22 Dec Practice Services at New Taipa Church

Carlson Becker, missionary in Macau, reports that they started “Practice Church services” on November 20, as they lead up to formally launching a new church on Taipa Island on February 28. “We had 9 people present, with most of them being staff members. Michael and his wife (Michael is our co-worker in the ELP and Church), the Chinese tutor that Jen Blandin and Naomi and I are studying under, and his wife came along with the American staff. So we had 4 Chinese and 5 Americans. We are working to put together a worship service that will minister to the Chinese congregation that we are trying to build. Our tutor is very open to help us evaluate the services and how they relate to the culture here.

“After church they all come over to our apartment for a waffle feed and fellowship. We are still working to make the ‘center’ look more inviting for worship, and we are making some headway on that. We have put up a cross made of stone for ‘Living Stone’ church and we are dealing with a sink that is located in the front corner of the sanctuary space. It’s not big enough to be a baptistery unless we baptize cats or other small animals.

“Next Sunday we are planning to go out for Yum Chow after church. The group is bonding and we will probably invite in a few other Chinese folks we are coming across before the actual launch on February 28. We want to have a good core to greet and work with the newcomers at launch time. We are printing literature to mail before the launch date and have some outreach events planned. Our goal is to develop a Chinese church so that the American missionaries can back out and it will continue and multiply in the future. We may find that there are enough English speaking people on Taipa who are looking for a church that we will need an English service also, but our plan is to not make Living Stone primarily dependent upon English speaking people.”