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2009/11/26 How denominations are going at reaching the Chinese in SydneyI recently prepared some stats on the Chinese in Sydney, to share with some Anglican ministers. Which raises the question: how are denominations going at reaching the Chinese in Sydney? What I've done today is prepare a graph with the age profile of the Chinese in Sydney (the red line). This maps to the scale on the left hand side. And then I've worked out the number of Chinese in Sydney who identify themselves as Anglicans, Presbyterian / Reformed, Baptist, and Uniting Church (green, blue, brown, cyan respectively). These map to the scale on the right hand side. Click the image for a larger version stored at Photobucket.  I've arranged it like this so you can compare the shape of the denominational age profiles, to the shape of the Chinese age profile (red). This is useful in highlighting segments of the Chinese population that may be being reached by the Anglicans (say) - but nowhere close to the numbers that we should expect from that segment of the Chinese population... A good example of this is the 20-24 age bracket, which all four of these denominations seem to have trouble reaching! By comparison, here is another graph showing the age profile for Roman Catholics... again, clicking on the image will get you a larger version from Photobucket.  [ PS: what is your denomination doing to reach the Chinese of Sydney? ] 2009/11/7 The Glory of God - a Bible study series Over the last week we've been looking at the centrality of the glory of God - and we've been tracing through how this gives shape to a whole range of different areas of Christian life. See parts one, two and three of the table.And the importance of the glory of God is one of those things that people will gladly affirm at an intellectual level ("oh yes, of course we should do all things for the glory of God"). Organisations may also affirm this in their vision / mission statements ("this church exists to blah blah blah ... for the glory of God"). However there is a huge difference between such affirmations - and hearts that see, and love, and are jealous for, the glory of God. How do we get people to that point? I think it is by showing people something of the glory of God - and praying that they might see it and love it. It is, in the end, God who reveals his glory to people, shining the knowledge of his glory into our hearts. And they see his glory primarily in the face of Christ. Paul says, For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. And so here is a link to a seven-week topical Bible study series I wrote for MSG (My Small Group) over the last few months. What these studies try to do is show something of the importance of God's glory to himself, its centrality to everything God has been doing, and the loveliness and terror of God's glory. These are topical Bible studies, and generally they aim at breadth and depth by firstly doing a quick overview of a range of Bible passages, before drilling down into one passage. Towards the end of each study discussion questions allow people can explore the implications of what they've seen. But most importantly, the studies have a front and a back - the back being a table that builds from week to week, helping the group trace out the implications of the glory of God for the Christian life. There are seven studies:
If I had more time, I would have written more... there are definitely other areas worth exploring. But as they stand, I hope you find these studies as life changing as we found it! [ PS: last day at ND today... ] 2009/11/6 Two visions of the Christian life - part 3 This is part three of a series - see the first two parts here and here.
Some of you might think that 'reformed theology' is as far away from a vibrant spiritual life as you can get. Because for many people 'reformed theology' does conjure up images of serious, unsmiling people with thick books of dusty theology under their arms. It makes us think of tiresome people endlessly discussing about predestination... not very attractive! One of the major ways that reformed theology has been misunderstood is that people think it is primarily about predestination and TULIP. But that's actually wrong: reformed theology has always been about the glory of God first and foremost - and God's sovereignty in salvation was only ever a stepping stone towards the end point - of the glory of God.
