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2/8/2010

Pietism in the Chinese church - and Eastern asceticism

Image from sxc.huIn a previous post we saw how there is a direct connection between Western pietism on the one hand, and those who came to embody Chinese Pietism in the East on the other. And in particular we saw that this connection came about through the missionary movement of the 19th century. But why has Chinese Pietism taken on the form that it has?

As with most cases of 'influence', we can't say for sure - however there are some pretty clear indications!

Confucianism

Confucianism is the main philosophy that influences most of the Eastern world, with a history that stretches back over 2500 years (see previous posts). Confucianism aimed at creating virtuous men (ren) - and, as a consequence, a harmonious society - by devotion to rituals from the past (the li).

However Keith Lai points out that this intense devotion on practical questions also came with an equal indifference to theoretical questions. As a result Confucius never felt there was a need to clarify the nature of heaven (tien), or the original state of humans. He writes that:
Culturally, Chinese are very receptive to practical religion. It is widely accepted that Confucianism is the heart of Chinese culture. Reflecting on the missionaries' impression of Chinese culture, Flynt and Berkley wrote that: "Everything in Confucianism depended upon correct behavior, […] Hence, Confucianism emphasized the need for self-discipline and self-examination and the continuous cultivation of the inner virtues of righteousness, propriety, wisdom and goodness." Emphasis on behaviour is at the heart of Confucianism.  At the same time, the missionaries realized that there is no clear definition of the heavenly Way, even it was mentioned, and immorality in Confucianism. In other words, Confucianism did not aim to provide a systematic explanation of the universe and human sin. Hence, it can be said that the Chinese mind is trained to be concerned about behaviour, but not so much about theory. 
Keith Lai, "Influence of Pietism on the Chinese Church", 16.
Perhaps then, when Chinese culture encountered Western Pietism, it embraced its strong focus on practical Christianity. And while it did not explicitly reject theology, it saw little use for it.

However even Confucianism's focus on the practical does not explain why selfhood (in the form of the soul) is seen as such an enemy to spiritual man. And for this we need to turn to Eastern asceticism...

Eastern asceticism

Eastern philosophy draws a distinction between spirit (which is good) and matter (which is bad). This can be seen in Hinduism and Buddhism where the aim is to deny bodily desires and ultimately escape from the world of matter with all its suffering and troublesome desires. All our suffering is caused by these cravings and desires. And so significantly, we make spiritual progress by effacing one's soul (atman) in order to reach this ultimate level! This happens as one applies oneself to the Four Noble Truths and follows the Noble Eight-fold Path.
 
But you can already pick out how Chinese pietism shares striking similarities with Eastern asceticism at a number of points. Like Eastern asceticism, Chinese pietism also prizes the spirit, despising the outer man with all its troublesome carnality. And like Eastern asceticism, the spiritual man is the one who is able to put the soul to death - and live only by the spirit.

Stephen Johnson suggests that the interpretation of the Scriptures that led to Chinese Pietism may have been working off such a worldview:
"Spirit is good, material is evil. Each culture tends to read its presuppositions into its Scriptural exegsis. [...] While this is speculative, its potential influence upon Nee's anthropology is great and would seem to colour biblical interpretation significantly, though subtly enough to escape notice from one who has grown up within that cultural norm. The continued emphasis on thinking and acting in the flesh as opposed to the spirit, may have its roots in Asian pre-Christian spirituality and produce a hybrid when mingled with a genuine sincerity as far as concerns biblical fidelty."
Stephen Johnson, "The Spirituality of Watchman Nee", 21.
Perhaps then Chinese Pietism, while using a great deal of biblical language, and despite how well it might resonate with the Chinese sense of what is deeply spiritual, is at its heart much closer to Eastern asceticism than it is to biblical Christianity!
 
[ PS: Roger Bray also suggests that Eastern animism/spiritism may influence the regard for omens and signs in Chinese pietism (see his comment here)... ]
2/2/2010

Pietism in the Chinese church - things to watch for

Image from sxc.huOver the last few posts we've been looking at Chinese pietism. This is not actually a very big feature of second generation Chinese, but tends to be more prominent in first generation ministries. And even then the influence of pietism is not uniform: many may not even know the name Watchman Nee, and there are in fact competing influences on OBCs - such as modernism (see previous post)!
 
