Introductory Notes:

  • A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below.
  • Rev. Ted Ellis was a missionary of the Presbyterian Church in Canada working with the PCT from 1963-1991. From 1975 to 1991 he served in the Tainan Theological College first as Chaplain, then from 1983 as Lecturer in New Testament Studies. Ted, Marilyn and their children returned to Canada last July. Since then Ted has had a one year assignment as Missionary Associate of the Board of World Mission of the PCC, assisting with administration in International Ministries. He is looking forward to ministry in Canada.
  • The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT) is a Partner Church of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Dr. George Leslie MacKay from Canada began work in North Taiwan in 1872. The PCT now has more than 1,100 congregations, It experienced rapid growth from 1945 to 1965. Now it begins about 15 congregations a year and is experiencing many of the problems that come with prosperity and materialism.
  • Rev. Dr. Brad Long is now Executive Director of Presbyterian and Reformed Renewal Ministries International, P.O. Box 429, Black Mountain, NC28711, U.S.A. He continues to have close links with the PCT. The PRRMI seeks to understand the work of the Holy Spirit within a Biblical and Reformed theological framework rather than a Pentecostal one. It reports to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA.
  • This article first appeared in the May 1991 edition of “The Rice Bowl,” published by Canadian missionaries of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan.

“Don’t call it ‘renewal’, call it ‘new life’. It is the most wide-spread movement in the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT).” Pastor Tan Sin-chhiong from the East Coast is not given to over-statement, but this is how he describes what is now known as “The New Life movement” in the PCT. He sees the PCT as old and creaky in places “but God is working to wake us up.” Although the movement has “charismatic” aspects, that term is misleading because renewal is taking different forms in different places. The chief characteristic is renewed desire to pray and read the Scriptures, renewed love for Jesus Christ, and increased joy and friendliness.

In Kaohsiung, 30 to 40 ministers and their spouses gather every Tuesday from 9:00 to noon for an hour of praise and prayer followed by an hour of Bible study, and an hour of discussing ideas for improving various aspects of the church’s work. Sometimes this is followed by an afternoon workshop and an evening meeting with members of the host congregation when new emphasis in prayer and counselling are put into practice. In Tainan, 12 to 15 ministers gather once a month for an hour and a half, followed by supper together; in Chiayi and Taichung less defined groups get together for prayer as they feel the need; on the less populated East Coast, 7 or 8 gather every two weeks, and in Taipei 12 to 15 gather twice a month. In the large Siang-lian church in downtown Taipei the renewal has had its greatest impact on the ministers, elders and deacons; 50 to 60 people gather every Friday for prayer. Phi Tek-kui, the minister, says that one of the chief reasons more people are coming to the prayer meetings is that there they experience God’s love and joy, and hear biblical teaching which helps them understand their experience. One small congregation on the East Coast, with a Sunday attendance of 45, has 25 out to mid-week cottage meetings as well as to prayer meetings; several people gather for daily early morning prayer and have been doing so for 31/2 years. People are enjoying worship, giving money, and telling sympathetic listeners about answers to prayer and experiences of God’s goodness. There is new energy for helping weaker churches and new credibility in the community because people’s lives match their talk.

North-east of Tainan, the Galilee Prayer and Conference Centre was established about three years ago by a Presbyterian minister and interested lay people. People go there for times of personal retreat or for conferences. The style includes enthusiastic, repeated singing of short Christian songs and emphasis on praying aloud, the whole congregation at the same time, a type of praying common in some denominations and countries in Asia. There is also Bible teaching on the work and gifts of the Holy Spirit and on subjects such as “inner healing,” God’s healing of inner hurts from past experience. People see the Centre as a sign of hope and have given NT$28 million (Can$1.25 million) in the past four months to buy land for expansion so that there can be a facility for care of the elderly and perhaps in the future, one for mentally handicapped children. One of the programs that has started is a four year course for the training of lay evangelists and pastoral workers.

Beginnings

All this has happened in about ten years. In the late 70’s a “charismatic” Prayer Mountain/Conference Centre was established near Miaoli in North-central Taiwan. The leader was an independent Baptist pastor, and land was given by a Presbyterian layman who wanted to thank God for bringing him back, not only from the brink of spiritual despair, but also from the brink of financial disaster. Many Presbyterians, wanting “something more” in their faith journey, went there for conferences which emphasized singing, preaching, prayer and fasting. The small canteen where noodles were available was seldom crowded, even when 2,000 people were crowding the other facilities. Tribal people flocked to the meetings. So did many Taiwanese and Mainlander Chinese. The results, however, were sometimes divisive when enthusiastic lay people returned to staid congregations and, sometimes, unsympathetic ministers.

Then in 1984, Dr. Brad Long’ from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), who was vice-president of the (Presbyterian) Hsinchu Bible College, invited Rev. Archer Torrey, founder and leader of “Jesus Abbey” in Korea, to come for a teaching conference. Jesus Abbey is an Episcopalian prayer and retreat centre which has had wide influence across denominational lines in Korea and beyond. The minister of one of the largest churches in Taipei points to that Hsinchu conference as the beginning of the New Life movement in the PCT. He says, “Dr. Torrey pointed out that in the Presbyterian Church we emphasize the sovereignty of God the Father and the saving work of Jesus Christ, but we almost totally neglect the Holy Spirit – and he was right.” The conference included careful biblical teaching about the work of the Holy Spirit and opportunities for people to ask God the Holy Spirit to empower them for service.

