The religious varieties of ethnic presence: a comparison between a Taiwanese immigrant Buddhist temple and an evangelical Christian church

Sociology of Religion, Summer, 2002 by Carolyn Chen

Institutionalizing a Strategy of Personal Evangelism

In its public mission to evangelize, Grace's most important resource is its members, who do the evangelizing. Like other religious groups who successfully recruit new members (Stark and Bainbridge 1980; Bainbridge and Stark 1981), the key to Grace Taiwanese Church's evangelization strategy is personal networks and friendships. The "1-2-1" strategy mentioned in the introduction to this piece not only indicates that each person should bring two new people to Grace, but that effective evangelism is based on personal "one to one" relationships. In this environment, evangelization becomes expected, as is evidenced in one respondent's remarks:

You also have to understand that the Buddhists don't evangelize like we Christians. They talk about having a good heart and doing good deeds. That's it. I feel like they provide good guidelines for living like don't do things that hurt others, be a good person. That's it. It's not like Christianity where we are supposed to be good people already, and on top of that share the good news.

All of the Christian respondents that I interviewed told me that they converted to Christianity because they were initially introduced to Grace through friends. Visitors are often encouraged to attend Friday night small-group Bible study meetings or other church social events rather than the Sunday service. These smaller, more intimate, settings are conducive towards meeting others and developing friendships. To attract non-Christians, Grace will frequently sponsor lectures dealing with practical life issues that are of interest to the general population, rather than explicitly religious issues. Popular lectures often feature a professional psychologist who speaks on issues such as dealing with relationships between husband and wife, or parent and child. (15)

Furthermore, Grace Taiwanese Church employs social activities such as ski trips and camping as opportunities to attract non-Christians and share the Gospel with them. Many of the respondents commented that while they initially may not have been interested in Christianity, they continued coming to Grace Taiwanese Church because of the friendly persistence of the members. This was the case even among those respondents who were also at the time regularly attending a Buddhist temple. In contrast, those who were attending a Buddhist temple said that no one there made efforts to reach out to them and that they made very few friends there.

Grace uses several strategies to institutionalize evangelism. At baptism individuals are asked not only if they believe the central tenets of the Christian faith, but also to promise to share their faith with those who are not yet Christian. Pastors and lay leaders are constantly urging church members to bring more friends and create goal-oriented slogans such as "1-2-1" to remind the congregation of the larger Grace Taiwanese Church vision. Another common technique is to have members make commitments or vows to evangelize to a certain number of people or to a certain group within a specified time period. In so doing, Grace cultivates in its members the expectation and obligation to evangelize.