In fact I have even come across books about reformed theology written by major scholars where they talk a lot about predestination - but who don't mention the glory of God at all! In contrast, here is what AN Martin writes about Calvinism:
The so-called Five Points of Calvinism are cast in a negative form and can in some ways be misleading. Nonetheless we cannot change the course of history, and so the Five Points have come down to us and we must learn to live with them. Take the last four points - unconditional election, particular redemption, the efficacious call of God and the persevering work of God in all whom he has called and joined to his Son: What is the focal point in all of these? The ultimate focal point, of course, is the display of the glory of God's grace, as we read in Ephesians 1; but as the immediate focal point, how is that glory displayed? By what means? By the taking of totally depraved creatures and making them wholly men and women in whom the very likeness of God's Son can be seen. You might be surprised, but John Calvin himself affirms the centrality of the glory of God in all his thinking and practice:
Assuredly, the thing at which I chiefly aimed, and for which I most diligently laboured, was, that the glory of thy goodness and justice, after dispersing the mists by which it was formerly obscured, might shine forth conspicuous, that the virtue and blessings of thy Christ (all glosses being wiped away) might be fully displayed. For I thought it impious to leave in obscurity things which we were born to ponder and meditate. For all its bad press, reformed theology is actually all about being captivated by the glory of God! And the centrality of this in the life of the Christian is not merely a meaningless theological affirmation - from these tables you can see that it comes out in intensely practical ways.
In contrast, other theologies may promise much and have a strong and exciting focus on being serious about doing God's things - but they draw people's attention away from the glory of God to their obedience - and over time they wear people down. The focus of today's table shifts to theology - and as you read across the rows, you'll probably start to pick up how much of our theology - and even our favourite gospel outlines! are not actually centred on the glory of God... And that's because I think that many people who claim to be reformed, are "but halfly reformed." They may be reformed - but only in their doctrine. In terms of their heart, and their ministry practice, they betray how their Christianity has really centred on humans all along. Oh of course, they are committed to God! But they have not seen, nor are they captivated by, nor are they filled with love and jealousy for ... the glory of God.
For more on reformed theology, read talk #1 from SCCCA's SALT retreat earlier this year!
[ PS: stay tuned: the next post will feature a Bible study series on the Glory of God that you can try out... ] 2009/11/5 Two visions of the Christian life - part 2 Last time we looked at the first part of the table outlining two vastly different visions of the Christian life (see previous post).
For many Christians, the battle they are fighting is between selfishness on the one hand, and Christianity on the other.
And in the face of worldly selfishness that elevates my own desires and my own interests, it's probably natural that Christianity is cast in terms of its antithesis: suppression ofmy own desires, and in its place doing God's things.
 And I think, for some Christians, this is how we end up with a Christianity driven by duty and obedience. Instead of selfishly doing our own thing, we should dutifully submit ourselves to doing the things God wants us to do. Because after all, God is God, right? we should let him call the shots, right?
The problem is that this puts the focus on outward obedience and conformance - and not on the inner affections of the heart. Yes, we may be performing the actions of church attendance and prayer - but our hearts may actually be very far away from God. We may have the outward form of Christianity, and even be 'into ministry'! But the inner reality of what we truly love - and fear - is not centred on the glory of God.
 For those of us from Confucian backgrounds however, there is something else... Our culture also strongly predisposes us towards a Christianity of duty and obedience in a way that is unknown to those from Western cultures. I've written more on that here!
In the Gospels, there was in fact a group of people who excelled at outward obedience. They were faultless in their conformance. However when Jesus came across them, this is what he says to them:
7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: Here is more of that table. As before, read down one column, and then the down the other. And as you do so, ask yourself: what is the focus of this vision of the Christian life?
[ PS: stay tuned for more of the table... ] 2009/11/4 Two visions of the Christian life - part 1 I think there is something seriously wrong with a lot of our Christianity. And this is even true of many evangelicals...Over the last short while I've been working on a table and sharing it with some of our leaders at ND, and our Bible study group too. One column is entitled, "Christianity of duty and obedience", while the other is entitled, "Christianity captivated by the glory of God." And what I've done is I've created rows of all different aspects of the Christian life - how we pray, how we think of evangelism, how we conceive of Christian growth - and mapped what it would look like under both of these visions of the Christian life.
While the left-hand column has the form of Christianity, you can probably start to see that the right hand column actually makes absolute sense of that form of Christianity. Under this vision of the Christian life, it makes sense of why Christians are to do the things we do. It gives the practice the meaning and life and colour it was always meant to have!
There are more rows to the table ... stay tuned (but you can read more from talk #2 at SCCCA's SALT retreat earlier this year - download the PDF here).
