February 15, 2015 marked the first day of a new year in the Chinese calendar. According to the Chinese zodiac, which assigns an animal to each year in a 12-year cycle, currently we are in the Year of the Sheep.
One of the superstitious beliefs about the Year of the Sheep is that it is an unlucky year, which means among other things, that it is best not to give birth to a child during this year. In this article from the online journal Territory, the writer delves into the history of this belief and how it is harmful to society. He also contrasts it with what the Bible says about the source of blessings in life, notions of child-rearing, and the nature of sheep.
ChinaSource Team
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April 7, 2015
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Ideas
Last fall the popular news magazine Phoenix Weekly carried this article on the relationship between Christianity and cults in China.
ChinaSource Team
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March 31, 2015
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Ideas
Last month, we ran a series of blog posts by Joab Meyer about social media in China. He gave a helpful overview of the various platforms and tried to show how they (particularly WeChat) are useful for engaging with Chinese friends and building online communities.
Later in the month, the mainland site Christian Times published an article about how to use WeChat for the purposes of evangelism. The article is a report of a talk given by a pastor in Beijing. It is translated in full below. Please note that the terms Weixin and WeChat are interchangeable. Weixin is the official Chinese name of the app. WeChat is the English name.
ChinaSource Team
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March 24, 2015
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Stories
In the past two weeks, we have posted part one and two of an article titled “What are our Young People Thinking: How to Witness to Youth of the Post 1980’s, 1990’s and 1995’s,”, originally published in The Church Magazine. Part one looked specifically at the unique characteristics of the post-80s generation of Chinese youth. Part two looked specifically at the unique characteristics of the post-90s generation of Chinese youth.
Part three looks at the post-95s generation.
ChinaSource Team
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March 17, 2015
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Ideas
A Mandarin Language PowerPoint Course
ChinaSource Team
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March 13, 2015
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Scholarship
In last week's post we published part one of an article titled titled “What are our Young People Thinking: How to Witness to Youth of the Post 1980s, 1990s and 1995s,” originally published in The Church Magazine. That post looked specifically at the unique characteristics of the post-80s generation of Chinese youth.
Part two looks at the post-90s generation.
ChinaSource Team
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March 10, 2015
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Ideas
In the November 2014 issue of The Church Magazine, they posted a long article titled “What are our Young People Thinking: How to Witness to Youth of the Post 1980s, 1990s and 1995s,” written by Lu Zun’en. In it he describes the unique characteristics of each of these groups (generations) of young people, and suggests effective means of evangelistic engagement.
ChinaSource Team
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March 3, 2015
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Ideas
Our upcoming spring edition of the ChinaSource Quarterly deals with cults in China and we are looking for appropriate photos to illustrate this topic.
ChinaSource Team
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February 26, 2015
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Scholarship
One of the ways that people in China have of dealing with injustice is the administrative system known as petitioning.
ChinaSource Team
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February 24, 2015
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Stories
The annual Spring Festival migration has begun in China, with the transport ministry predicting that nearly 3 billion trips will be taken during the 40-day holiday period. Some have called it the world’s largest human migration, as millions of people head home to spend Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) with their families.
ChinaSource Team
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February 17, 2015
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Stories
On November 26, the mainland site Christian Times published a long interview with a house church pastor in Shenzhen who has been leading short-term mission trips to Burma and other neighboring countries for several years. The title of the piece is “Shenzhen Pastor Talks about the Joy and Pain of Cross-Cultural Missions, Calling on the Church to Have the Courage to Pay the Price."
ChinaSource Team
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February 10, 2015
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Stories
On November 26, the mainland site Christian Times published a long interview with a house church pastor in Shenzhen who has been leading short-term mission trips to Burma and other neighboring countries for several years. The title of the piece is “Shenzhen Pastor Talks About the Joy and Pain of Cross-Cultural Missions, Calling on the Church to Have the Courage to Pay the Price."
ChinaSource Team
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February 3, 2015
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Stories
