3129 Edition
February 13~19, 2012
Church Ministry

3129 Edition

February 13~19, 2012

Church Ministry

Vacation Bible School curriculum integrates Taiwanese culture into Biblical principles

Reported by Chen Yi-hsuan

Written by Lydia Ma

Dong-Ning Presbyterian Church in Tainan held a “Vacation Bible School Curriculum Seminar” on February 11, 2012, The church invited Rev. Lu Jun-yi from East Gate Presbyterian Church in Taipei to speak about ways of integrating Taiwanese culture and Taiwanese stories into Biblical teachings.

“The Bible is the main lesson or feature while the Taiwanese stories serve as supporting background or analogy,” said Lu. He encouraged churches to create their own teaching materials for Vacation Bible School or Children’s Camp. He also said that as long as teachers pay attention to recent developments in Taiwanese literature, language, history, and philosophy, they will be able to find stories that can match their lesson theme or Bible story.

During the seminar, participants used East Gate Church’s children camp curriculum as reference and learned about renowned Taiwanese heroes in various disciplines such as literature, language, history, and philosophy and their amazing stories. Lu first gave an overview of the main theme of each lesson and its corresponding Bible passage before proceeding to tell these stories to highlight his main theme based on the Bible. All the themes in this curriculum are geared toward instilling good moral characters in children.

Responding to questions about where he gets his inspiration when writing this curriculum, Lu said that besides reading the Bible, he also visits bookstores frequently. It is in bookstores that he discovers many interesting local stories that also support Biblical principles. “I currently have at least 100 stories that can be told!” he said, before underscoring that these stories are meant to support a biblical lesson in a concrete manner that children can grasp.