[ PS: which column represents that kind of reasons you would give for reading the Bible? for prayer? for giving? ] 2009/10/27 Pornography - and what people search for on Google This Sunday night I'm doing a talk on pornography at the evening fellowship at ND. In preparation I've been looking around for some stats on pornography - and quite a lot of the stats available are somewhat old. However one way to get up-to-date data on people's interest in pornography (say) is to check how often it's searched for through Google. And Google Insights allows you to see what people are searching for over the past several years... Just type in the search terms you're interested in, and you get a graph showing you the relative ranking of those search terms over time! Unfortunately Windows Live Spaces won't let me embed the chart. So instead here is a screen grab of the graph where I'm tracking searches for 'sex', 'porn', 'Jesus' and 'Olympics' over the 2004-2009 period (click on the images for a larger version).  You can also isolate a particular country or even state - here for instance are the searches for those terms from Australia. Clearly Australians have an inordinate interest in sports!  Potentially a useful tool if you're looking for a quick graphic to introduce a topic! [ PS: any other search terms you can think of comparing? ] 2009/10/18 SALT 2009 retreat talks online! Back in August I spoke at SCCCA's SALT retreat up in Katoomba. This was a leader's retreat for Asian churches in Sydney, and I was asked to speak about reformed theology. And that's what I did - however I reckon it would have surprised a lot of people who thought they know what reformed theology is about...Many people think that reformed theology (or Calvinism) is all about predestination, the sovereignty of God in salvation, and TULIP. But at the retreat we saw that that's not really true - the heart of reformed theology is actually the glory of God! And these things are merely stepping stones towards the glory of God. In the first talk we look at this, and consider why it is that people focus so much on predestination, and why it's such a big deal that we are on about the glory of God!
In the second talk we move on to look at two broad kinds of Christianity - firstly a Christianity of duty and obedience. We contrasted this with a Christianity that is captivated by the glory of God, and saw what a massive difference this makes to the Christian life. We also saw how our Chinese background predisposes us in a big way towards a Chrsitianity of duty and obedience!
Then in the third talk we move on to talk about what all this means for ministry. We look at the content of our preaching and teaching - but also look at how being captivated by the glory of God completely transforms how we even go about doing ministry!
Unfortunately not all the talks were recorded. However you can get them as a PDF file from the SCCCA website at this page - click the blue arrow to begin the download! You may also need the outlines to make sense of the second talk - the PDF of the booklet can be found here.
[ PS: no updates for a while? I've been busy doing assignments and readings for an MA subject on Calvin at Moore College! ] 2009/10/8 Where do we need to plant Chinese churches? Where in Sydney do we need to plant Chinese churches? Which areas have lots of Chinese people - but are very thin on Chinese churches?In the past there was this map created with Google Maps, showing the 100+ Chinese churches in Sydney. That was made by Ernest Chiang (who is doing a church plant in Mortdale with CECA). And remember, that map used a very broad classification of Chinese churches. The different coloured pins, by the way, are meant to represent different areas. And we've also seen this map (to the right), which shows you the Chinese population density in different areas of Sydney. But wouldn't it be good if you could put the two together, to see where we need to plant? What I've done today is just that. I've overlaid them, with a bit of resizing and stretching and transparency... and that gets us the following map.  The usefulness of a map like this is probably immediately obvious for planning your future church plant. You can easily see areas of significant Chinese population density, yet with few Chinese churches (use the small hotmap above to identify significant areas). Here are some of those areas:
Be aware that some of the churches on this map are struggling, or are only focussing on one language or demographic, or have somewhat dodgy theology... And that some brand-new churches have been planted since Ernest made that map! [ PS: where would you plant a Chinese church? ] 2009/10/6 Chinese in Catholic (and other) schools in SydneyFrom graphs like this in previous posts, it's pretty clear that the primary school and high school age group is very significant for the future of ABC ministries. Well, what kind of educational institutions are ABCs in? How many of them are in Catholic (and other) schools? First off, here is a graph showing you where the Chinese and ABCs are in terms of educational institutions in Sydney. Note that the red bars (All students) maps to the scale on the right hand side. The green and blue bars (Chinese and ABCs) maps to the scale on the left hand side. I've put them on the same graph so you can see the relative proportions.  In case you want it, here is a table with that data.
