wfn.org | Old church adopts new look for the sake of evangelism

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

>      Taiwan Church News

>3037 Edition

>May 10~16, 2010

Old church adopts new look for the sake of evangelism

>Reported by Sam Lee

>Written by Lydia Ma

Near the spot where Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell first began his  ministry in 
Taiwan more than

100 years ago is an old PCT church known as Cihou Church. This  church held a

groundbreaking ceremony on May 8 in anticipation for a 2-year  church 
construction project.

The new church building will include a museum for locals and  tourists to view 
the church’s

>history.

According to Cihou Church’s pastor, Rev. Yu Yi-feng, the old  church building 
was already 75

years old. Though many people were fond of the building, it had  become an 
unsafe building

that could collapse at any moment due to severe structural damage  and cracks 
in several

parts of the building. After a lot of consideration, church  leaders decided to 
tear down and

>rebuild the church building.

Rev. Yu also announced that the new building’s chapel would  accommodate up to 
300 people

and the upper floors would include a manse and 14 classrooms.  These rooms 
would be used

for Sunday Schools, community outreach ministries, new immigrants  outreach 
ministries, etc.

The estimated price tag for the new building is slightly above  NT$80 million.

Tearing down the old building has not been without struggle and a  sense of 
dismay. One

blogger wrote: “In the old days, a lot of hard work was put  into building the 
church. But now, the

building is being coldly torn down with heavy machinery under  pressure from 
church members.

The building’s splendor from bygone days will soon become  just another page in 
history.”

This blogger added that it was important for churches to achieve a  balance 
between

preservation of cultural heritage and church ministry expansion.

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