Yet Chinese pietism still exerts a strong influence on some Chinese - and you can see it in the things that are said:

"They did not worry about money or resources - they simply had faith that God would provide everything they need."

"Others told him that he was crazy! That he should have a plan, that he should think through resources! But he had faith in God and trusted in him instead."

"He didn't have a plan in mind - he simply followed God's calling."

Notice the rejection of the carnal and 'soulish' methods such as planning, reason, calculating resources, raising support - and in its place the more 'spiritual' dependence on God by faith. Often these carnal methods are not explicitly spoken of as bad - but implicitly understood to be inferior. Yet in practice there is a sharp division between the spiritual (which is good) - and the worldly (which is bad).
 
But there is more:
"God broke him through that experience and he learnt to trust in God for his every needs."
 
"He denied himself and instead was willing to sacrifice even his career as a doctor for God."
 
"You need to become fully devoted to God."
And here we have that theme of the denial of self / dying to self in order to become the truly spiritual man.  The things that we are to learn to die to are things like our wisdom, cunning, intelligence, and talents. And underlying this is the thinking that Christian growth is not actually about putting sin to death and growing in our love for God... instead it's about breaking the outer man so that the inner life of the spirit may shine forth (see previous post).
 
Here are some more things to listen out for:
"It was not us, it was God."
 
"God told him not to finish his uni course, but instead to travel overseas and wait for his leading."
 
"Yes he missed that plane - but it was God, you know. God did not allow him to board that plane, he had something greater in mind that we could not fathom at that time."
 
"God did not allow us to sell the church building at that time. He had another way in mind, that was not our way."
 
"God spoke to him and told him not to return yet, there was more God had planned for him to do."
Notice the unqualified certainty with which people ascribe what god has been doing in recent events in history. God's supernatural and present intervention in one's ministry - and even his speaking to us in our spirit - is a valuable confirmation of one's election. Notice also that it is often associated with things which, at the time, go against the 'carnal' faculties such as reason and careful planning, and instead exhibit a life that is much more 'spiritual.'
 
However Chinese pietism doesn't just show itself in what people say, it can also show up in practices common in the Chinese church - practices such as faith missions, and faith promise giving. These look for God's present involvement apart from the normal means of drawing up budgets, talking to supporters, calculating resources. These are merely the workings of man. Instead, for God to work, he must do so supernaturally, through his spirit.
 
Be aware that, taken individually, these may all be innocuous. And of course, some of these things can also be seen in non-Chinese Christianity. But taken together, they may indicate the influence of Chinese pietism...
 
[ PS: how else have you seen pietism at work in the things people say and do? ]
1/31/2010

Pietism in the Chinese church - dying and being broken

Image from sxc.huWatchman Nee's tripartite anthropology is the theological foundation of much of Chinese church pietism. And in the last post we saw how that works itself out in terms of how God's will is discerned, and in terms of how much spiritual authority is given to intuition. But Nee's anthropology also leads to even more implications for the Christian life...
 
Dying to one's 'self'
 
If the spiritual man is someone who is controlled by the spirit, it means that the faculties of the soul must be denied, it must be put to death. Just as the body is crucified and delivered from the dominion of sin, so also are we to die to our soul.

In his exegesis of John 12, Nee says this:
He [Jesus] compares himself to a grain of wheat. If it does not fall inot the earth and die it remains alone. But if he be crucified and die, he shall impart life to many. The one condition is death. No death, no fruit. No other way is there to bear fruit than through death.
Every one of his disciples must follow in his footsteps. He pictures the grain as representing their self life. Just as a grain is unable to bear fruit until the natural life has been broken through death. Here he emphasises the matter of fruitfulness. While the soul life does possess tremendous power it nevertheless cannot fulfill the work of fruit-bearing. All the energies generated in the soul including talent, gift, knowledge and wisdom, cannot enable believers to bear spiritual fruit. If the Lord Jesus must die to bear fruit so also must his disciples die in order to produce fruit. The Lord regards soulish power as of no help to God in his work of fuirt bearing.
Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man, 1:189-190.
A kind of life may be generated from the soulish faculties - but it should not be confused with true spiritual fruit. Instead we must die to soulish things like our talents, gifts, knowledge and wisdom if God is to work in us!