From the stats on religion in a previous post, a number of people have asked about how many ABCs are actually in Catholic schools. This table tells you the answer: 2,075 are in Catholic primary schools, and 1,781 are in Catholic high schools. While the number of ABCs in Catholic schools is proportionally much less than the population as a whole, it's actually about right for the percentage of ABCs that are Catholics. You might have thought that there would be proportionally more ABCs going into Uni / tertiary education than the general population. So why does the blue bar look so low? That's because the age profile for ABCs is not flat - but heavily weighted towards primary and high schoolers (see this graph). It's not that there are less ABCs doing tertiary education - but there are much more school aged ABCs coming up through the education pipeline! Notice also the big green spike of Chinese people in Uni / Tertiary education - that's because of overseas students! Here is a map of Chinese kids (not necessarily ABCs) in Catholic infant and primary schools.  And here is a map of Chinese kids in Catholic secondary schools.  Here is a table with that information on Catholic primary and secondary schools. Note that these are kids of Chinese ancestry, not just ABCs.
[ PS: for more on Catholic ABCs see this post... ] 2009/10/1 Chinese transitoriness in Sydney (part 3): more on North and South In a previous post we raised the theory of Chinese people moving from the South of the city, to the North. What I've done here is divided up Sydney into North and South. In the graph below there is a list of Statistical Local Areas (SLAs) - and I have grouped the SLAs from 'Botany Bay' to 'Blacktown - South West' as being the South, and the SLAs from 'Hunter's Hill' to 'Wyong - South and West' as being the North. Admittedly this is not a perfect division (eg. this puts 'Penrith' and 'Blue Mountains' in the South), but it'll do as a rough guide. This bar graph then shows you the movements into each of these SLAs, divided up into whether they are coming from SLAs in the South (red) or the North (blue).  This is helpful in showing you whether the people moving into a certain SLA have mostly been from the South, or the North. But what is happening across Sydney as a whole? Is there a big movement from South to North, as they theory suggests? For this next graph I've tallied up all the movements of Chinese from the North and South, and whether they have gone to the North or South. This graph shows you the overall pattern of movements into and out of these two areas.  Here is a table summarising this movement data for the Chinese in Sydney.
What we see is that, on the whole, people from both North and South tend to stay in their area (10,325 Chinese who moved from the North stayed in the North, and 39,237 Chinese who moved from the South stayed in the South). In addition, the South saw more Chinese people moving about than the North (a total of 13,554 moving from the North, compared to a total of 46,012 moving from the South). However the picture is also skewed because the South also includes disproportionally more SLAs than the North. But what about across-the-harbour movements? When we look at people crossing over to different areas, there are less Chinese people moving from the North to the South (3,229) than there are Chinese people moving from the South to the North (6,775). In fact over this 2001-06 period there was a net movement of 3,546 Chinese people from the South to the North. So the theory is true - on the whole, Chinese people are moving from South to North. But this movement is not very large: 3,546 only represents about 7.7% of the total house movements in the South... [ PS: how many people in your church have moved across to the other side of Sydney over the past 5 years? how many have moved in? ] 2009/9/29 Life stage of Sydney ABCs - in bar graphs In a previous post I published a table of Australian Born Chinese (ABCs) in Sydney by life stage and area - as well as a series of maps. However maybe a better way to see that data is to have it in a stacked bar graph. Here it is:  I find this a better way to identify significant areas of ABC high schoolers (say), than with a hot map. I think it's also easier to see how your area stacks up against others in Sydney this way. This second graph here is that same data, but now in a 100% stacked bar graph. This is useful for showing you the relative proportions. Note that right at the bottom of this graph is also a 'Total' bar, that shows you the average across Sydney as a whole - use that to compare your area against the whole of Sydney.  