T42 & 43 - another mission-shaped church

Well that’s the six week mark, not that I’m counting or anything. T42, that’s Monday began in my old room in Tek-Tung. I got up nice and early, and just like old times made it to the 6am prayer meeting to play and pray. Breakfast was muchos goodos with Rev. Chuang, Hsinte and Margaret. I even got to meet all the pupils again and spend morning devotions with them before heading into the car for a trip to Changua. In Changua we visited an aboriginal community church.

This church was established when the current minister was given a post straight from college. It was his compulsory placement, a bit like Rev. Chuang’s in Tek-Tung, and, like Rev. Chuang he has stayed there for a consderable length of time - up to about 20 years now. The church was established by a community of aboriginal tribes people who moved to the city to find work. Compared to the other residents in Changua the education, experience and knowledge of these people is lower. So the minister of the church started first by helping the members to find jobs that were suitable in the local paper and by word of mouth. In Changua there is also a PCT run Christian Hospital (I visited a branch while I was in Tek-Tung). This hospital is like the general hospital serving the city of Changua. A few people from the church got cleaning jobs at the hospital, and slowly the church began to evolve. Whilst also being focussed on worship, the church setup a cleaning company that now helps trains people, and provides people with jobs in the city. It now employs over 400 people and gives them a step on a career ladder that would never of happened otherwise. It seems like great mission work, and want to support it fully, and the Sunday Morning congregation is growing because of the work, but it is still only at 70. The question is, like with virtually all mission projects, how much should a church be involved in providing services to give a better standard of living today, and how much should it promote a gospel message that calls people to repentence and to the gospel of grace. Whilst in an ideal world I think we can read in the Bible God would want both, they are not overly cohesive messages for one church community to uphold.

After a yummy lunch at a tea house, we headed back in the car to Taipei for a restful evening.

T43 was very quiet after the excitement of the weekend. Most of the day was spent in front of my laptop preparing for tomorrow night’s Bible Study on 1 Peter 2:1-12.

This entry was posted on 28/10/2009 at 10:57 am and is filed under Paul's diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.