Keith Lai writes that according to Nee,
The salvation of the spirit, with the freedom of the body, does not entail the defeat of the soul, which is also the source for sin.  Nee contended that after one has received Christ, the soul is still at work. That soul life is the carnal life.  If anyone, even a Christian, depends on his natural strength, like his own talent, eloquence, cleverness, attractiveness, and zealousness, he is depending on flesh and not the Spirit.  Even when he draws on these natural abilities to achieve a godly goal, he is led by selfish ambitions and not the Spirit.  Consequently, he still cannot please God. There is a need for the salvation of the soul.
But the salvation of the soul is a much more longer process than that of the spirit. In dealing with the soul, one has to deny oneself, just as Jesus said in Matthew 16: 24: "If anyone will come after me, let him first deny himself, take up his cross and follow me."  To deny oneself, for Nee, means to "deny everything originating in ourselves-what we are, what we have, what we can do-and move entirely by Him, daily apprehending the life of Christ through the Holy Spirit."  This also includes the willingness to embrace sufferings, as the Spirit requires. This is what Nee called "walk in the Spirit". He insisted Christians should not use their own natural ability to cope with the trials.  Instead they should pray that: 'Lord, I cannot handle it but Lord you handle it for me.' Then we will act differently from what we normally can.  It is because Christ, who lives within us by his Spirit guides the action. 
Keith Lai, "Influence of Pietism on the Chinese Church", 25-27.
This means that planning, strategising, calculating resources and raising supporters are carnal methods for achieving God's purposes. These reveal a dependence on the faculties of the soul - and not a dependence on the spirit. A truly spiritual man denies himself - and all the things that come from the 'self' such as his intellect, wisdom, knowledge. He dies to those carnal things - and instead lives by the spirit.
 
  Watchman Nee's denial of soulish aspects of the self
Keith Lai explains how a number of encounters early in Nee's life impressed such an approach on him:
Nee's Christian faith was nurtured by Dora Yu.  After he had dedicated himself to serve the Lord, Nee spent a year in Yu's Bible School.  There he said Yu "taught him too to let God's Word speak to his own hear and not merely - essential though that was - to store his mind with its text."  Later, Yu introduced Nee to Margret E. Barber, who was a former Anglican Missionary.  Barber's life had a tremedous impact on Nee.  Founded in his later writing, Nee said:
"I always thought of her (Barber) as a 'lighted' Christian.  If I did but walk into her room, I was brought immediately to a sense of God.  In those days I was very young and had lots of plans, lots of schemes for the Lord to sanction, a hundred and one things which I thought would be marvellous if brought to fruition.  With all these I came to her to try and persuade her; to tell her that this or that was the thing to do.  But before I could open my mouth she would say a few quite ordinary words - and light dawned.  It simply put me to shame.  My scheming was all so natural, so full of man, whereas here was one who lived for God along.  I had to cry to Him, 'Lord, teach me to walk that way.'"
Keith Lai, "Influence of Pietism on the Chinese Church", 33-35.
And already you can see that in Nee's theology, the faculties of thinking, reasoning etc. themselves are seen as carnal in-and-of-themselves - not just sin, not just sin-damaged thinking. They take on an entirely subordinate role in the spiritual man - but it is so subordinate that it effectively negates those God-given faculties!
 
Being broken by the Spirit
 
Nee describes the process of the soul being put to death, and the spirit taking control as a process called being 'broken'.

