Youth Sunday services in Taiwanese help youths appreciate tradition during transition

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

3085 Edition
April 11-17, 2011

Church Ministry News



Youth Sunday services in Taiwanese help youths appreciate tradition during 
transition



Reported by Chen Yi-hsuan

Written by Lydia Ma



It’s not uncommon these days for churches in Taiwan to hold a separate worship 
service for youths, but what is uncommon is that this youth service would use 
Taiwanese instead of Mandarin!

According to reports, East Gate Barclay Memorial Presbyterian Church, located 
at the heart of Tainan, changed its youth services from Mandarin to Taiwanese 
and moved its meeting time 8:30 a.m. about 2 years ago. The church’s pastor, 
Rev. Lo Jen-kuei, told Taiwan Church News that youths at his church were fine 
with such a change as they needed to be at school by 8:30 a.m. on weekdays 
anyway.

Nowadays, each Sunday morning youth service begins with 20 minutes of praise 
and worship, followed by the same sermon and Scripture reading used in the 
adult service, albeit an abridged and livelier version so that youths can 
understand it After the service, East Gate church’s youths usually go to 
different small groups and begin Bible studies while adults begin to trickle 
into the sanctuary for their own Sunday service.

Lo underscored that most youths who grow up in southern Taiwan can understand 
Taiwanese and it is easier for them to transition to adult services held in 
Taiwanese if they start learning how speak Taiwanese and read the Bible in 
Taiwanese when they are in their teen years. His church used to have separate 
youth services in Mandarin, but many elders later discovered church youths 
couldn’t transition to the more traditional and Taiwanese language adult Sunday 
services.

Lo maintains he isn’t against tweaking with the structure of worship services, 
but there are good reasons why traditional services are the way they are 
structured today. He believes services in Taiwanese can inculcate precious 
values in the hearts of youths. Hence, Lo hopes today’s Taiwanese pastors can 
help youths understand the beauty of worshipping God in Taiwanese, instead of 
trying to be popular by keeping up with the times.



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

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

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