This is not as useful as the previous graph - but in a few instances it can quickly alert you to the fact that your area has a disproportionate number of ABC young workers (eg. Sydney East) - or children (eg. the Parramatta area) - compared to other areas in Sydney. [ PS: notice how prominent the reds and greens are in both graphs - a sign of how many young children there are in the ABC category... ] 2009/9/25 The threefold Chinese model of church Friends at another church alerted me to this interesting feature of Chinese Christianity. And you may have found that this is at the root of some of your church conflicts... Division - the Chinese model of church Many Chinese people who became Christians overseas will have adopted a threefold model of church life. This teaches that a Christian should engage in the worship of God, Bible study and Christian fellowship. But essential to this model is that there is a division between these three elements. And so a Christian will engage in them at seperate church activities.  A Christian will worship God at the Sunday morning church service. This time is approached with reverence and the focus is Godward. During this time they will sing to God, the choir will also sing, and they will have Holy Communion. Bible study is done in Adult Sunday School or Bible Study Fellowship. The focus of this is the serious study of books of the Bible, not so much for application as for information. There might be others learning alongside you - but that's not the point of it. And they will have fellowship in their monthly Nurture Groups or Care Groups. The focus of this will be getting to know one another, sharing a meal together, sharing about their lives and caring for one another. Integration - the Western model of church Well, this is more correctly the Knox-Robinson model of church - and this is what most ABC Christians are used to. Here church is understood as any gathering of Christians around the word of God - whether it be at the Sunday morning service, a Bible study group, or the youth fellowship. And so whenever Christians gather around Christ, that gathering should have all the essential features of a church. It should of course be around the word of God (Bible study). It should acknowledge the presence of other Christians (fellowship). And it should always bring glory to God (worship).  And so ABCs understand that the regular church service contains all of these features. Yes, people would be worshipping God - but it is also a time for learning from God's word, and encouraging one another. Yes, the youth fellowship would be a time of being in fellowship with other people - but is also about serious Bible study, and turning to God in worship. And yes, the weeknight Bible study is about getting into the word of God - but also about encouraging one another, and turning to God in worship. The different gatherings are not about doing different functions of church! Each one is truly church - and is yet another joyful opportunity for Christians to come together as around Christ as he is clothed in Scripture, and worship him. And why wouldn't you want to do that as often as you can? Conflict - when East and West come together! But when those used to the Chinese model of church life look at the model of ministry flowing out of a Knox-Robinson model of church, there can often be misunderstanding and conflict. This leads to comments that "the youth fellowship is only about playing games" - and so is unnecessary. Comments that "the English service is not worshipful enough" and "the youth aren't being taught to be reverent on a Sunday morning". That drums are inappropriate for church. That the Sunday School should be more disciplined - like a school. Perhaps you've heard comments like these at your church? What's actually behind all of these comments is that threefold model of church life that forces a division between worship, Bible study and fellowship. And which struggles to acknowledge that church can be anything other than worship, Sunday school anything other than rigorous Bible education, and youth groups as anything other than fellowship. In the end it's based on assumptions and traditions about how church life should be ordered and understood. Which then drives us to ask: how legitimate are these assumptions? How biblically and theologically sound are the models of church life we have grown up with? [ PS: what other strange comments have you heard that come out of this threefold Chinese model of church life? ] 2009/9/23 Chinese transitoriness in Sydney (part 2): where are they moving? 1. Two theories on people movements in Sydney In the last post we looked at which areas have people who have moved house, and which are more stable areas (see previous post). But where are they moving from? and where are they going to? There are two theories that are going around. The first theory states that people tend to move outwards away from the city, along train lines. And so if they start off in Ashfield, they will move out further from the city, but along the same train line - perhaps to Parramatta. If they start off in West Ryde, they will move up further to Hornsby - and so on. The second theory states that people are moving from the South, across the harbour to the North as they become more established and more affluent. And so if they started off in Randwick, they might cross over to Artarmon. If they started off in Ashfield they might cross over to Ryde. Which - if any - of these theories are right? 2. Mapping movements among the Chinese in Sydney With the help of CDATA at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, we can see what's actually happening with the Chinese population of Sydney. I've created a table of movements across Sydney that is very large and can't reproduce here (but you can download it from here). From this I identified six areas that had significant numbers of people who changed their home address during the past five years. And then created maps of where those people went. These six areas are:
