East Coast National Scenic Area

The historical roots of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan can be traced back to British Doctor James Laidlaw Maxwell’s coming to southern Taiwan in 1865, and the Canadian Presbyterian Church’s Dr. George Leslie Mackay’s coming to northern Taiwan in 1872, to conduct medical missionary work. In the time of political predicament and poverty in Taiwan, the Church provided local residents with medical, educational, and spiritual support and assistance, and consequentially became a center of faith in many places.

The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan was introduced to the Yiwan tribe in 1950, with Zhu Lanmei and others successively converted from other denominations. At that time, preacher Chen Zhifeng and Pastor Lin Chuanming assisted the church in evangelism. Later, the gathering place could not accommodate the increasing number of believers attending the gathering anymore. Therefore, in the following year, the believers decided to fund and build the chapel on their own. In 1953, the chapel with a cement tiled roof was completed.

In 1974, a typhoon damaged the structure of the church, so a new church needed to be built. The current church was designed by Mr. Lai Mingde to be a brick house, the front of which was designed to resemble a small European countryside church. The white exterior wall is the main visual base, with a Gothic style roof and crosses and angel sculptures at the tip of the roof and both sides of the door. A different version of the story is that when the design of the church was discussed, Mr. Lai Mingde took out some cards he collected when he was a child, and made the blueprints according to the architectural styles on the cards—and therefore the name, Card Church. It is a very charismatic church along the east coast. In 2003, it was appointed as a "historical building" by the Taitung County Government.

With its increasing popularity, more and more people come to the Yiwan tribe on the northern end of Chenggong Town to get a glimpse of the Card Church. It has not only attracted local directors to film here; in August 2012, a local young musician from Chenggong, Lu Wei, released a new album titled "The Bells of the Card Church." The album cover was designed by internationally renowned designer, Xiao Qingyang, with reference to the look of the church. The album design won the "Best Recording Package" award that year, adding culture and romantic atmosphere to the Card Church.