In The Release of the Spirit, Nee uses the language of the 'inner man' (the spirit) and the 'outer man' (the soul, and then the body). God indwells us in our spirit - but there is a problem: the outer man traps and smothers the spirit.
When God comes to indwell us, by His Spirit, Life and power, He comes into our spirit which we are calling the inward man. Outside of this inward man is the soul wherein functions our thoughts, emotions and will. The outermost man is our physical body. Thus we will speak of the inward man as the spirit, the outer man as the soul and the outermost man as the body. We must never forget that our inward man is the human spirit where God dwells, where His Spirit mingles with our spirit. Just as we are dressed in clothes, so our inward man "wears" an outward man: the spirit "wears" the soul. And similarly the spirit and soul "wear" the body. It is quite evident that men are generally more conscious of the outer and outermost man, and they hardly recognize or understand their spirit at all. We must know that he who can work for God is the one whose inward man can be released. The basic difficulty of a servant of God lies in the failure of the inward man to break through the outward man.
Watchman Nee, The Release of the Spirit, I.
How can the spirit be released, so that the inner life can shine forth? Nee's answer is that the outer man must be broken:
Yet due to the distractions of the outward man, their spirit does not seem to function properly. It is basically because their outward man has never been dealt with. For this reason revival, zeal, pleading and activity are but a waste of time. As we shall see, there is just one basic dealing which can enable man to be useful before God: brokenness.
Watchman Nee, The Release of the Spirit, I.
 Being broken
This experience of being broken is crucial in Nee's understanding of the Christian life. It is a lifelong process, and many experiences of being broken may be needed for the outer man to be put to death. Keith Lai writes that,
Nee was aware that to walk after the spirit is life long process. Throughout this process, it is important for every Christian to reach many breaking points, by which he becomes aware that he can no longer do anything out of natural abilities, but has to depend on Christ. It is through these "broken" experiences that the soul will be broken, and the spirit will take control as a result.
Keith Lai, "Influence of Pietism on the Chinese Church", 28.
For this breaking to occur, the Christian must first place himself willingly in the hands of God by full consecration. And then the Holy Spirit works to break the outer man using external means - circumstances and crises that force us to see our reliance on our own knowledge, intellect, wisdom - and which make us give these up in order to depend wholly on God.
It is not by the supply of grace to the inward man that the Holy Spirit breaks the outward. Of course, God wants the inward man to be strong, but His method is to utilize external means to decrease our outward man. It would be well nigh impossible for the inward man to accomplish this, since these two are so different in nature that they can scarcely inflict any wound on each other. Accordingly the nature of the outward man and that of external things are similar; thus the former can be easily affected by the latter. External things can strike the outward man most painfully. So it is that God uses external things in dealing with our outward man.
Watchman Nee, The Release of the Spirit, VI.
Nee places a very high value on this personal and present discipline of the Holy Spirit - so high in fact, that he compares it negatively with the Word!
Once you yield yourself to God, this discipline will meet your need to a far greater extent than that of the Word. It is not just for the learned, the clever, the gifted; no, it is the way for every child of God. The supply of the Word, the grace of prayer, the fellowship of the believers—none of these can substitute for the discipline of the Holy Spirit. This is because you need not only to be built up; you need also to be destroyed, to be delivered of all the many things in your life that cannot be brought over into eternity.

Watchman Nee, The Release of the Spirit, VI.

And so once again we see how Watchman Nee's anthropology leads to a unique vision of the Christian life - one which rejects carnal reliance on one's own abilities, and which learns this through being 'broken' again and again by the Spirit. And for many this will be a compelling vision!
 
But is that really what we are meant to do with our intellect? with wisdom? with knowledge? is faith really opposed to these things? Or has Nee simply assumed that these 'lesser' functions cannot be spiritual?
 
And could Nee's emphasis on the subjective and present work of the Spirit end up replacing the historic yet objective foundation of the gospel in the confidence of believers?
 
[ PS: how have you seen this in the things that Chinese Christians say and do? ... and how have you seen it in how missions work is done? ]
1/29/2010

Pietism in the Chinese church - anthropology and revelation

Image from sxc.huChinese Pietism is perhaps most embodied in the teaching of Watchman Nee (1903-1972). And most crucial for Nee's theology was his understanding of the human being - particularly his tripartite ('threefold') anthropology.
 
Watchman Nee believed that 1 Thess 5:22-23 outlined for us three separate parts of the human being: the spirit, the soul and the body. And understanding how Nee thought these three parts related to one another is crucial in getting a handle on Chinese Pietism...

Watchman Nee's tripartite anthroplology

According to Watchman Nee, the body is that part of us that interacts with the world and has bodily desires. The spirit is that part which contains the intuition, the conscience and is capable of communion with God. And the soul is the self-conscious part of ourselves, formed by the meeting of spirit and body. It is the soul that contains the intellect, will and emotions.
Watchman Nee's tripartite anthropology
The unregenerate man is under control of their 'self' in the form of their own soul. This 'self' is governed by the passions of the body, and is dead to the spirit.

