Inside Story: Taiwan ~ Farmer Plants Churches
Farmer Plants Churches
By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission
A Seventh-day Adventist minister asked Huang Wen-Ming, a farmer with no theological training, to help plant a church in a small village located a 2 ½-hour drive from his home in southern Taiwan.
Image © Pacific Press
Wen-Ming was surprised. He wasn’t a church member, but he worshiped every Sabbath in his own village. He agreed to help. He spoke with a church member who had a female relative in the other village, Ba-Eao, where no Adventists lived. She gave permission to start a house church in her home.
Wen-Ming and the pastor took turns preaching in the house church every Sabbath, and six people were baptized in six months. About a half-year after that, Wen-Ming himself was baptized.
Adventist leaders were impressed that God had blessed Wen-Ming’s efforts in southern Taiwan, a region where the church has struggled to make inroads. The Taiwan Conference asked him to plant a church in another southern village, Santi. Six years later, that church was prospering, and Wen-Ming was asked to reopen a church in Siateya. For the first time, Wen-Ming was worried. He thought about his lack of theological training and prayed.
Two people showed up on the first Sabbath that Wen-Ming reopened the church’s doors. He encouraged the two worshipers to open their own homes to neighbors for Friday evening programs and to invite them to attend church services the next day. In eight years, the church had 74 members.
After seventeen years of planting churches, Wen-Ming said the secret is to follow Christ’s method alone, which Ellen White summarized as: “Christ’s method alone will give true success in reaching the people. The Saviour mingled with men as one who desired their good. He showed His sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, and won their confidence. Then He bade them, ‘Follow Me’” ( The Ministry of Healing, p. 143).
Wen-Ming, 75, said he tries to meet people’s needs. At Siateya, he brought mangos, watermelons, and guavas from his farm for a fellowship meal every Sabbath. After three years, worshipers began to follow his example.
The young pastor who replaced Wen-Ming as leader at Siateya asked with astonishment, “How did you grow this church? How can I grow a church like you did?”
“Show mercy, be patient, be humble, and love others,” Wen-Ming said. “Just be like Jesus.”
Part of a 2018 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering helped open six health-focused “urban centers of influence” in Adventist churches in Taiwan. Thank you for your mission offerings that help spread the gospel.
Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org
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It's is such an amazing gift to be able to plant churches even without proper theological trainings.... May the Lord give us the heart to be a kind and loving people that will be able to share whatsoever we have with the needy so that the Gospel may be spread to all the parts of the world....
I believe in my heart that the Lord will use many, many people as he used the disciples to spread the message of salvation to a dying world. The Lord has many people who will make it through his power to carry the great message forward who are not preach, pastors or evangelist. There is no evidence/doctrine in the bible that says you have to carry a name with your name to become a person to carry the great message of salvation. All you need is the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that and that alone.
Think some should rethink our method of evangelism. All some is looking for is numbers. Numbers to baptize. But everything is changing and so should be our strategy. Mingle with the people should be our first work. Do we want to roll up out sleeve and pants to help other? Covid19 had brought a lot of suffering and loneliness, can we be more engage with those suffering, can we do a phone call ministry. Can we check on others and encourage them. Can we use some of our free time to take a neighbor/friend/family from point A to point B. Let us mingle as Christ did. Let us put aside the numbers and leave that to Christ. A precious soul is worth more than just a number, an amount to be baptize.