First, a map of where Chinese people are now, who lived in the Canterbury area 5 years ago. The majority have moved within Canterbury itself (1,669 people). Others have moved nearby to Hurstville (419 people) or North-East Bankstown (234 people).  This one is a map of where Chinese people are now, who lived in Fairfield East 5 years ago. Again, the majority have moved within Fairfield East (2,069 people). When they have moved out, they have tended to move nearby suburbs like Fairfield West (375 people) or Liverpool West (145 people).  This is a map of where Chinese people are now, who lived in the Randwick area 5 years ago. Again they have tended to move within Randwick (1,292 people) - or nearby suburbs like South Sydney (212 people), Botany Bay (172 people) and Rockdale (118 people).  This is a map of where Chinese people are now, who lived in the Hurstville area 5 years ago. Yet again they have tended to move within Hurstville (1,284 people), or moved a bit further south to Kogarah (425 people), and then to surrounding areas like Canterbury (186 people), Rockdale (161 people) and South Bankstown (67 people).  This is a map of where Chinese people are now, who lived in the Auburn area 5 years ago. The vast majority of them stayed in the Auburn area (1,098 people) - but a few generally towards suburbs to the West such as Strathfield (88 people), North-East Parramatta (82 people) and Burwood (70 people) - and also Ryde (93 people).  And finally here is a map of where Chinese people are now, who lived in the Ryde area 5 years ago. Yet again, they have tended to stay in the Ryde area (1,047 people). Others have moved to surrounding areas like Hornsby South or North-East Parramatta (both 253 people) - maybe also Ku-ring-gai (143 people). Notice also that they don't just remain North of the harbour: some will move to areas down South.  3. What's actually happening in Sydney The trend is pretty clear - Chinese people tend to stay within the same area, the vast majority moving to another address within the same Statistical Local Area (SLA). A good example here is Auburn, where 1,098 people moved to another area within Auburn. The next most popular destination after Auburn was less than one tenth that number (Ryde, 93 people). When the Chinese do move outside their SLA, they tend to move to nearby areas - often adjacent ones. A good example of this is Canterbury, where the numbers for Canterbury itself plus all the adjacent SLAs made up 2,495 people, or 55% of the total movements from Canterbury. There certainly aren't huge numbers making the jump across the harbour, leaving the "south to north" theory with little to stand on. The maps also show that Chinese people aren't moving in any one particular direction (ie. they aren't only moving South, from Canterbury). Instead they tend to be spreading out in all directions. This seems to knock the "out along train lines" theory on its head. This is actually good news for Chinese churches - which tend to be regional, rather than purely local churches. Yes, 31% of the people we come in contact with may move within five years (from the previous post) - but generally they will either move within the same area, or to surrounding areas. And so if they have transport, they may be able to keep coming to your church... [ PS: have people from your church moved recently? where have they moved? ] 2009/9/22 Chinese transitoriness in Sydney (part 1): who stays put, and who will move?Note: I made some errors in the initial post this morning (some categories were wrong). These have now been fixed up! This time we are looking at Sydney's Chinese population in terms of how transient is this population. Have they been living at the same address for the last five years? or have they moved since then? Because, all things being equal, this can have a big impact on the ministry you have to them... Here is a map of Sydney (from the 2006 ABS census) showing you where there are large areas of Chinese who have stayed at the same address for the previous 5 years. This shows you large stable Chinese population areas. 
And here is a map of Sydney showing you where there are large numbers of Chinese are who have moved at least once during the previous 5 years. This is the more transient Chinese population. 