Unregenerate man, according to Watchman Nee
However Nee believed that the spiritual man allows their regenerated spirit to govern their soul, which then governs the body. In his book The Spiritual Man, Nee writes that,

At regeneration man receives God's own life into his spirit and is born of God. As a consequence, the Holy Spirit now rules man's spirit which in turn is equipped to regain control over the soul and, through the soul, to govern his body. Because the Holy Spirit becomes the life of man's spirit, the latter becomes the life of man's whole being. The spirit, soul and body are restored to God's original intention in every born-again person.
Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man, 1:63.

Spiritual man, according to Watchman Nee
But there is more. Watchman Nee also believed that since God is spirit, he must communicate to spirit. And through our regenerated spirits, God now relates to us directly. Nee writes of the spiritual person that,
it is his spirit that relates itself to God. God is Spirit; all who worship Him, therefore, must worship in spirit.  It alone can commune with God.  Only spirit can worship spirit.
Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man, 1:62.
How God relates to spiritual man, according to Watchman Nee
Stephen Johnson highlights the functions of the spirit in Nee's thought:

The spirit is seen as the place where God works in regenerate man. The spirit contains intuition (the sense organ which receives revelation from God). It also embraces communion, which is the activity of receiving the revelation through one's intuition. Communion is seen as the activity of knowing the mind of God. Lastly, there is conscience. Though it is operataive in both believers and unbelievers, the work of the conscience in a believer brings the possibility of true communion with God.
Stephen Johnson, "The Spirituality of Watchman Nee", 8.

Notice that it is through these three higher faculties of the spirit that God relates to us - intuition, communion and conscience - and not through the lesser, 'soulish' faculty of the intellect.

In the next post we will look at the implications of this for what the spiritual Christian life looks like, but for the moment we will look at what this means for how a Christian perceives the will of God.

The place of exegesis in understanding God's will

Since God only communicates with spirit, Watchman Nee's anthropology means that the 'soulish' intellect is incapable of accessing God's will. Nee writes that,

When one tries to increase his knowledge by doing mental gymnastics over books without waiting upon God and looking to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, his soul is plainly in full swing. This will deplete his spiritual life.
Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man, 1:47.

And that is because spiritual things can only discerned by the faculties of the spirit (such as intuition) - and not by the faculties of the soul (such as intellect). Johnson writes that,

A natural man cannot understand the Bible until his spirit is enlivened. Man does not primarily understand with his mind in the area of spiritual pursuits but with the spirit. The soulish area of the mind is only secondary.
Stephen Johnson, "The Spirituality of Watchman Nee", 10-11.

That may sound good, but in practice, this means that the normal tools of exegeis that we learn at KYLC/NextGen are not spiritual, but worldly. The skills of looking out for the situational, literary and theological context, of paying attention to the meaning of words, of the structure of sentences and paragraphs, is an inferior, 'soulish' occupation that must be rejected. In her book Understanding Watchman Nee, Dana Roberts writes that,

Nee is admirable and insightful in understanding the illuminating work of divine revelation in comprehending the spiritual reality of the Bible. But he also seems un-appreciative of the Bible as God's interpretation of real events, language, culture, and people in his covenant history. In Nee's discussion of Bible study methods, comparing and compiling texts are his keys to understanding, never the historical circumstances of the passages. Like many writers who rely entirely on the devotional hermeneutic, he never subjects the biblical text to some discerning questions: Why does the author say this? How does it fit into the context of the whole book? Does the historical background of the passage relate to the circumstances of my own life or the life of my church?"
Dana Roberts, Understanding Watchman Nee, 146.

It's important to note that Nee is not alone in this rejection of the intellect. Other early Chinese church leaders also showed this tendency. John Sung reacted against his liberal education from Union Theological Seminary, and in a well known incident on the voyage back to China threw overboard his diplomas and medals. John Sung once said that "one has knowledge, then he can not have love." Like Nee, Sung also believed that the intellect did not play an important role in understanding the Bible, but instead emphasised the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
 
Continuing revelation through the spirit

But there is more than that... Not only does Chinese Pietism downplay the intellect, it also opens the door to continuing revelation through the spirit, by our intuition. Nee writes that,

Spiritual life is maintained simply by heeding the direction of the spirit's intuition. If a believer walks according to God's Spirit he will not originate or regulate anything; he will instead wait quietly for the voice of the Holy Spirit to be heard in his spirit intuitively and assume for himself the position of a subordinate. Upon hearing the inner voice he rises up to work, obeying the direction of intuition. By so walking the believer remains a steadfast follower. The Holy Spirit alone is the Originator.
Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man, 1:149-50.

