| Summary: | 碩士 === 基督教台灣浸會神學院 === 基督教神學研究所 === 103 === Community works in the Christian churches in Taiwan have been in place for many years.In the past decades these works have nourished and sprang by a joint force of the churches and the government. A number of papers have examined those programs and their impacts. The reasons for their rises have yet to be explored.
The purpose of this paper was two-fold, one to trace the routes for their development, and the other to explore the reasons for their rises within two Baptist churches in northern area in Taiwan, one from the rural area and the other from an urban area.
This study was qualitative in design. In-depth interviews with staffs and workers in the two churches were carried out to generate qualitative data for analysis. Measures, such as semi-structured interview, perceptional neutrality, tape-recording, process-typing, and reconfirmation of concepts and categories extracted from the data by interviewees, were taken to assure the validity and reliability of the data collection and analysis.
The findings on the facilitators for the development of community work can be summarized in five aspects: community workers’ attitude, community planning considerations, pastors’ visions, community resources, and prayer. The five components were far from being independent from one another. They were intertwined, mutually interacting, or closely related to each other.This is because workers’ or pastors’ attitude towards community works in the church not only determined the hiring of workers and guided work planning, but also affected their long-term devotions and commitments. Workers’ familiarity with community resources would definitively influence the direction of planning and effectiveness of community works. and, prayer and visions went hand and hand together in that the former shaped the latter and the latter reaffirmed the former.
Finally, the implications for future practices on the basis of the present findings were drawn, followed with limitations and directions for future studies.
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