Churches in Changhua mark Passion Week with daily services

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

3136 Edition

April 2~8, 2012

Headline News

Churches in Changhua mark Passion Week with daily services

Reported by Chen Wei-chien

Written by Lydia Ma

In recent years, more and more churches are arranging daily services on Passion 
week to encourage Christians to take time out from their busy schedules to 
remember Christ’s suffering and resurrection. An example of such a church is 
Changhua Presbyterian Church, which is offering an hour-long silent prayer 
service from 12:00-13:00 and a communion service at 19:30 every day throughout 
this year’s Easter week (April 2-7, 2012), in addition to a Good Friday 
candlelight service.

Changhua Church has been scheduling daily services on Easter week in the past 6 
years. According to the church’s pastor, Rev. Lee Chih-jen, “The goal of these 
services is to incorporate Jesus’ suffering into the faith and life of the 
congregation so that people may grow in spiritual maturity.” To inspire his 
flock, Lee has devised a theme for every service throughout Holy Week.

Taking this year’s services as example, Lee said that on Holy Monday, the 
congregation kneels in front of the communion table to receive communion. On 
Holy Tuesday, the pastor and the elders break bread and distribute it to the 
congregation. On Holy Wednesday, the traditional bread and wine is replaced by 
local equivalents such as yam and millet wine. On Maundy Thursday, the pastor 
performs a foot washing ceremony for the congregation. Finally, during Good 
Friday’s candlelight service, every participant lights a candle and places it 
beside the lectern during the service. At th end of the service, participants 
blow out a candle to signify that they have been crucified with Christ on the 
cross.

The noontime silent prayer service at Changhua Church invites participants to 
take a short break from their work and come to church to read, meditate, and 
pray on a Bible passage selected by the church on that day. “We do this to 
encourage our congregation to make church the center of their lives. We hope 
that they can draw near to God despite their busy work schedule – even if it’s 
only for 5 or 10 minutes,” Lee said.

Similarly, Huatan Presbyterian Church in Changhua holds evening prayer services 
from Holy Monday to Maundy Thursday to remember the passion and suffering of 
Jesus and joins Changhua Presbytery in a Good Friday service. “Jesus’ suffering 
is still occurring in many parts of the world today,” said Huatan Church’s 
pastor, Rev. Chao Ling-chi. “That is the reason why we pray for different 
ethnic groups every day and we also pray for the homeless people that come to 
our church.” She added that about 10 homeless people regularly attend her 
church’s Sunday worship right now.

********************

Taiwan Church News is published weekly in Taiwan's local languages. 

You may translate and re-use our articles online only if you acknowledge the 
source as "Taiwan Church News" and list the names of the reporter and writer. 
Contact us before reprinting any of our articles for print publications. 

Direct comments and questions about this article to: enews@pctpress.org

Visit our website for more news at: http://enews.pctpress.org/index.html 
(English) or http://www.tcnn.org (Chinese) 

********************