Related articles and links |  1 of 3

A-chong, a Taiwanese demolition worker, wants to go to church. He wants to thank the Christians who prayed for his daughter when she was hours away from death. He wants to know more about the God who miraculously healed her.

"But I am too embarrassed to go to church," A-chong says, "because the people there are so highly educated and high class, and I'm not. I'm too dirty. I curse, swear, smoke, and drink too much."

He then looks at his friends Seann Gibson and Tim McCracken—American missionaries who have spent hours with him, chatting about religion over pots of Taiwanese tea. A-chong smiles.

"But hey," he says, "I don't have any problem hanging out with you guys."

According to official government statistics, only 3.9 percent of the 22.9 million people on this island are Christian. But various mission organizations have estimated that among Taiwan's working class, which composes 61.7 percent of Taiwan's population, less than 0.5 percent are Christian. As a result, Operation World (2001) says, Taiwan has "the only Han Chinese population in the world where the spiritual breakthrough has yet to come."

Now some churches and mission agencies have redoubled efforts to reach the working class and initiate that breakthrough. They've turned aside from traditional Western evangelistic methods and employed new culture-specific techniques.

Although working-class Taiwanese are not necessarily poor, they are typically less educated—and education here is a crucial symbol of status and success. Some have dysfunctional family backgrounds, and many don't think much of themselves, Gibson says. Traditional and less open to the Western world, working-class Taiwanese tend to be steeped in generations of ancestor and idol worship. Few know the gospel.

"Some white-collar people in Taiwan hear the gospel five times when working-class people don't even hear it once. It's embarrassing," says Lincy Tu, a local evangelist who has planted five working-class churches in the past ten years. "Our society does not have compassion for the working class, and our churches are the same."

In the mid-1800s, early missionaries to Taiwan focused largely on starting Christian schools and hospitals, enabling converts to climb the socioeconomic ladder. They were especially active among aboriginal peoples, who proved far more receptive to the gospel than Han Chinese. The Chinese immigrants, who would eventually compose the vast majority of Taiwan's population, brought from the mainland a mixture of Buddhism and Taoism that would form traditional Taiwanese folk religion. While these beliefs remain popular among working-class Taiwanese, Christianity remains largely inaccessible to them.

Yet Taiwanese seminary professors and pastors, many of whom have studied abroad, continue to endorse Western, academic methods of reaching out to communities, Tu says. For example, worship services usually involve intellectually demanding sermons and text-heavy worship bulletins.

"[Working-class] people are open to the gospel if it's presented to them in a way that they can understand," says Gibson, who is taking part in a renewed effort by Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) to reach Taiwan's working class. "But if church services are conducted like school—the one thing they failed at—it won't work."

"Traditional Western ways don't seem to be a fit for Chinese culture," says Robert Burris, former strategy coordinator for Hokkien Harvest, part of the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board (IMB). "It's so exciting to see churches bloom and flourish where they have allowed Christ to speak in their culture."

next page... |  1 of 3

May 2006, Vol. 50, No. 5