That is, the spiritual Christian looks for God's supernatural leading into his will by being sensitive to his intuition. In all this, Nee does have a role for the mind - but it's only to understand that will - not to test or question the intuition.

We consistently ought refuse to allow the mind to serve as the prime element for receiving God's will, yet we must not inhibit it from serving as the secondary apparatus for understanding that will.  A carnal Christian mistakes the thought of the head to be the criterion for his conduct because he has not yet learned how to walk after the spirit.
Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man, 3:65-6.

Stephen Johnson highlights the danger of this:

It might be said that the biggest danger in Nee's spiritual assessments is the threat of incipient gnosticism. Nee's conclusion of the subjective nature of what a 'spiritual man' is, gives rise to a form of the pneumakti or enlightened ones of the second century.
Stephen Johnson, "The Spirituality of Watchman Nee", 23.

From what we have seen so far of Watchman Nee's anthropology, we can already see that it leads to a very different kind of Christianity... and huge issues are actually at stake.

How does God reveal his will to us? Is it revealed in the Bible, accessed using the normal tools of exegesis? Or does God now reveal his will for us directly to our spirits, through our intuition?

And what level of authority do we ascribe to such intuition? Is God whispering directly to me today, calling me to do certain things (such as full time ministry)? would I be presumptuous to subject these feelings under the 'soulish' intellect? Or are we to exercise wisdom informed by our understanding of the Bible?

[ PS: how have you seen this showing itself in the things that Chinese Christians say or do? ]
1/28/2010

Pietism in the Chinese church - not like the West!

Image from sxc.hu'Pietism' may sound like a relatively good thing to you. And for the most part it is - at least in the history of Western Christianity. But for Chinese Christianity, Pietism takes on a different form entirely...

In the Western world Pietism is a movement that actually dates back to the post-Reformation period in Germany. Sure, Germany was full of life when the gospel was rediscovered in the 16th century... But by the 17th and 18th centuries German churches had become cold and analytical in their theology and practice. Pietism was a movement dedicated to changing all that. It turned the focus back onto practical Christianity (not just theology), personal conversion (not just church attendance), a focus on devotional life (not just formal observance), and the study of the Bible in home groups (not just sermons at church).

The movement quickly caught on, and its influence spread to other countries such as England and the United States. And on the whole it had a positive influence. It led to to the Great Awakenings in America. It led to modern-day evangelicalism. And in part it fuelled the modern missionary movement.
 
And it is partly through that missionary movement that Pietism came to influence key Chinese church leaders such as Watchman Nee, Wong Ming Dao, and John Sung - and through them, the Chinese church as a whole. However as it did so, Pietism would take on a distinctive form among the Chinese...

Over the next few posts we'll look at the key features of Chinese Pietism!

[ PS: what do you think are the signs of Chinese Pietism? ]
1/2/2010

The most (and least) 'Christian' Chinese suburbs in Sydney

A few posts ago I showed you some graphs with the top 75 Sydney suburbs numbers in terms of number of Chinese people in them (see previous post). But how are we going at reaching them? and where do we need to plant Chinese churches?

Today what I've done is I've worked out the proportion of Chinese in these suburbs that identified themselves as 'Christian' in some way or another and put them into a graph. Again, I've annotated every tenth suburb with a ranking.

Note that this is not all Sydney suburbs - there were some with very small numbers of Chinese that would give strange results. For example, every Chinese person in Palm Beach identified themselves as 'Christian' - but that's only three people! And so this graph is only made up of the top 75 suburbs by Chinese population (the ones in the previous post). And remember that 'Christian' is the broad classification used by the ABS that also includes Roman Catholics.

Proportion of Chinese who are 'Christian', by NSW suburb, 2006

Notice a number of things. Firstly, some significantly large suburbs (in terms of Chinese population) are right at the bottom of this graph (Hurstville at #61, Campsie at #69, Cabramatta at #73). And yet these suburbs are actually #1, 2 and 3 respectively in terms of size of Chinese population!

Secondly, the suburbs that have the highest proportion of Christians among the Chinese tend to be in the North and East. The least reached areas in terms of the Chinese population are to the South, West and South-West.

