The Beautiful Island - part one by Revd Bob Day

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The North Western Synod has its world church link with the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT), also known as Formosa – Beautiful Island – a name given to it by Portuguese explorers in 16th century. My reason for going was primarily as convenor of the Church Related Community Work programme; the aim being for CRCW’s to share their knowledge and to learn from community engagement in Taiwan. I was also keen to continue to build links with the PCT; those who went to the last Synod will have learnt about the recent visit by lay people to Taiwan and some of you may have met members of the choir who visited the Synod last year.

Meeting up with Marie and Malcolm at Manchester Airport at 4pm on Sunday we flew down to London to join the other CRCW’s, Rosie, Suzanne and Linda as well as Dale Rominger, co-ordinator of the International Relations programme in the URC. Travelling via Bancock we arrived in Taipei on Monday 10 pm local time and then journeyed to Tek-Tng Church by minibus arriving 2 am Tuesday. Here we were warmly welcomed by Revd Chuang Hsiau-Seng with coffee, tea and biscuits.

Tuesday was to be a relaxing day so that we could recover! In the morning I looked round the Tek-Tng church complex begun in 1932, the modern new church built in 1988 and with the recent addition of an accommodation block used for visits, training and conferences; climbed into the massive tree house in the grounds; tried to work out how I would scale the climbing wall on the side of the manse; marvelled at the orchids growing in pots and at the church gardens; was ambushed by the excited and giggling teenagers who were part of the church’s education project; wondered at the large IT suite (20 + computers) with teaching rooms; and enjoyed a wonderful lunch of rice, meatballs, bamboo shoots, prawns, spring rolls, vegetables etc etc. The food we shared in all sorts of locations was always excellent and my chopstick technique improved rapidly.

In the afternoon we enjoyed a visit to Luhang on the west coast; to the massive glass factory and museum, the Folk Arts museum and gardens, and then to a Buddhist Temple where by chance a celebration was taking place with loads of fire crackers, dancing dragons and people dressed up as gods! The Temple was an amazing place with many different shrines dedicated to the various gods; each town we visited had a number of temples both large and small as well as road side shrines – 96% of the population followed Taoism, Buddhism or folk religion. The Christian population makes up the other 4%.

The next day Stephen our excellent interpreter and informant from PCT Church House joined us and visits began in earnest following an orientation session and a brief history of the Tek-Tng Church. Several key issues were identified:

In rural areas there is church decline as young people leave for the city
So people are wondering if God has given up on the church
There is a need for new models of ministry
A need for an open door policy in the church
How can small churches make a big difference?
Vision is the most difficult thing – not the budget!

So as we visited we learnt that churches were becoming more hopeful as they recognised that small can be more creative. Church redevelopment could also lead to transformation. The numbers of members in the PCT have doubled to approx 230,000 as the reverse trend has taken place in the URC!

(More in part 2 at the end of June.)