Taiwan Church News 3250 Edition June 9 - June 15, 2014 Editorial Editorial: Koinonia! Yes, If You Want To Looking back into Taiwan's missionary history, the name of the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan does not exist from the very beginning inside the pioneering missionaries' mind. It appeared after 40 years of evangelical works at the 2nd Taiwan Church Assembly in 1913. And within the whole PCT history, there were three joint efforts seeking the unity between South and North Assemblies: first was the Taiwan Assembly, which were organized in 1912 by the missionaries; second was the General Assembly, established in 1943 and driven by political force under the Japanese ruling; third was the up-to-date General Assembly, re-uniting both South and North assemblies in 1951. There were respective historical backgrounds and reasons behind each unity in the modern history of PCT. But, the questions are: why PCT needs three waves of unity movement to become what she is now? what is the vision behind these efforts? The reason, why the first Taiwan Church Assembly could be set up by the pioneering missionaries across different mission society, is due to an urgent demand for a closer cooperation relationship in evangelical ministries. Otherwise, different mission societies could still develop their own ministries in their own ways, without worrying about the issue of unity as frequent interactions and contacts were already there. Rev. Shoki Coe, who is a young pastor just returned from England, speaking at the Youth Convention in 1947: "We should act like the omelet....You have to break the outer egg cover, smash and blend into one, then you can cook a wonderful omelet." This explains the importance of the unity between churches and facilitate the establishment of PCT General Assembly. Up to now, we are still trying to learn the unity task of "break, smash and blend into one" in our daily lives. "To break, smash and blend into one" means a brand new process to let down one's own subjective point of view, listen to the other and work out a new idea or action. In terms of familiar phrase, you can name it as a "common imagined community"; or in the ecclesiastical language, you can name it as a "koinonia". Within this new perspective, koinonia, be it the Taiwan Assembly set up by the pioneering missionaries or current PCT General Assembly, all PCT members need become a common community: share, cry and witness together. No more stick to our idiosyncratic characteristics of our local congregations, presbytery or even our denomination, we have to break and smash kinds of parochial self-made limitation and blend into one koinonia. From a holistic Taiwan perspective, we can start to see our mission and role within our community and tribe. Let us remind each other that we are in the koinonia under the name of the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan. We are an intimate group of fellowship. We need to help each other, understand and forgive each other, pray for each other and care for each other. This is koinonia! And it is exactly: Yes, if you want... to break, smash and blend into our local congregation, presbytery and General Assembly! |