And thirdly, you can also see that areas with a higher proportion of Chinese Christians also tend to be the more affluent areas of Sydney... For the sake of the gospel, will those living in the more affluent areas be willing to move into the less affluent areas of Sydney to witness and serve and plant churches?

[ PS: in relation to this graph, where have Chinese churches been planted? ]
12/31/2009

Sydney Chinese church movements - 2009

Image from sxc.huThese are English ministry movements in Sydney for the year 2009:

Mr Alby Lam graduates from Moore College and will begin as English pastor at EFCA East Lindfield in 2010. He was serving there as a chatechist during 2009.

Mr Simon Wong graudates from Presbyterian Theological Centre and returns to Gracepoint Burwood to begin their Easy English ministry. He has been working as a chatechist at Hope Anglican Church, Chatswood.

Rev. Cam Phong Huynh left St Geroge's Anglican Church, Hurstville and began LIFE, a second generation Vietnamese church plant with Fairfield Anglican.

Pastor Andrew Hong leaves Northern District Chinese Christian Church Sydney (NDCCCS). He will begin as Associate Pastor at North Side Chinese Alliance Church in Epping in 2010.

Rev. Alistair Chiu leaves Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Panania. He will begin at St Geroge's Anglican Church, Hurstville in 2010.

Pastor Anthony Dumbrell leaves Hills District Chinese Christian Church (HDCCC).

Pastor Ernest Chiang is still with Christ Evangelical Church of Australia (CECA), but moves from the Eastwood church to the Mortdale branch church to begin its English ministry.

Rev. Peter Ko is still with Chinese Christian Church Milson's Point (CCC), but began the South West Chinese Christian Church plant.

Pastor Al Garlando began as English pastor of Grace Chinese Christian Church, Kogarah. He replaces Bob McSwan who served as interim pastor.

Rev. Andrew Maxwell leaves Australian Ling Liang Church in Asquith.

Bronwyn Lihou leaves Western Region Chinese Presbyterian Church (WRCPC) at Bonnyrigg as an OMF missionary to Taiwan.

Pastor John Wiggins from Eastwood Baptist joins Chinese Australian Baptist Church West Ryde (CABC WR) as interim English pastor.

Pastor Mark Boyley was ordained at West Sydney Chinese Christian Church (WSCCC). He pastors the CP11 congregation at Croydon Park.

Pastor Steve Chong was ordained at Kirplace Presbyterian Church in Kogarah.

Pastor Tom Tokura was ordained at Chinese Christian Church, Milson's Point.

Here are some other Chinese ministry moves in Sydney for the year 2009:

Mr David Truong begins part time ministry at Northern District Chinese Christian Church, Sydney (NDCCCS).

Rev. Albert Kwong left West Sydney Chinese Christian Church (WSCCC).

Pastor Arthur Leung leaves North Side Chinese Alliance Church (NSCAC). He takes up a position at Northern District Chinese Christian Church Sydney (NDCCCS) in 2010 to focus on Easy English ministry.

George Kwek left Grace Chinese Christian Church Sutherland for overseas missions to the Burmese.

Pastor Sunny Tse was ordained at Beverly Hills Chinese Baptist Church.
 
[ PS: know of some other movements? Let me know and I'll include them... thanks to Jeff Fung, Al Garlando and Alistair Chiu for additions! ]
12/30/2009

Chinese in Sydney - by suburbs

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) presents a lot of its information in terms of Statistical Local Areas (SLAs) - but realistically, that's a strange category for most people. Much more understandable is the suburb - and so what I have today are some graphs showing you the number of people of Chinese ancestry in suburbs.

This first graph shows you the top 75 NSW suburbs with the highest number of people of Chinese ancestry. I've labelled every ten or so of them with the number, so you can work out the relative rankings. This helps you to work out that Epping (for example) is the 7th largest suburb in terms of Chinese population in NSW!

Sydney suburbs - Chinese Ancestry population 2006
In this next graph I've worked out the proportions, and this shows the percentage of suburbs that are of Chinese ancestry, again showing the top 75 suburbs. Epping, for example, is #14 in terms of the proportion of people being of Chinese ancestry.