Some of those area are just large areas of Chinese population in general - which is why they have both large numbers of people staying and moving. This next map shows you a comparison of stable vs. transient as a percentage. This shows you the percent of Chinese who have moved at least once during the past five years.  Surprisingly, quite a large proportion of Sydney's Chinese community are transient - over 31% had moved in the 5 years before the 2006 census! If what you have nearby is a fairly stable Chinese population, that can mean that in time you can build a fairly stable ministry of people who have been at your church for ten, twenty years. But if people tend to move, that may mean the ministry you create is a fairly fast-paced one that establishes and equips believers, for where they will later move onto (much like a university ministry). And you can find yourself quite frustrated if you're trying to build the first kind of ministry (stable), when the population around you is just not like that! If you're interested in the data for your area, here is the table:
[ PS: how stable is the Chinese population around your church's area? And what sort of population is your church geared to reach - transient or stable? ] 2009/9/14 Tutorial: how to make a hotmap of ABCs in your suburb Today I want to share with you how to go about getting useful stats on your area from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Because while I can do city-wide stats and maps, there is much more useful and detailed stuff you can find out about the area around your church - but you will have to do it yourself! But here's how to do it. Understand ABS geography First of all, you need to understand that there is a heirarchy of geographical areas used by the ABS. Probably the more important ones for you to know about are the following:
CCDs are the smallest area you can zoom in to - and today we'll see how to get a map of down to the level of CCDs of Australian Born Chinese living in your suburb! Step one - get into CDATA
Step two - select CCDs in your area
Step three - select ABCs
Step 4 - create a map
This gives you a map of the ABCs in your area down to CCDs - great for doorknocking, leafletting the area, or planning your church plant! Some clarifications thanks to Pauline Hor! [ PS: great to see some of you guys at the SCCCA English SALT retreat on the weekend! ] 2009/9/11 ABCs in MelbourneDavid Huynh recently asked me to put together some maps and stats on the Chinese in Melbourne for the upcoming Connect conference - and here is one of them. He has a whole lot more. This is a map of the ABCs in Melbourne.  In the 2006 ABS, there were 174,289 people of Chinese ancestry in Melbourne, of which 36,910 were born in Australia - the ABCs! [ PS: heading off to SALT retreat in Katoomba in a few hours! ] 2009/9/6 Life stages part II - pie graphs of ABCs in your areaIn the last post there was a table with information about the numbers of ABCs in different life stages, for each Statistical Local Area (SLA). And we used that to make maps of Sydney showing which areas have more primary schoolers, etc. Awesomely useful for ministry.  But how does that compare to the rest of Sydney? What you can then do is compare that to this next graph, which shows you the proportion of those life stages for all ABCs in Sydney.  In comparison, here is the pie graph for Fairfield East, which has noticeably younger ABCs than the rest of Sydney.  And here is the graph for Hurstville, which again shows you a young group of ABCs, but more weighted towards the pre-school and primary school age brackets.  Unfortunately you'll have to develop your own pie graphs for your own area, but that's not too difficult. Just use the data from the previous post. But what this kind of graph can do is tell you how much of the ABC population your ministry is able to reach. If your ABC ministry only focusses on tertiary age and young workers, it could mean that you are actually missing over 75% of the ABC population of your area! And Sydney-wide, one of the surprising things is how large the ABC pre-school and primary school age groups are in most areas... [ PS: what kind of ministry does your church need to start up to reach the ABCs in your area? ] 2009/9/3 Life stages part I - maps of Sydney's ABCsToday I have maps of the ABCs in Sydney again - and admittedly, it's kind of similar to the last post. But this time what I've done is I've broken the data down into different life stages. Because realistically, no one starts out a ministry to reach 10-19 year olds! Instead we aim for "primary schoolers", or "high schoolers", or "uni age people" and we conduct their outreach and ministry along those lines. Well then, where then do these groups of ABCs live? This first map shows you where 0-5 year old ABCs live. These are babies, toddlers, and pre-schoolers.  This second one is where 6-11 year old ABCs live. These kids are in primary school.  This next group are the 12-17 year old ABCs. These guys are your high schoolers. Be aware that sometimes high schoolers do travel outside their area to go to school. 
