Urban church focuses on local missions by reaching out to indigenous church in need of assistance

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

3127 Edition

January 30-February 5, 2012

Church Ministry News

 Urban church focuses on local missions by reaching out to indigenous church in 
need of assistance  

Reported by Chen Yi-hsuan

Written by Lydia Ma

Thai-peng-keng Maxwell Memorial Church in Tainan Presbytery recently cemented a 
partnership with Sediq District’s Gluban Presbyterian Church. An agreement 
signed on January 15, 2012 stipulated that Maxwell Church would help Gluban 
Church with local missions for the next 3 years, help Gluban Church pay for its 
pastor’s salary, and assist Gluban Church in local ministries during winter and 
summer breaks.

Maxwell Church’s pastor, Rev. Chen Tien-chang said he hoped members of his 
congregation will learn and grow into committed and mission-minded Christians 
through helping out in this ministry. For his part, Sediq District General 
Secretary Awi Tadaw expressed his gratefulness to Maxwell Church and his desire 
to see Gluban Church become a strong, self-funded church soon.

On the day the agreement was signed, the entire Gluban congregation came to 
Tainan to take part in Maxwell Church’s Sunday service. Gluban Church’s 
children gave a song offering during the service and its pastor, Minister Lubi 
Pihu, gave a brief introduction and demonstration of the Sediq language to 
introduce her church to the congregation.

Gluban Church and Maxwell Church got acquainted with each other through Awi 
Tadaw, who happened to be a classmate of Chen when both were studying their 
doctorate at Tainan Theological College and Seminary. After Awi Tadaw spoke to 
Chen, the latter reported to his church board about the needs of Gluban Church 
and 4 elders visited Gluban Church to learn more about the needs of this small 
indigenous church.

Reflecting on recent experiences with evangelism, Chen said that members of his 
church told him that doing missions wasn’t easy after they’d gone on a missions 
trip to Myanmar. In response, he reminded his congregations that though 
churches may talk about missions often, it is imperative to reflect on whether 
they match their words with tangible actions. Hence, one of the goals of this 
partnership with Gluban Church is to train the youths in his congregation to be 
mission-minded from a young age. “We cannot only focus on our own well-being. 
We must think about the needs of other churches more often,” he said. 

Awi Tadaw agreed with Chen and underscored that missions is a group activity 
that should involve the entire congregation. When introducing Gluban Church, he 
said it had about 16 members and its pastor, Lubi Pihu, graduated from seminary 
only last year. Hence, the church urgently needs a boost in human resources and 
financial resources and he is very grateful for the support of Maxwell Church, 
which will help strengthen Gluban Church.

Awi Tadaw also explained that both Sediq District and Gluban Church are small 
and cash-strapped. The main challenges facing them are insufficient funds to 
pay pastoral salaries and the vast number of people in need of pastoral care. 
He cited that Chingliu indigenous reservation (where the church is located) has 
600 residents but only one PCT church. Hence, if urban churches could lend a 
hand, indigenous churches would have a better chance of transforming and 
growing exponentially and becoming self-funded one day.

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