| Andrew's profileAndrew spacePhotosBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
|
9/29/2009 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... ] 9/25/2009 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? ] 9/23/2009 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? ] 9/22/2009 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? ] 9/14/2009 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! ] 9/11/2009 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! ] 9/6/2009 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? ] 9/3/2009 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? ] 9/1/2009 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? ] |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