In 1986 there was another conference in Hsinchu, this time with Dr. Robert Wise, then President of General Synod of the Reformed Church in America. In 1987, several ministers and some lay people, made a trip to the U.S.A. They had special study sessions with professors at Fuller Theological Seminary and then visited both the Vineyard ministry led by John Wimber, and the quieter “charismatic” ministry of Dr. Wise in Oklahoma City. Various groups of ministers and laymen made trips to Korea, some to Jesus Abbey, often coming back with a renewed sense of commitment to Christ, a deepening love for him, and confidence in the ability and willingness of the Holy Spirit to work through them.

These factors fit in with what some missiologists call the Third Wave of charismatic influence. The first wave refers to the beginning of the pentecostal churches in North America at the beginning of the century. The people involved were almost totally rejected by their denominations and began congregations and later various Pentecostal denominations. The Second Wave refers to the Jesus Movement of the late fifties and sixties and also the “charismatic movement” of that period which occurred in mainline denominations. In some cases, this movement led to congregational splits and/or the dismissing of ministers. In other cases, after a period of tension, the “charismatic elements” were absorbed by the denomination or congregation, often lending a new vitality to both the worship and the sense of community. Now, in the Third Wave, beginning in the ’80s, the movement is staying very largely within the denominations.

A More Comprehensive World–View

The desire for deeper experience of the Holy Spirit is related to a new awareness of the reality and power of evil, and particularly of demonic, occult forces. Western scientific knowledge, at least in its popular form, has no place for the supernatural. There is the “natural” and there may be “God.” But this leaves out the possibility of either a personal knowledge of God, or of the reality of spiritual beings/forces subject to him (angels), or of the existence of Satan and beings subject to him (demons). This “excluded middle” is essential to the world-view of vast numbers of people; it enables them to make sense out of their experience of life. People in the renewal movement in Taiwan recognized that the demonic is real. And that Christ’s power to protect people from evil and conquer it is real, too. In order to speak Christianly about God’s power in this area, one has to speak of the Holy Spirit For an increasing number of people in the PCT, the Holy Spirit has become more than a theory. He is becoming known as God the empowerer.

In what ways does the Holy Spirit work? The New Life movement (“movement” with a small “m” to indicate that there is no formal overall organization or agenda to it) has now reached the stage of maturity where most people involved in it want to recognize the freedom of the Holy Spirit to work in people’s lives in a great varity of ways. No two people’s stories are the same. No two congregations are the same. So the Holy Spirit fits his work to the person and the situation. Some individuals pray in tongues, others do not; some congregations go in for short Gospel songs and drums and clapping, many do not; some use synthesizers, drums and other percussion instruments, some only piano and organ; some fast and pray, others do not, or if they do, nobody knows about it. Some have gifts of healing and even of exorcism, others have other gifts. These new developments can and do produce tensions, but where people have become involved in this renewal, there is usually a unity of love for Jesus Christ and a deep desire to serve and honour him.

One person was telling me that the change in his life came as a result of one of the prayer and fasting retreats sponsored by the General Assembly of the PCT about five years ago. At that time, ministers and elders from two or three presbyteries would get together for three days. After that experience he had a new desire to pray and now begins almost every day with an hour of prayer, including Bible reading, particularly of the Psalms (the whole psalter each month). He visits his congregation less than he used to, but feels much more aware of their needs and sensitive to them. Sometimes his experiences of God are very moving, like a powerful wind, at other times sweet, at others, gentle and at still other times, when problems distress him, he is aware of Christ alongside him in his distress.

Some ministers and lay people are as politically active as ever, but with a deeper sense that they are acting not out of hatred or anger, but out of a sense of obedience to God and service to the community. In one village, the church has more credibility because of the integrity of the lives of its members. As a result, some of them have been asked to serve on the village council and the irrigation board.

Hope Amid Hopelessness

Taiwan today is a country of greed, wealth, power struggles, pollution, gambling, violent crime, exploitation of the weak and straining of social institutions, both government and social. There is a malaise in the society at large and a suspicion of political machinations in Taipei. Consequently there is a continuing exodus of students, businessmen and others to North and South America in search of “greener pastures.” The church is affected and infected by the society around it. There are power struggles in congregations and institutions, there is a self-centeredness which gives mostly to oneself – new church buildings and ever more elaborate and expensive church functions. With this goes a wrong kind of professionalism in the ministry where the minister more and more often “officiates” rather than serves. And the structures of General Assembly are sometimes inadequate to cope with the strains.

Amid all this, the New Life movement offers hope. This is not to say that the Presbyterian Church as a whole is in process of renewal. There is still much materialism, formalism, concern for status, and lack of concern for either the spiritual or social wellbeing of one’s neighbour. But the Holy Spirit is giving people around the island a new love for Jesus Christ and a new enjoyment in being brothers and sisters of others who love him. Probably, at least 10% of Taiwanese and Hakka Presbyterian ministers are now involved in the prayer gatherings for ministers. (The Spirit Movement among aboriginal people, although affected by the renewal movement on the plains, has a quite different history and rather different problems.) Most of them are active in their Presbyteries; furthermore, the other ministers want them to be. Innovative ways are being found to keep aspects of the movement within the denomination without hamstringing them by making them official committees or activities of Assembly or of Presbytery.

The hope is here because God the Holy Spirit is active among us. People are more natural in expressing their faith. He has given them a deeper love for Christ and a new desire to talk with their heavenly Father. One minister said to me, “My prayers are much less theological; they are much simpler.” I said, “You mean that your prayers are now a conversation with your Father in heaven?” And he said, “Yes.”