As usual, we were late for church. Maybe it’s me, but every time I’m visiting a church, I’m late. Sometimes I kid myself that it’s on purpose, you know, to get the feel for how visitors might feel coming into our church. But that’s not why we were late. We were late because we were talking to Ed Stetzer. So it’s his fault we walked in about five minutes after the worship service had started.
This morning we had the pleasure of worshiping with with a Taiwanese evangelical church. It was a group of about 70- small for some contexts, large for this one-crammed into a small storefront with white walls, a curtain background, and a tile floor. Being the good hosts that they were, they immediately stopped whatever it was they were doing upon our arrival to welcome us in. Since there was no room at the back, we were ushered to the front, where our new friend, Jim, translated for us. It was a good thing we had Jim with us; otherwise, we would have been distracted by our compulsion to listen for Chinese terms that sound like English obscenities. Let’s just say that were several.
The songs were translated western hymns: “Tis So Sweet to Trust In Jesus.” The words to the songs were done in powerpoint. A seminary student intern (a woman) did the preaching. The announcement were read. We were dismissed to a “love feast” made by a young lady in the church.
The pastor of the church, a former officer in the military, was a quiet and unassuming man. Almost apologizing for the small size of the congregation, he told us, “We decided we don’t need a large church. I learned in the military that it’s impossible to really lead a large group. Our plan is this:” he said. “When we reach one hundred people, we will plant another church.”
Looking around the room, packed full of children running around, seniors chatting, and young adults cleaning up after the meal, we thought of the 80% -full principle. Will the church ever reach 100 people? Why wait until then to plant another church? What about a second service or multi-site, video-venue, virtual church? That’s us, though, thinking like Americans.
We met Jerry, who introduced himself as a pastor. “What church are you the pastor of?” we asked. “Oh, I’m not the pastor of any church yet,” Jerry answered. “I’m the security guard of a large apartment building not far from here. I’m the pastor of all the people who live in that building.” Later, we learned that Jerry had only come to faith five months ago, and his wife, a former Buddhist who saw a radical change in her now-believing husband, decided to follow Christ as well.
The fellowship of the Spirit- even across cultures, is a beautiful thing.
So refreshing to hear the security guard’s concept of being a missional Christian! Western Christians need to get this concept quickly.
On the “we’ll plant at 100 people”, I’m just not sure we can import American church planter (or other ministry) methods as-is. In Western Europe the personal space is so non-existent that people will gladly sit squished into church pews, so you can actually get more people in the space than Americans would ever put up with. And our nationals are so relational that the size of the American mega-church scares them; they do not want to be part of congregations of that size here, instead more churches.
Meanwhile, not to be boastful, God is blessing our current ministry despite having none of the American techniques in place. We are seriously surprised as we’ve not yet been able to implement some of the basics we’d been taught.
C. Holland,
Thanks for the reminder that we can’t assume things like personal space in Asian culture. We certainly didn’t mean to presume to know what might be “uncomfortably full” for a church in Taiwan. Nor did we mean to sound like we weren’t supportive of the church’s decision to stay small. In fact, we hope to show the necessity for churches to stay small and relational. We’re excited by the life we experienced in fellowship with these faithful believers.
Thanks!
“We share the gospel…to build relationships, not build relationships to share the gospel.” quoted as a Tweet
Hmmm? Really? I’m not saying, I’m just saying…. I see this as a common ecclessiological MO, but hoping we think about whether or not this is a missiological ideal…and by extension an ecclessiological ideal.
Thoughts?
[...] friends at the Upstream Collective posted a note about their visit to a Taiwanese church on Sunday. The entire entry was interesting, but I found myself drawn to this particular thought: We met [...]