wfn.org | Editorial: Identify with the community; promote cultural dialogue

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

>      Taiwan Church News

>3019 Edition

>January 4~10, 2010

Editorial: Identify with the community; promote cultural dialogue

>Translated by Lydia Ma

As we usher in 2010, we can take pride in the development of  community awareness in the

past 20 years. It all began in the 1980s when people began  organizing street protests to voice

their opinions. This was followed by many community development  projects in the 1990s that

helped people develop a sense of community through participation.  When the 921 Earthquake

shook Taiwan in 1999, we saw an increase in the level of community  awareness and many

community projects, community care associations, and community  development associations

began budding because people finally became aware that they were  interconnected to each

>other.

Despite these accomplishments, the road to community awareness has  been bumpy. For

example, community development associations are usually separated  by geography, or

government administrative regions – also known as Li, or  neighborhood. One Li can only have

one community development association. This kind of arrangement  impairs the growth of

community awareness among residents, because it should be allowed  to develop freely and

unrestricted by government-sanctioned boundaries.

When residents begin to think in terms of boundaries created for  the sake of convenient

administration, such as Li, they will often miss the forest for  the trees. In the long run, such a

narrow perspective on what community means will be more harmful  than helpful for community

>awareness.

In the same way, churches are not secluded monasteries. With the  advent of character

education classes and Pine Life Universities (college for  seniors), we’ve moved beyond

debating whether churches need to participate in the life of its  surrounding community. These

ministries are all community- oriented and they provide and  excellent opportunity to share the

>gospel with neighbors.

In today’s social environment, churches must actively reach  out to their community and

neighbors and pursue community outreach ministries with a wider  perspective in mind. Let us

not pigeonhole “God’s Kingdom” in our ministries,  but rather, see it as something everyone

can get in on. This is what our communities need as well.

In retrospect, the church is a place filled with people from all  walks of life anyway, who’ve

chosen to become one community. With this in mind, it is  imperative that churches merge life

and faith and let non-Christians and neighbors see how well this  works out in reality. If they

succeed in doing so, they will not only make their faith real, but  also be a positive influence in

>the development of communities across Taiwan.

This year’s PCT theme is to live out our statement of faith  in our ordinary, everyday lives.

When we are willing to open our church doors and our hearts to our  communities, we will see

God at work in us and through us to break down barriers and  advance the common good.

Churches have been doing fairly well in recent years when it comes  to community outreach,

but we need to double our efforts so that every community God has  entrusted to us can truly

overcome barriers, and grow and prosper together and every voice  can truly be heard.

>********************

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/  (English)

>http://www.pctpress.org (Chinese)

>********************

> 
>