wfn.org | Taiwan Church News 2968 Editorial

["Lydia Ma" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>Taiwan Church News

>2968 Edition

>January 12~18, 2009

>Editorial: Evangelism Revisited

Once upon a time, I heard a pastor comment that Taiwanese churches do  not have much self-confidence. He went on to explain that in the past  twenty or thirty years, Taiwanese churches have been avidly following  church growth models from around the world. When church leaders hear of  a model in the US, they travel there to learn. After a while, a new  model from Singapore comes up and church leaders turn their attention to  Singapore. We could deduct from this that pastors are willing to learn  and reflect on what they are doing for the purpose of growing their  churches. However, we could also assume from this that pastors are  lacking basic introspection as well as confidence in their own churches.  Why? Because churches around the world have commented that Taiwanese  churches are actually an active bunch! Our churches not only play a  prophetic role in Taiwanese society, we are also creative when it comes  to outreach programs. Taiwanese churches are socially active because we  care about Taiwan’s human rights and national autonomy. We have  thought of different ways to do evangelism to accommodate the needs of  our communities or indigenous reservations. This has significantly  increased the efficiency of our ministries. These two characteristics  have also enabled worldwide churches to get to know Presbyterian  churches in Taiwan a bit better. Churches around the world now know that  besides having a strong choir or being good at singing, Presbyterian  churches in Taiwan are also role models when it comes to local  evangelism and being a prophetic voice in society.

Learning from other people’s strengths is a good way to move  forward in maturity and reach our goals. However, there are always good  reasons behind every methodology explaining its rationale. For example,  one methodology may be unique because of the pastor’s background.  Another may be unique because of the congregation’s background or  the denomination in which the church belongs. Still another may suggest  a unique way to do something because of ethnic reasons, etc. Hence,  regardless of which methodology we try to adopt, we cannot just take it  out of its intended context. We must first recognize our own strengths,  retain them, and improve them. We must also recognize our weaknesses,  find ways to correct them, and improve ourselves. This is my advice to  churches if they do not want to lose their strengths or uniqueness while  adopting other churches’ strengths. This advice would also help  churches avert some crises during periods of transformation when members  are split between those who support change and those who oppose it.  Oftentimes, opponents of change resist because they feel the changes go  against the denomination’s system or tradition. This may result in  a pastor’s well-meant adjustments to grow into a needless fight  between staying the course and taking the church into another direction  altogether. Therefore, a pastor who wants to adjust the way his church  does missions must first affirm the strengths and positive aspects of  his church before going forward and building from that foundation.

Our church has been very effective in its ministries in the past few  years. Our ministries include college classes for seniors, after-school  reading programs, foreign bride ministries, reading clubs, music  lessons, weekend camp for kids, education for teens, short-term  missions, aboriginal agricultural ministries, etc. All of these  ministries have had good results and have increased the breadth of  evangelism as well. We should not view them as prelude to church  evangelism, but rather, as part of church evangelism. Though these  ministries may not always lead unbelievers to get baptized, they are  means to keep them involved with churches through participation.

However, we must still deal with the problem of losing aboriginal  believers as they move to cities to look for job opportunities.  According to statistics, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan has lost 15  thousand aboriginal believers between 1995 and 2005 because of this  trend. Financial limitations have kept aboriginal people from setting up  churches in urban areas and we must deal with this problem. Many  churches nowadays have two services on Sundays. If only we could  allocate an extra worship service conducted in a native language for our  aboriginal people, this would have a significant impact on aboriginal  believers and alleviate the current crisis. We are very glad to see that  Kaohsiung presbytery is willing to provide a venue for the Bunun people  to conduct services in their own native language. We are certain that  this will enable Bunun people to begin a strong church in Kaohsiung city  so that native believers will not be lost in the shuffle. This model can  also be used by other city churches across Taiwan.