The program for the World Day of Prayer 2023 is written by the World Day of Prayer Committee of Taiwan.
The earliest record of Taiwan church women’s participation in the World Day of Prayer dates back to March 1935 in the Taiwan Church Press. Since then, WDP has become an ecumenical prayer worship service that is familiar to the ears of Taiwanese Christian women. Each year, the worship handbook is translated into 13 languages including Mandarin-Chinese, Taiwanese, and indigenous languages that are used during worship services.
Each January, women from the Presbyterian Church in different regions take turns holding a demonstrative WDP worship service during their national women’s training. Afterwards, each representative returns to her respective region and carries out the worship service in March.
The cross-denomination national committee led by YWCA includes representatives from other denominations (including the Catholic church) and church organizations. It holds a few WDP worship services for adults and children each year.
In 2017, the WDPIC accepted Taiwan’s proposal to write the worship service materials for 2023. This certainly opened up an opportunity for the two WDP committees in Taiwan to collaborate. Thus in 2020, the two committees formed four writing working groups, and the process of working in conjunction has brought the WDP movement in Taiwan an opportunity of mutual exchange and dialogue to seek a state of unity in faith and love between the two committees. While diverse opinions remain among the different denominations in terms of politics and social issues, the Christian faith has led us to go beyond the chasm of ethnicity, historical wounds, and disagreements in real life, so that we may work together for the gospel in which we so believe.
