End-of-Year Giving

Dear Friends,

We are coming to the end of a new year, and even though we are in a period of transition, the future is bright. Along with our own ministry, we are part of a church-planting movement that is planting churches all over the world. We also seek to enable people to grow in Christ, whether they are with us for a short or long period of time, so that when they leave us, we trust they are more equipped to share the good news of the gospel. From that standpoint, we truly have a worldwide ministry.

Here are a few things we can celebrate as we look toward Advent and the end of 2017:

• A diverse congregation of around 300 souls—around 75% single adults and 25% young families with children.
• A growing small group ministry where we have more groups meeting than ever before. Thanks to Peter Brown who heads this up.  
• A vibrant Sunday School led by Anna Furness. I truly think it is perhaps the best Sunday School you could attend in the city. That is because of Anna’s love for the gospel and commitment to grounding the children in the gospel and the redemptive-historical narrative of the Bible.
• A growing college ministry. Peter Kim and his wife Polly and three children moved from Beijing over a year ago. He is a pro with lots of experience in college ministry. We had twenty students gathered at the apartment on a recent Sunday evening, and it is hard to overstate the joy they have in Christ.
• An expanding missions outreach. Our people and financial resources are being directed to people with whom we have a strong sense of identity and partnership. They are Kalan and Kayt Spencer, Michelle Ko, and Toon and Pam Yeo. We look forward to sharing plans for 2018 that we trust will get us even more engaged, particularly in the Sanchong church plant, and secondly in the Banqiao church plant.
• A vibrant worship ministry. Donna Warren organizes four teams each week as we seek to offer hospitable worship where we seek to make the gospel accessible to both believers and seekers. And thanks to all of you for being so welcoming to our constant stream of newcomers.
• A generous diaconal ministry. Jesse Turk, who leads our deacons, will be leaving for the States in February. Eline Liu will also be stepping down after 3 years of service as deacon but will remain serving the church in the Sunday school. Along with providing necessary, but often overlooked tasks like ushering, hospitality, finances, the deacons provide financial assistance to people in need. Your generosity has lifted some people out of some very difficult situations.
• A church-planting connection. I help organize a community of church planters which meet monthly for training, encouragement, and prayer. Also, Tim Keller is coming on March 8th for a large public meeting to help galvanize churches to work together to see the gospel flood our city. Redeemer City to City also holds an annual intensive in Taipei that trains church planters. Kalan and Toon were able to take advantage this past year and I was able to attend some of the sessions which always provide rich encouragement.

Every year, we receive around 20% of our operating budget through end-of-year gifts, and you have always been faithful not only to meet the budget, but also to provide a surplus. We are using a considerable part of the surplus to renovate the church apartment which will be helpful in attracting future pastoral candidates. We are also a young congregation, with many students and single adults who are just getting established in life.

In 2018, the elders are proposing a bold plan and budget to continue to move the church forward. We really need everyone’s financial support to reach our goals. If you have fallen behind in your giving, December would be a good time to catch up. If you are new to the church and beginning to consider this as your church home, please consider joining with us.

Paul thanked the church of Philippi with these words. They had “fellowship with me in the manner of giving and receiving” (Phil. 4:15). Joyful giving to God’s work increases our sense of fellowship together as the gospel is advanced.

Thank you for your partnership in the gospel, and may your holiday season be blessed!

Dennis Brown

5 Questions With...Elder Alan Fiol

Elder Alan Fiol

1. How did you first get involved with Friendship Presbyterian? Fifteen or so years ago, when my wife and I were serving at Christ's College in Guandu, we drove out to Friendship for worship.  It was a bit far to drive, so after about a year we switched to a closer church.  In 2011, when we moved to Taipei, we got back into FPC right away.  We're so blessed to be here!

2. What do you do when you're not working for the church? I teach music lessons and help my wife, who is a full-time Chinese teacher, on the home front with cooking and boring things like that.  Actually, not boring. For the most part, I enjoy it!  Also, when I'm not so busy with church work, I write music material for my teaching, as well as arrange and compose music.

3. What is something people might be surprised to know about you? Having grown up in the Himalayan mountains, I sometimes yearn for camping and hiking (even though I seldom actually get out in nature).  Maybe this is not such a "surprising" thing to hear, but I surprise myself sometimes when I remember this desire that is "sleeping" most of the time.

4. What do you find most challenging about being a Christian today? As a Christian parent, it is daunting navigating the pitfalls of modern society and knowing how to guide my children in this wide open and spiritually/intellectually void and confusing world.  For myself in my walk with Christ, I can too easily fall back to relying on myself rather than God.  I need constant reminding to go to the Lord in prayer and feast on His Word more, instead of depending on my ability to think my way through life.

5. What is your favorite book of the Bible? I guess it depends on what I'm reading at the moment.  I'm currently in Matthew, and am drawn by the beauty, truth, and strength of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount.  Each time I come back to Romans, I feel like a thirsty man coming back to the bottomless well of life, limitless in its message of grace.  When I've been away from Genesis for a while, I begin feeling the pull back to this exciting beginnings-book of the Bible.

Coming and Going (and Joining)

At FPC, we are all about community groups. The essential work of the Church in the New Testament age in which we live is building up the house of God, the place where he makes his dwelling amongst his people. But whereas in the Old Testament the house of God was the tabernacle or the temple, in our time, it is us. Each believer is a “temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19). Each believer is a “living stone” to be used in building up God’s “spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5). “Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). This happens partly at our Sunday worship service, but even moreso in community groups, where we can know and love each other more personally.

But there is a particular challenge to community-group participation at FPC, and that is the transient nature of our congregation. Transience is a fairly typical feature of life in big cities the world over. People come to the city for education and internships, or to prove themselves in their field, or simply for a few years of excitement before “settling down” in the suburbs. Few of these pursuits lead to a long-term commitment to living in the city, to “putting down roots.”

This is by no means to look down on such choices. It is simply to point out that they can inhibit the impulse to commit to things like community groups, given the background knowledge that the faces in the group may be completely different in six months’ time.

The question that needs to be asked, though, is what is my criteria for commitment? How long does someone need to be around for me to commit to being at least partly involved in their life, and they in mine? Six months? Two years? Indefinitely? If I justify the withholding of myself due to transience, well, transience is based on time. So what is my time? At what point do I feel a person will be “there” long enough for me to commit to them?

Committing to a person or a group of people is never something to take lightly. As Christians, we seek to build our houses on rock, not sand. For the storms will come, taking people out of our lives whom we have cared for, and who may also care for us. It can just as easily happen without a storm, too, perhaps moreso. But if we are waiting for someone who can give us a lifetime guarantee of being forever “there” before we can invest in them even a little bit, we will find ourselves doing more waiting than investing.

And it is not just the Church that suffers:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

--C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves