wfn.org | Church nurtures moral character, faith through rite of passage ceremony

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>Taiwan Church News

>3023 Edition

>February 1~7, 2010

Church nurtures moral character, faith through rite of passage  ceremony

>Reported by Simon Lin

>Written by Lydia Ma

PCT Tainan Presbytery’s Tai-peng-keng Maxwell Memorial Church  held a rite of passage

ceremony on January 27 attended by more than 500 people. The  purpose of the event

was to convey the importance of faith and maturity through a rite  of passage ceremony for

all 12-year-olds that included skits and songs.

Event organizers made crowns for every 12-year-old to wear and  highlighted that turning

12 is an important coming-of-age event in Jewish culture. As  12-year-olds took turns

crossing a makeshift tunnel during a segment of the ceremony, they  were greeted by their

peers. Every child who was 12 years old was also given one fresh  lily as a small token of

>their journey into adulthood.

According to Jewish traditions, after a child turns 12, he is  considered an adult and must

assume responsibility for himself, said event organizer Lu  Chun-ying. Her church began

studying Jewish culture and Biblical references of Jesus as an  adolescent back in 1999,

and later began holding rite of passage ceremonies for church  youth in hopes of instilling

in them Christ-like characters and nurture their faith in God.

According to Lu, lilies represent a life on the road to maturity  and every child’s future is in

God’s hands. Event organizers posted signs of several moral  attributes on the front of the

makeshift tunnel for every child to see and remember and also  instructed every 12 year

old to distribute small gifts to everyone in the audience at the  end of the ceremony as a

means for them to start practicing how to serve others.

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