Tainan church celebrates Christmas by serving its neighbors
Reported by Chen Yi-hsuan
Written by Lydia Ma
On December 26, after holding an outdoor service, Takuang Presbyterian Church in Tainan convened at a neighborhood park to share the joy and meaning of Christmas with local people in an unusual way.
After the service ended, the entire church was divided into eight small groups and each group headed to a different nearby neighborhood to sweep the streets, pick up garbage, plant flowers in parks, and demonstrate the spirit of Christmas through serving these communities.
Takuang Presbyterian Church is a member of a community association in the area that promotes solidarity between neighbors. The association serves various surrounding boroughs and these boroughs were all visited by the church on that day.
Not only was the church able to secure cleaning tools from borough chiefs for church members to do their work, the event was yet another opportunity it to become a church without fences or walls and do something to express its appreciation for its neighbors.
Of those who participated in this activity, 45 were church youths currently in junior or senior high school. They joined this event because they all agreed that there was more to Christmas than partying and church services.
One student, quoting one of her pastor’s adages, said: “We don’t want to be people who just sit and listen to a sermon. We want to be people who hear God’s word and do something with it!”
