Biblical literacy and pastoral care are keys to youths’ spiritual revival
From "Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>Date Tue, 7 Sep 2010 14:29:15 -0700
Taiwan Church News 3053 Edition August 30~September 5, 2010 Biblical literacy and pastoral care are keys to youths’ spiritual revival Reported by Joe Ko Written by Lydia Ma Taiwan Theological College and Seminary Contextual Theology Research Center and Campus Evangelical Fellowship co-sponsored a forum on understanding Pentecostal movements among youths and how church leaders should respond to youth revival. Many youths love to go to revival meetings but have a hard time practicing their religious convictions in their daily lives, and yet, it is essential that they try, said Taiwan Seminary Professor Dr. Cheng Yang-en. He also suggested church leaders organize more reading clubs and small groups devoted to sharing the gospel so that churches can become equipped in sharing the gospel with their communities and surrounding schools. Presbyterian Bible College President Liu Jin-chang encouraged pastors to keep an eye on their youths and find out whether there are questionable revival meetings youths might be better off not attending. He also urged them to increase the amount of teaching and sharing of Biblical insights during small group meetings. Taiwan Seminary Assistant Professor Dr. Chuang Hsin-te reported that he discovered during his thesis research that many PCT youths had left the denomination because they’d either left home for college or had transferred to charismatic churches after attending revival meetings. However, Chuang felt this phenomenon wasn’t helping Taiwanese churches increase in number or reaching more Taiwanese people for Christ because new members at local churches increasingly became a motley of Christians switching from one church to another. Rev. Chen Kuan-shien from China Lutheran Seminary pointed out some churches had begun placing equal emphasis on youth meetings and Sunday worship services, even to the point of holding the two meetings simultaneously. In response to this phenomenon, he said youths should be led back to Sunday worship services instead so that they could become full and active members of their church community. ******************** 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) ********************