Coming up in 3 weeks, I am partnering with Grace Chinese Christian Church Kogarah and Word of Life to run a holiday kids club. We are hoping to have at least 100 primary school kids come along to have fun, play games, sing songs, make crafts, and most importantly, hear about Jesus.

If you know people in the area who have young children, send them along! See this website for details.

This has prompted me to look at the number of primary-aged children (which I'll define as age 5-11) in the South (click on the graph for a larger version):


There are over 18,000 primary-aged kids in the South, and 17% of those are from a Chinese background. It shouldn't be too hard to get 100 kids along, right?

Pray for us as we prepare for this kids club, especially as neither church has organised something like this before. Pray that God will bring many children and their parents into contact with us so that they can meet Jesus.

I have made some significant updates to my posts on the language spoken at home and the proficiency of spoken English. I've added maps to show where Cantonese and Mandarin speakers live so that you know where to find them.

I also combined my post earlier today with an older post on the Chinese population in Hurstville.

Rather than putting all this information in 3 new posts, I feel that they belong better with those older posts. So check them out!

I enjoy playing board games, particularly games originating from Europe. They are very different to games like Monopoly and Risk, and far more enjoyable. These games are often not found in mainstream toy stores but only in specialised game stores. Their popularity has really picked up (at least amongst my group of friends) in the last few years.

So as a way to try and meet new people in the area, I started a weekly board games club a few months ago. So far it has been attended by all Christian friends, with 2-3 regulars each week, and a few others here and there. I recently created a static website with details of where and when we meet. I'd really like to create some flyers, but my design skills (or lackthereof) leaves much to be desired.

Whilst it's fun, it's not achieving my main purpose of meeting new people. So several times I've considered whether I should decrease the frequency, or even cancel the group altogether. But each time I think that, I get an email from a stranger who found out about us and shows some interest. But each time their interest has failed to turn into action.

This week I got another email from a someone who might come in 2 weeks' time. Hopefully this time we will actually get to meet.

Pray that God will use this board games club to make contact with people in the area. Pray also that I will have the wisdom to know how to promote this club, and the humility to know when/if I should close it.

In my last post, I looked at the language spoken by Chinese people at home. And it was clear that a vast majority of people still speak Cantonese and Mandarin. So is there much of a need for English ministry in Chinese churches?

Have a look at this, which shows the proficiency of spoken English amongst those who speak Cantonese and Mandarin at home (click on the graph for a larger image):

	Cantonese	Mandarin
Very Well	5,703	4,012
Well	4,791	5,552
Not Well	3,500	2,744
Not At All	1,322	796

Interestingly, around 70% of both groups have a proficiency level of "Very Well" or "Well". I'm not sure if this matches up with my own experience with Chinese people, or whether they were overly optimistic in their self assessment. But that's what the data says.

If we break this down into age groups as well, we get this (click on the graph for a larger image):

A few observations and reflections for ministry:

• Overall, there is a larger percentage of Cantonese people who speak English "Very Well" (blue columns), and a larger percentage of Mandarin people who speak English "Well" (red columns).
  
• In the under 35 age bracket, the English proficiency of Cantonese and Mandarin speakers are roughly the same at 85-95% (blue and red columns combined). So ministry amongst this age group can/should still be conducted in English. And in fact that will be the preference for many, especially those who speak English "Very Well" (blue columns).
  
• In the 20-49 age bracket, there is a large percentage of Mandarin speakers who speak English "Well" (red columns) and "Not Well" (green columns). This may be a good group to target for easy English ministry.
  
• Once we go past the age of 45, English proficiency drops below 60%, and continues to drop rapidly in the 60+ age bracket. Because of age and learning ability, the preference will most likely be for their own mother tongue.
  

Here are a bunch of maps to compliment these points (note that the scale for each map is different):

These are the Chinese people that speak English at home (left) and those who speak English "Very Well" and "Well" from both Cantonese and Mandarin background (right). It's pretty spread out, with concentration in a 'T' shape. Those are the areas that is good for doing English ministry.

Here we have people that speak English "Well" and "Not Well" from Cantonese (left) and Mandarin (right) background. The Cantonese map has a bit of a '7' shape, whereas the Mandarin map has more heavily concentrated pockets (note the difference in scale). These are the areas for Cantonese, Mandarin and easy English ministry.

Finally, we have people that speak English "Not Well" and "Not At All" from Cantonese (left) and Mandarin (right) background. The Cantonese map is still a '7' shape, though there is not as many in Rockdale and Kogarah. The Mandarin map is also similar to the one before, but with an addition pocket in Riverwood. These areas we need Cantonese and Mandarin ministry.

One other thing I noticed: it's good to see that the existing churches in the South are in the right areas where Chinese people live. But one area that is a bit lacking is Turrella/Wolli Creek. Chinese people are not there in huge numbers, but there is still a fair few there with no Chinese-specific ministry in the area.

There are other reasons why English ministry amongst Chinese people is important. But I will save that for another time.

Pray for churches with English ministry reaching out to Chinese people that they may think broadly about how to reach all different ages (not just young students) who speak reasonable English. Pray that language will not be a barrier for people to hear the gospel, but that everyone will have a chance to meet Jesus.

One of the tricky things about ministry to Chinese people is that Chinese people don't speak Chinese. But rather, they speak all sorts of different dialects depending on where they are from. For this post I'll just focus on the 2 main Chinese languages: Cantonese and Mandarin, as well as English.

This is the primary language spoken in the homes of Chinese people (click on the graph for a larger image):

Cantonese	Mandarin	English
15,443	13,206	2,278

A few observations:

• The number of Mandarin speakers are catching up to the number of Cantonese speakers. This means we need to put as many resources into Mandarin ministry as Cantonese ministry (if not more).
  
• There are more Mandarin speakers in the 20-34 age range, which reflects the increase in overseas students and young families from China in recent years.
  
• There are more Cantonese speakers in the 5-19 and 40+ age range, which reflects the longer history of migration from Hong Kong.
  
• Only 7.4% of people speak English at home.

From this, it is obvious that churches with Cantonese and/or Mandarin ministries have a big role to play. And this will help in selecting areas to target (click on the map for a larger image):



Both language groups are heavily concentrated in Hurstville, but you can also see that Cantonese speakers are much more spread out, with significant concentration in Kingsgrove, Beverly Hills and Riverwood. On the other hand, Mandarin speakers have less of a spread, with significant concentration in Kogarah, Rockdale and Turrella, and a bit in Riverwood.

Although not many speak English at home, I think that English ministry still has an important role in reaching Chinese people. More on that in my next post.

Pray for the churches who are seeking to reach Chinese people in their mother tongue. Pray that there will be solid preaching of the gospel and strong, biblical discipleship of new believers that will lay a firm foundation for ministry in the long term.

Tomorrow I will be running a workshop on evangelism with a large group of leaders at Grace Chinese Christian Church Kogarah (GCCCK). Combining my experience with a number of things I've read & learnt over the years, I am developing my own approach to explaining the gospel. It's nothing revolutionary, but simply a synthesis of what's already out there. If my readers are interested, I might post some of these thoughts on here in the future.

Pray that I will be able to give a clear, engaging and practical presentation. Pray also for the leaders at GCCCK that they will not only be able to understand the information, but that they will be challenged to actually go and evangelise

Haven't had a chance to post much lately. Been working on our newsletter which just came out. If you didn't get it, send me an email or leave a comment.

If you're wondering what's the difference between this blog and our newsletter, the answer is not much. The blog has more posts, whereas the newsletter is like a "best of" selection. But the newsletter will go into more specific and personal details that are not mentioned on a public forum like a blog.