However, a majority of the world’s internet users are not on Facebook. So the question is, “Where are they?” And the answer is in Asia, and the largest chunk and most problematic for Facebook is China.

The Great Firewall of China is the name given to the Chinese governments censoring of the internet, which includes among others, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. The response within China has been to create copies of each of these sites. Where the rest of the world watches videos on Youtube, China watches them on Youku. Where the rest of the world interacts on Facebook and Twitter, China’s hundreds of millions of internet users do so on QQ, Renren, and Weibo.

There are still ways to use these sites in China. Many people use VPN, and the Kindle Keyboard 3G manages to sneak under the radar of the Great Firewall.

Unfortunately, the Great Firewall means that global social media gospel campaigns are unlikely to reach many in China, at least for now. But there is a huge opportunity if there are people who are willing to take the principles and strategies that work in social media for the rest of the world and apply them in the context of these China-specific social networks.

So here’s a story that explains exactly why we need to use the internet to communicate the gospel. By doing so, we bring the gospel to where it is just a click away from the people who need it.

And what if this turned out to be the cause of the best thing in your life?

Find out in Jill Vidal’s story below as she shares how she found love she could depend upon when her life reached its nadir in a detox ward in Japan. (Update: Now with English translation!)

This is the second promotion video for the Love Me If … series of evangelistic meetings at universities in Hong Kong next month

Getting Started …

… and Going Deeper

We have our own contextualised version of Soularium in Hong Kong called YingSeung (影想).

And friends of ours have developed an iOS vesion of their contextualisation of the tool called HeartMirror. Check them out.

• there is steady, more or less linear progress towards them
• once attained, they become a permanent state
• they are reached through human effort rather than Fate or divine intervention
• they are usually egalitarian
• they are usually based on a few extreme assumptions about human nature

Utopia in the Eastern mind is very different, more attuned to reversion rather than progress.

He writes: “It is worth noting here that the ancient Hebrews were in these respects closer to the Chinese than to the Greeks. Their Utopia – the Garden of Eden – was in the past and they hoped for at most a restoration. Their notion of the nature of change was similar to that of the Chinese – they held a clear notion of the yin and yang of life.”

In the first chapter of A Short History of Chinese Philosophy,  Fung Yu-Lan writes “The fact is that Chinese philosophers were accustomed to express themselves in the form of aphorisms, apothegms, or allusions and illustrations. The whole book of Lao-tzu consists of aphorisms, and most of the chapters of the Chuang-tzu are full of allusions and illustrations.”

When one considers the Old Testament Wisdom literature we can see a clear similarity here between the works of the Chinese philosophers and the Proverbs. When reading verses from Lao-tzu and Ecclesiastes in isolation, it is sometimes difficult to tell which verses belong to which writer, such is the similarity.

It seems that we can learn a lot about understanding Old Testament Jewish philosophy and writings by studying and comparing them with their Chinese counterparts.

Jesus’ answer was to tell a story, the story of the Good Samaritan.

Bruce Springsteen’s response is to sing a song

What do you think?

Recently Justin Brierley, the host of Unbelievable, a debate/interview show between Christians and non-Christians interviewed Mark Driscoll, for an article for Christianity Magazine, partly to tie in with Driscoll’s release of his new book Real Marriage (which is not without its own controversy).

Justin is known for his fair, and even-handed control of the debates between Christians and non-Christians. He doesn’t give patsy questions, but he doesn’t play attack dog either, and he generally lets both sides have their say and facilitates their interaction, which is probably one of the main strengths of the program – it leads to genuine dialogue between believers and non-believers on a wide range of topics.

Parts of the interview were broadcast on the New Year’s Eve Unbelievable show, including  one part where Driscoll said:

“Let’s just say this: right now, name for me the one young, good Bible teacher that is known across Great Britain. You don’t have one – that’s the problem. There are a bunch of cowards who aren’t telling the truth.”

This quote was picked up on by Christian Today magazine, who published a short article based on the excerpts from the Unbelievable show, which then prompted responses from people including Krish Kandiah, a director of the Evangelical Alliance.