This next one is where 18-21 year old ABCs live. You can think of this group as tertiary age - Uni or TAFE. Although of course not everyone will go on into tertiary education after school. 
This one is where 22-29 year old ABCs live. You can think of this group as young workers. 
This is where 30-39 year old ABCs live (it's the same map as the last post). This is getting a bit tricky becuase not everyone will marry or have kids - but by and large these are young marrieds and young families (apologies if I offend anyone!!!).  And finally we have the 40+ year old ABCs again (the same map as from last time). Some people might consider these the oldies, even though they're not necessarily very old compared to the population as a whole.  From these maps you can see that areas that are prominent for primary schoolers (eg. Hurstville, Canterbury, Fairfield East) are not necessarily the same areas that would be prominent for marrieds (eg. Ryde, Randwick). Don't expect that your ABC ministry should look like another one on the other side of the city - that's simply not realistic! Instead, the kinds of ministries you want to develop to reach your ABC community is likely to be different from area to area. If you're interested in the actual figures underlying these maps, here is a table with this data. Again, I've highlighted the most significant areas for each stage of life.
[ PS: what life stages are your ABC ministry targetting? what are the ABCs like in the area near your church? ] 2009/9/1 Maps of Sydney's ABCs - by age groups! In a previous post I showed you where all the Australian Born Chinese (ABCs) live in Sydney - and hopefully that's been useful for planning your ministry. What I have for you today is a series of maps that break that group of ABCs down into age brackets - so you can see where 0-9 year old ABCs live, where 10-19 year old ABCs live, and so on. Because different areas of Sydney will have different kinds of ABCs living there... First off a map showing you where 0-9 year old ABCs live.  Second a map showing you where 10-19 year old ABCs live.  Then where 20-29 year old ABCs live...  And where 30-39 year old ABCs live. And finally I've grouped all the 40+ year old ABCs together (because there aren't so many of them). Here is where you can find them. These maps show you how distinctive the different areas of Sydney are in terms of their ABC population. Some areas (such as the South and South-West) have very dense populations of younger ABCs. And other areas (such as the North and the East) have strong concentrations of ABCs in their 30's. Interesting also is how certain areas can be very strong in a number of different age brackets. Fairfield East, for instance, is in the very topmost category for the 0-9 year, 10-19 year, and the 20-29 year age bracket. This is a significant area for doing ABC ministry! In case you want to look at the actual data underlying these maps, here is a table with all that data. I've highlighted in bold the topmost categories in each of the age brackets.
Remember that this data is from the 2006 ABS census. Which means that we are now three years on - and so an eight year old kid at the 2006 census will now actually be in the next age bracket. However this is probably good enough to give you a sense of where things are happening! [ PS: does your ABC ministry reflect the mix of ABCs in the surrounding area? ] 2009/8/31 List of postings: June '09 to August '09 Here is an index of this quarter's postings (June '09 to August '09). Clicking on the titles will take you to that post.During this quarter the blog again clocked up over 11,000 page views - thanks everyone for reading! And this month it was especially encouraging to meet some readers from interstate - you know who you are! Last quarter I began a series of posts on the Chinese concept of face, and this quarter I cap off that series with one final post where we look at what we can do about 'face' in our ministry (July 30). There is also a short series where I apply Transactional Analysis (TA) to Chinese culture, with interesting results (June 5 and 22). Also significant was a post on the strange lack of forgiveness in Chinese culture (Aug 6), and the Chinese understanding of family (Jul 14). These would be extremely worthwhile to discuss with your ministry team! Earlier this month I also found a way to get more detailed stats out of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and have been posting some of my findings about the Australian Born Chinese and how we're going at reaching this group (August 19, 21, 23, 25 and 28). Watch out for a few more in this series next quarter! I also reorganised the categories of the articles a little. So now the 'Chinese culture' category should show most of the stuff in that area, and the 'Statistics' category should show all the statistical stuff I've produced. June 2009
5 Transactional analysis - and Chinese culture July 2009
August 2009
[ PS: during this period which were your favourite posts? which ones did you feel strongly about? ] |
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