Sydney suburbs - proportion Chinese ancestry
[ PS: were you surprised by some areas? ]
12/11/2009

Making change happen: three roads

How do you get changes made, and new ideas implemented - in church as well as elsewhere?

My theory is that there are three 'roads' that you need to be travelling on at the same time, in order for change to be successful. Neglect one - or more - of these roads, and you are almost guaranteed to have problems!

Three roads

The high road is the road of formal approval from the 'higher ups' in your church or organisation. This might be the Board of Deacons, the English Committee, the Pastoral Team... and moving along this road might involve informal chats with chairmen and deacons to sell the idea. It might involve having coffee with pastors to keep them in the loop and getting advice. It might involve writing and presenting proposals and waiting for them to be approved, perhaps sharing it beforehand to get feedback...

The middle road is the road of the actual nuts and bolts of implementing this thing. This might involve booking rooms, drawing up rosters, working out runsheets and buying equipment.

The low road is the road of public perception. This involves selling your new idea, spreading the word through Bible study groups, getting people talking about it and excited. Perhaps even listening carefully for concerns that people are starting to voice, so you can get on top of them.

But the thing is, you need to work at all three of these.

If you neglect the high road, you can expect that the 'higher ups' to come down on you like a ton of bricks! And the negative taste might even lessen the chances of this initiative ever being formally approved again in the future.

If you neglect the middle road, of course your initiative will be a flop. But more than that, the higher ups whom you've sold the idea to, will not trust you in future. And the people who were excited about it will be disappointed and jaded about future exciting things you promise.

If you neglect the low road, your great idea may be well organised, but it may not actually be taken up by many people - because of simple things, like them not knowing who it's for, what they can expect out of it, what it can do for them...

Got something you want to introduce? Make sure you map out your milestones along the high, the middle, and the low road. Realise that you have your own road that you feel most comfortable travelling on, and so perhaps allocate a specific person on your team to look after each road. Look after each road: the one you miss is likely to cause you problems later on!

[ PS: reflect on failed initiatives/changes in the past - can you trace it back to a particular road? can you discern a pattern? ]
12/9/2009

Indians (and other South Asians) in Sydney

Okay, this post is not about Chinese ministry at all, but about another important group in Sydney. And perhaps each of us in our own way will have our own part to play...

A while ago we saw how significant Indian migration has been in recent years - migration from India was actually greater than migration from China for both 2008 and 2009 (see previous post). But the problem is, while there are lots of Chinese churches, there aren't many Indian ones... so here are more stats on the South Asians in Sydney!

1. Where are they?

There are 331,525 people of South-Asian ancestry in Australia, and 134,099 in Sydney. Here is a map of where they are (from the 2006 ABS census):

Map of South Asians in Sydney - 2009

So this group mostly live in the areas out West, and also Canterbury. In case you're interested, here are the figures for some of the larger areas (dark red on the map):
Canterbury6,518
Blacktown - North6,750
Blacktown - South West         6,056
Blacktown - South East7,521
Holroyd7,471
Parramatta - Inner7,117
2. What are they like?

This pie chart shows you the ancestry breakdown of the South Asian group in Sydney. 62.7% of South Asian are of Indian ancestry.

South Asians in Sydney - ancestry detail - 2006


And this is the age profile of South Asians. You can see that there is a prominent peak in the 20-34 age group.

South Asians in Sydney - age profile, 2006

This bar graph shows you migration from South Asian countries from 2002-03 to the 2007-08 financial year. You can see how significant migration from India is!

South Asians - migration by country - 2002-08

And this is age profile by sex. You can see that for most of the age range, and particularly for the 20-34 age range, males outnumber females.

South Asians in Sydney - age profile by sex - 2006

3. How reached are they?

This is the breakup of religion... as you'd expect, a high number of Hindus, followed by Muslims. 'Christianity' comes in third place at 17.9% (though this includes Roman Catholics too). 

South Asians in Sydney - religion pie chart, 2006

This shows you the age profile by religion. If you compare it to the age profile above, you see that Hinduism follows the general age profile quite closely (pink line). However Christianity is very weak among the 20-44 age bracket (yellow line).

South Asians in Sydney - religion age profiles, 2006

There's a lot that has yet to be done in terms of Indian and South Asian ministry in Sydney... what part can you play?

[ PS: how many Indians / South Asians are there in your church or uni ministry? ]
 



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