of the democracy activist owner were murdered there in cold
blood
in a 1980 political assassination. Over the years it has taken a role as
neighborhood center and memorial to Taiwan's democracy movement.  President
Chen Shui-bian has spoken from its pulpit, and early in May of 2004 an
independent church that ministers primarily among homosexuals borrowed its
sanctuary as the location for their pastor's ordination because they could
not
fit all who wanted to attend within their own hall.

For More Information: gikong@netown.org.tw
		  www.gikong.disciple.com.tw
   Shih Lien-cheng  pct.bdchp@msa.hinet.net
Taiwan Church News is published weekly in Taiwan's local languages.
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