Sermon Preached at the Ordination of Jack Hu to the office of ruling elder at New Hope Reformed Presbyterian Church in Taipei

Bi-lingual English-Mandarin sermon on the book of Philemon

Dr. Joel H. Linton - "Model for an Elder's Ministry"

Fall and Winter in Taiwan

Worship service at New Hope Reformed Presbyterian Church in Taipei

Taiwanese-language Bible study led by Ely and David

Taiwanese-language Bible app for Android phones written by one of the church members

Preaching on Philemon at the Ordination Service for Jack Hu

Ordination of Jack Hu to the office of ruling elder at New Hope Reformed Presbyterian Church

Entrance to the future ministry center in Tang-Soann Township, Gî-lân County

Space for a kitchenette to welcome visitors

Future meeting space that can accommodate 30-40 people. After our core group grows larger, we can seek larger Lord's Day worship meeting spaces from the elementary school auditorium in a nearby village center

The book-format version of Joel's doctoral dissertation on the health of rural churches fresh from the print shop.

The Lee family moved from Taipei to Gî-lân County to help with our church planting work. We will likely begin our first intro-to-Christianity Bible studies here in their apartment's living room.

Urgent prayer request in Taiwan's society

Please pray for Taiwan's people and legislators. There is a major push by politicians to legally call partners in sexual perversion, "married," and force everyone else to acknowledge their relationships as marriage and to treat them that way. Taiwanese Christians are trying to stand against this and for Biblical marriage.

Here is a great lecture on the Biblical principles by Dr. Robert Gagnon.

Summer 2016 pictures

The girls meeting friends at the end-of-the-year gathering of their online Christian classical school.

Worshipping with the Chinese Christian Church of Virginia where I gave a missions presentation.

Giving the charge at the installation service of Greg O'Brien, one of the pastors at First Presbyterian Church in Tuscumbia, Alabama

Faith at her summer biotech program.

Faith playing piano after lunch at an assisted living community in Florence, Alabama 

                                 

Speaking at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America in June.

Giving a missions update at the August meeting of Providence Presbytery

Graduation!

Dr. Joel Linton received his doctorate in applied theology (D.Min.) from Birmingham Theological Seminary after five years of study in the doctoral program. His dissertation research topic was starting and sustaining healthy rural churches. The above picture shows Dr. Linton with his dissertation committee in full academic regalia. Dr. Jim Maples on the left was his advisor. The study of the health of rural churches is important because Christians in recent years have focused much more energy and resources on urban church planting, yet approximately half of the world's population still live in rural areas. In the dissertation rural church planting was examined in three mission fields in Asia: Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan, together with general works on church health. Further, field research was done on rural churches in five counties of northwest Alabama as well as one county in Taiwan. Hopefully, other researchers can build on this academic work. The Lord willing, this work will also be applied to new church plants in rural areas of Taiwan beginning in the fall of 2016.

The Linton family on graduation day.

Church planter teaching Sunday school teachers how to teach, "Who is God?"

The past few years, the Children's Ministries International Bible curriculum has been translated and introduced into Taiwan by the Reformed Press. One of the Taiwanese church planters I work with in Taiwan is teaching church Sunday school teachers how to teach the material in a series of videos.

Enjoy the beauty of Taiwan without the humidity or mosquito bites. :)

Taiwan, Asia's Best Country For Bicycle Travel

【單車體驗寶島之美】台灣雖然小，卻是充滿著熱情友善的人民、美味可口的食物、物美價廉的旅居環境，且擁有世界級的單車公設。如果你是個單車旅行的熱愛者，那麼絕對沒有理由錯過台灣。【Cycling in Taiwan】The island nation of Taiwan is a small, but crowded place filled with friendly people, good food, affordable accommodations, and some of the best cycling infrastructure in the entire world. Taiwan is truly a land built for bicycle travel!#MyTaiwanTour #Taiwan #Cycling #biking #bike #travel #nature #mountains #adventures #outdoors #bicycle #adventure #outdoor #TaipeiCycleShow

Posted by MyTaiwanTour on Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Visiting Churches, Giving Reports on the Work in Taiwan; Researching rural churches

In their time back in the U.S. missionaries report back to supporting churches as well as seek new churches to make up any support in the budget that fell off over the years the missionaries were laboring on the field. That takes a lot of traveling.

I am blessed that my family cheerfully travels with me. My daughters do their best with home school while traveling grabbing wifi spots to login to their online classes. Judy keeps everyone organized.

Please pray for our support raising. We do need more churches to partner with us.

This time back in the US, there is another full-time labor: finishing my doctoral dissertation. I am researching the state and needs of rural and small town churches. For part of the study, I developed a survey questionnaire covering many different issues churches deal with. In five counties in northwest Alabama, a random sample of 200 churches out of over rural 700 were selected to receive questionnaires. Three friends in Taiwan sent out surveys to 50 rural churches in I-lan County, Taiwan. I've gotten some responses but not enough. I have begun phase 2 of follow-up calling and attempting to meet in person to get a higher response rate. But I will not have time to track down all 200 churches. So do please pray that pastors will take the 15 minutes to fill out the surveys.

Then there is the actual writing of the thesis.

It is hard to attend to all of the details.

Here are some pictures:

Speaking at the International Dinner of Eastern Shore Presbyterian Church's Missions Festival





At Bayshore Christian Schools Monday morning chapel service.




















Speaking at the Community Bible Study in Florence

Preaching at the Huntsville Chinese Christian Church






Interviewing a rural church pastor as part of my thesis research






















Preaching at Dillingham Presbyterian Church


Our website
How to support