I’m guessing that Mark Driscoll’s recent blog post, “A Blog Post for the Brits” is largely prompted by the initial reaction to this, and in anticipation that the article Justin Brierley will write for Christianity Magazine will be equally or more critical of him and his ministry.

What he says in this blog post is worse than anything in the interview. And you can have a listen to a portion of it (start at 34 minutes) and judge for yourself. He has launched a pre-emptive strike against Justin Brierley simply on the basis that he thinks that the article in Christianity Magazine will be uncomplimentary towards him.

He says this interview out of all he has done with both Christians and non-Christians associated with the release of real Marriage, this one “... was, in my opinion, the most disrespectful, adversarial, and subjective. As a result, we’ve since changed how we receive, process, and moderate media interviews.  ”

Ironically, according to a colleague of Justin Brierley’s, Mark Driscoll had little to worry about from the article:

and Driscoll apparently had no problem during the interview according to Justin Brierley himself:

What Driscoll has said amounts to character assassination. Honestly, if Mark Driscoll is so thin-skinned that the mere possibility of criticism causes him to treat people like that then he should not be pastoring or writing books, let alone controversial ones.

Update: The full interview audio is now available

In February the five main campuses in Hong Kong will all run evangelistic meetings with the same theme: Love Me If …?

Every year our campuses in Hong Kong run evangelistic meetings which usually each attract several hundred students and have dozens of people pray to receive Christ. This year for the first time, each of the five main campuses are all using the same theme and speakers for the evangelistic meetings. This gives us opportunities to do things on a scale that we haven’t previously been able to, and to co-ordinate our promotion for these meetings.

I (Karl) have been leading our promotion team for this campaign. Our promotion campaign includes social media, website, and videos.

The idea behind Love Me If … ? is to raise the questions that most of us has at the back of their minds. Would the people in my life love me if things were different. Would they love me if I failed my exams? Would he love me if I was overweight? Would she love me if I had no money? I believe that everyone has these questions at the back of their minds, because we all desperately want to be loved, and because unconditional love is so rare. What we want to do with our campaign to is bring these questions from the back of their mind to the front. Then people will be ready to hear about the unconditional love that God offers.

Last week we released the first video promo for the campaign. It was deliberately ambiguous to encourage discussion and conversation. I know that most of you don’t understand Chinese but hopefully it should be obvious that both James and Chloe have secrets that they are hiding from each other. The text at the end of the video asks “Would he love me if he knew?”/”Would she love me if she knew?” We are encouraging students to give their suggestions of what their secrets are, then we will choose the best three and put them to the vote. The most popular option will then be filmed and the final version shown at the meetings. The purpose of this is break up a really big step (going from a website to an evangelistic meeting) into several smaller steps (leaving a comment, voting in a poll) and also hopefully building up a relationship with the students over several interactions so they are more interested in coming to the meeting.

Our main speaker in a Cantopop star, Jill Vidal, who became a Christian after being arrested for drugs and consequently losing her career. We will be releasing a second video closer to the date of the meetings which will be an interview of her telling her story. We have done it in the style of “I Am Second”, which has really stylish presentations of Christians telling their story of faith. I will be editing the footage over the next couple of weeks. She really does have a fantastic redemptive story.

Update: Jill’s video is now up. You can view it here.

We’re hoping and praying that God would use this promotional campaign to create genuine conversation between our students and their non-Christian friends over the next month or so, and that many of these friends would come to the meetings and have an opportunity to hear the gospel and respond.

I mentioned some time ago how I enjoyed reading Manga Jesus
by Siku.

Well, they have plans to do a movie and much more with this. Check out the video with Siku explaining the influence that manga and anime had on his art and the plans they have for doing movies, video games, music and more based on Manga Jesus.

I also wrote recently abut Manga Jesus by Siku, who also wrote the Manga Bible. In cooperation with BibleFresh Siku has released excerpts from the Manga Bible and Manga Jesus with the King James text for free download. The excerpts include portions from Genesis and Exodus, and the Gospels, with the largest portion covering Jesus death and resurrection. If you have never viewed any manga or graphic representations of the Bible then check it out.

I have had the opportunity to communicate with Siku a little in the last month and they have some exciting new projects in the works. Watch this space.