wfn.org | Early morning “Praise Dance” classes help church plant gospel seeds

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>      Taiwan Church News

>3046 Edition

>July 12~July 18, 2010

Early morning “Praise Dance” classes help church plant  gospel seeds

>Reported by Chen Yi-hsuan

>Written by Lydia Ma

Beginning July 1, 2010, Dong-Ning Presbyterian Church in Tainan  will open a 
Praise Dance

class at a small park on Youth Road in eastern Tainan City. The  class will be 
the third of its

kind that the church has started in recent years.

The church is calling on Christians who live nearby to invite  friends and 
relatives to join this

program so that more people can get some exercise every morning.  Praise Dance 
Ministry is

sponsored by the church’s women’s fellowship and classes  are taught by a 
retired teacher.

This ministry first began in Dong-Ning Park more than 3 years ago.  But the 
church began

offering extra classes at a park near Tainan Municipal Stadium in  April of 
this year. Now, it has

begun offering lessons at a third location – a park adjacent to  Taiwan Church 
Press on Youth Road.

In the past 3 years, each class has attracted more than 10  students, and there 
are currently

over 40 regular students from all locations combined. More than  half of these 
students are

>non-Christians who have never gone to church.

According to Cheng Ming-min, wife of Dong-Ning Church pastor, Rev.  Lin 
Jui-lung, Praise

Dance Ministry is one of the strategies the church has been using  to share the 
gospel. The

program’s purpose is to loosen the “soil” of  people’s hearts and prepare it 
for “gospel seeds”.

Though most students in Praise Dance classes aren’t  Christians and likely 
won’t darken a

church door, they continue to attend classes on a regular basis.  “We can’t be 
impatient. For

now, we only hope that they’ll join us in shouting out  “hallelujah!” during 
class or prayer,” said Cheng.

She added that students are slowly reaching out to one another and  some 
non-Christians will

even accept prayers of blessing over their families once they  understand what 
prayer is about.

Each class usually requires one teacher, one administrative staff,  and one 
usher to welcome

people to join the class, Cheng said. “Oftentimes, we find  people standing on 
the sidelines

watching us. Because southern Taiwanese people are usually shyer,  someone 
needs to be

there to approach them and invite them to join in,” she  explained.

The new class on Youth Road has so far attracted about 17 people,  half of them 
non-

Christians. The church hopes to use these classes and music  concerts to get to 
know more

people in the community and share the gospel with them.

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