Taiwan Church News

3356 Edition

June 20 -26, 2016

Church Ministry

Philanthrophic Music Concert Held For Kumamoto Earthquake Victims And The Needy

Reported by Chen Yi-hsuan

In the evening on June 18, a philanthropic music concert was held at the International Shalom Christ Church in theUji city of Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. There were two purposes of this concert, one is to comfort the people's mind through the classic music and the other is to raise the community's concern about the needy, especially the suffered in Kumamoto earthquake.

Rev. Lin Mao-hong, pastor of International Shalom Christ Church, remarked that both the event of music concert and the accumulated offerings were not the ends themselves. The most important thing was to warm up those caring hearts which were cooling down in recent days, emphasized Rev. Lin.

Rev. Nakano Hiro, a distinguished Christian music artist and minister, was invited to play several pieces of Chopin's piano worksand deliver an inspiring short message to the audience. Everyone was warmly encouraged in this philanthropic music concert with words from God.

Before this philanthropic music concert was held, Rev. Lin and his co-workers went into the community to distributethe flyers over a thousand copies. And they even invited the people through the telephone call or a door-to door visit. Rev. Lin thought these preparations were also important parts of the whole music concert, as it not only let the community understand the church's care about the needy, especially toward those suffered in Kumamoto earthquakes, but also held the people together through an amazing tie of God's love.

Quoting the scripture, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans andwidows in their distress, and keep oneself unstained by the world"(James 1:27), Rev. Lin reiterated that caring for the needy was the responsibility of Christian. Even such ministry might be very small comparing with surrounding environments, we still had to try our best with a positive heart!

Translated by Peter Wolfe