Taiwan Church News
3204 Edition
July 22-28, 2013
Church Ministry News
Joint Assembly Held to Find the Way Out for Indigenous Mission Challenges
Reported by Lin Yi-ying
On July 15 and 16 at Tou-chen Township of Yi-lan county, sponsored by PCT Indigenous Mission Committee, all PCT pastors served in Indigenous Presbytery or District as officials were invited to attend a joint assembly trying to find the way out for present PCT indigenous mission. Three senior pastors were invited to deliver their in-depth speeches. They were Rev. Chen Nan-jou of Fong-hsin Church from Amis Presbytery, Rev. Lyim Hong-tiong as PCT General Secretary and Rev. Sing ‘Olam as former PCT associate general secretary.
Rev. Chen Nan-jou analyzed current situations and problems of indigenous churches realities. He pointed out that the indigenous churches are critically challenged by the following issues: Loss of the believers, lack of the evangelist, liturgy conflict resulted from charismatic fashion due to multi-dimensional church development, conflict between the teaching elder and the managing elders, conflict between traditional liturgy and the fashionable praise & worship. In addition, considering the problems encountered by the urban indigenous in Taiwan society, about half population of indigenous people went to urban area, extinction crisis of tribal mother tongues and traditional culture, mix-marriages with hetero-tribes become common, life pressure kept the urban indigenous too busy to stick on their Christian faith and etc. Rev. Chen indicated that an integral mission, through weighing the harsh realities and difficult problems faced by the indigenous church and people, by knowing well the PCT confession manifesto and her institution structures, of learning to lead and manage the church with wisdom and responsibility, would be the most urgent challenges confronting contemporary indigenous mission.
Rev. Lyim Hong-tiong focused his speech to explicate what is the mutual relationship between the Indigenous Presbytery or District and his Office as PCT General Secretary. Acknowledging the serious problems of half indigenous population flowing to urban area, Rev. Lyim pledged to help the indigenous church and people develop manufacture and marketing mechanism. In the meantime, he would help to build a partnership relation between the indigenous and urban church. He stressed PCT would not give up any church existed in the tribes. He would do his best to help all PCT churches keep going forward.
Rev. Sing ‘Olam, responding the strong demand to accommodate more indigenous-background pastors into PCT GAO programs committees, hospitals, schools or institutions, shared his own experience serving in GAO office, and affirmed that PCT have offered many fair opportunities to the indigenous pastors as evidenced by many GAO Moderators came from the indigenous. But, he also gave a strong criticism toward the existing indolent and incompetent mindset of some indigenous pastors. “It is good for us to ask for participation, yet we have to deliver constructive suggestions during the assembly. We can not always run away with the cliche excuses like ‘We are not capable of this! We have no experiences on that!'”, ‘Olam said, “We have to show we are professional, serious to engage and full-time committed to the issues. Only we the Indigenous would like to show something real inside our spirit, can we win the respect from other brethren!”
Translated by Peter Wolfe
