Building the Breakthrough Square, realizing the mission of Cultural Redemption

Edwin Wong
AV and Design Manager

The smiling faces of over 30 teenagers aged between 16 and 17 whom I met in a memorial hall in Wu Yi Shan have been lingering in my mind since my return from a cultural trip there. All of them are second year students majoring in tourism from a vocational training school. After one more year, they will be engaged in various tourism-related jobs. In their eyes, I see China's future.

Although it is those who excel in academics to be the future leaders, decision makers of China and the architects of the country's cultural appearance, the youngsters I encountered in the memorial centre, however, represent the majority of the society who are shaping the country's future cultural outlook. They are also the target of our nurture and services.

The mission of Breakthrough is to realize Cultural Redemption and Life Project. Through our mass media and interpersonal ministries, we aim at presenting the Christian viewpoints to the secular mass, inspiring youngsters' knowledge of the secular culture and enhancing their ability of critical thinking, so that they can in their own positions uphold the Christian way of looking at other individuals as well as the whole world, and make an impact on this era which calls for social conscience. It is Breakthrough's dream and vision to build up a group of youngsters who believe in the Christian religion, have a sense of commitment to the society and carry Breakthrough's movement onward.

The 31 years of Breakthrough's ministry was full of God's blessings and guidance. Breakthrough was able to contact local and overseas Chinese youngsters through its media and interpersonal ministries. Our report of last year shows that Breakthrough has come into direct contact with a total of over 700,000 local youths so far. To become their life partners and nurture them into a team extending Breakthrough's movement is the mission of our "Breakthrough Square" project.

To make this vision come true, a number of core projects will be implemented by the "Breakthrough Square". They include the construction and development of an integrated database, membership, media, programs, training for volunteers and award schemes. In the past two years, through the effort of our Marketing section, Information Technology section and Digital Media section, Breakthrough Square was taking its shape. Such efforts have brought to us an integration of a database, online and magazine columns titled "Breakthrough square" as well as the "Breakthrough Square U" held every summer. This year, we have reorganized our ministries in terms of theology and philosophy, clarified our role as the priests in the Holy Temple, who connect with God and with their era, who respond and commit to as well as construct the culture of their time. We have also provided training to our Breakthrough Square's volunteers by means of growth camps and evangelistic camps.

As far as our contact with the youths is concerned, our strategy is three-dimensional and takes the form of a 'point', a 'line' and a 'face'. 'Point' refers to the short-term and one-sided contact with those young people who have never contacted Breakthrough before. Once they have got in touch with Breakthrough, we hope that their contact with us will be sustained through their membership or media information. 'Line' means the long-term and interactive relationship with those participants in our short-term projects. Their knowledge in Breakthrough's movement will be further strengthened through our Breakthrough Square Project's volunteers training. 'Face' here means selecting committed youths from our Award scheme of the Breakthrough Square Project to carry out more social campaigns and extend the spirit of the Breakthrough Square. Such kind of relationship is related to commitment and more interactive.

In the year to come, a series of programs will be kicked off, with 'Christian Intellectual Youth Project' as the starting point. Then we will pilot the 'City and Me International Youth Video Festival' under the award scheme of the Breakthrough Square Project, as a channel for youngsters to express their views on the society.