Perspective on Fulfilling the Great Commission in Taiwan

Recently, I had an email exchange with an American missionary who is pastoring a church here in Taipei. I had asked him if he had any good tract suggestions for me to give away to people who practice their English on me while riding the buses or trains and quick encounters like that. I’ve been having several of these quick chats but the language barrier has been too great when I would ask about religion or whatever. My thought in asking for a good tract suggestion from this pastor was to find something I could leave with people after a chat and let the rest be their/Gods decision. All that to say, below I’ve pasted the response I got from Pastor Linton because its so fascinating and might offer those of you back home some insight as to how to pray for the Taiwanese people.

“I’ll look into a good tract. Taiwanese in general do not pay much attention to tracts. They have the biggest response from a sustained relationship.

There are some things I’ve thought about writing in tract form, myself.

Yes, people tune out for many reasons.The thing is, you have to just teach Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. Meaning — sin, suffering, and God’s love and judgment and mercy — which culminated with the cross and the resurrection. Point to Jesus the person. “What do you think about Jesus”? What was he doing on this earth 2000 years ago? What about his completely righteous life? If so, then why did he have to die on a cross? (If you do not have much time to talk, it can be good for them to walk away with an unanswered question that comes back up in their minds… restlessly.)
The problem for Taiwanese is that they will have the same idolatrous orientation towards Jesus — some holy or powerful person and/or spirit whom you make deals with to get some of the power or good luck on your side to get what you want. So whether you turn to Buddha or your ancestors or Daoist gods, Matsu or the Red-Faced General or the Earth god (or Jesus — in their minds), they just worship or do the required rituals or give the right gifts to get that power on their side, so they can get the idol they really want: health, wealth, success, fame, sons, etc. And there is the other side of it, the mafia side: i.e. worship or pay off gods or ghosts to keep them from bringing you bad luck: I think of it as an extortion racket, protection money payments. That’s their orientation.

You want to tell about Jesus? They’ll think: I’m glad he’s working for you. If my other gods don’t come through, I’ll consider him. Or … Oh, Jesus? Does he work for you? What do I have to do? What rituals does this god require? Then maybe he can help me with this problem I have — e.g. cannot get pregnant. Or want to pass a qualifying exam, etc.

So in this background, you have a lot more work to do. You need to convince them of the fact of sin — therefore the need of salvation. You need to teach them how God is just wholly other, totally different from Man. Man cannot become gods. Keep bringing them back to… but where did it all start, who created everything. You try to get some little power on your side, but what about the Most High Power, the One who created the Universe? Why talk to the desk secretary at a company when you can go straight to talk to the Boss, Founder and Owner of the company?

The Holy Spirit is the One who will make something you say “stick” in their minds. So say a little, or if the person seems open, say a lot, but that first time will not usually be the time they believe. It often will be 10 years down the road. Some of the Christians that became believers at New Hope actually first interacted with Christianity years before. And something stuck. Something made an impression. And at some point, they came back for a closer look.

So it is also good if you connect people with a church where there is relationship and a clear Gospel message. Some of the new believers had been coming to New Hope for three years… and it just was gradual, or they kept being confronted by something… and finally there was a breakthrough in their hearts.”

Joel Linton is the pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Taipei, Taiwan. Emily and I visited the church with Megan over the Moon Festival weekend. Its a really cool small church that meets at what I think is a University in Taipei. If you want to check out New Hope’s website its http://www.taiwanchurch.org/~linton