Taiwan, Here I Come

How does one present the gospel to an audience whose culture emphasizes the importance of saving face?  That's the task that I will have when I fly to Taiwan in October to address a student body of 700, most of whom are nonbelievers, at Christ College.  It seems to me that the only way a person can come to Christ is by admitting that they are a sinner in need of grace, and that can't happen if a person is more concerned with losing face than they are with coming to grips with their own sinful nature. 

Herod threw a party at which his step-daughter, Salome, danced.  This wasn't any ballroom dance.  Salome was a beauty, that's for sure, and the exotic dance she preformed ... let's just say that Herod had a very sick ego.  And, any man who is willing to trade up to half of his wealth for a dance has to have a screw lose somewhere under his hairline.  Yet that's exactly what the guy did.  He may have expected the girl to ask for a tidy sum, but he wasn't prepared for a request to deliver John the baptizer's head on a platter.  Why’d he do it?  He did it to save face.

Compare Herod's actions to that of Kind David's, whose horniness led to an affair, an unplanned pregnancy, and even murder.  Yet, when confronted with his sin, David admitted his short-coming.

Two men.  One preferred to save face and commit murder.  The other was willing to lose face in order to come clean with God.

Think about this:  Jesus chose to lose face on a cross.  How absurd!  God died so that we might live!  What a gift!

I hope you see where I'm going with this.  That’s the message that I’m bringing to those 700 college students in Taiwan in October, and I need your help to do it.  Pray for me.  I usually spend forty or fifty hours in prep time when developing a new sermon.  I have to.  In order to be any good, that’s what it takes.  But because of the cultural difference, I’m spending way more time than that getting ready for this trip.

 

The second thing you can do is to help me get to Taiwan.  I need somewhere between $1300 and $1700 to get there and back, and right now, I don’t have it.  I have led close to 250 people to Christ over the last umpteen years, but I have never had an opportunity to present the gospel to so many nonbelievers at once. 

 

Can you help me with a one-time gift to pay for this ticket?  Gifts can be made on-line at:  http://www.goldenclay.org/donate.htm

 

Thank you in advance for any help you give.

Posted by Steve Chance at 5/31/2009 4:56 PM
Categories: Evangelism
Tags: Jesus Taiwan Cerebral Palsy God
Previous Post
Next Post

 

What did you think of this article?




Trackbacks
Trackback specific URL for this post
  • No trackbacks exist for this post.
Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)
Page: 1 of 1
  • 12/4/2010 12:50 AM Relocate to phoneix wrote:
    The magic of playing has to do with how much everyone wants it to succeed. If you have five players in a situation where the music is being improvised and one is determined it is not going to succeed, it won't succeed even if one of the musicians takes control.
    Reply to this

Page: 1 of 1
Leave a comment

Submitted comments are subject to moderation before being displayed.

 Enter the above security code (required)

 Name

 Email (will not be published)

Your comment is 0 characters limited to 3000 characters.