{"id":3624,"date":"2024-05-28T10:29:49","date_gmt":"2024-05-28T10:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jmsc6110a.com\/capstone2024\/?p=3624"},"modified":"2024-06-03T07:34:18","modified_gmt":"2024-06-03T07:34:18","slug":"amid-an-unprecedented-downswing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmsc6110a.com\/capstone2024\/amid-an-unprecedented-downswing\/","title":{"rendered":"Unprecedented Downswing in Hong Kong\u2019s Churches"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Carlos Escueta<\/strong>
\nHKU Journalism and Media Studies Centre<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"

Pastor Malcolm on stage with members of the church band, prior to the beginning of the first Sunday service at the new location.<\/p><\/div>\n

On a summery Sunday morning in late April, devoted churchgoers gathered in the dozens near an industrial district on the outskirts of Hong Kong\u2019s bustling city center to witness the ceremonial first service of their church in its new location.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Children, families, and congregants young and old frantically arranged chairs, readied musical instruments, and installed the pulpit in excitement, as church leaders began preparations to illuminate the front podium with the white-colored cross mounted behind it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And as the church band played amid scenes of jubilation, so began the eruption in earnest applause as the crucifix lit up the wall of the elevated stage, ending months of uncertainty and bringing a sense of relief and hope of what was to come.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis didn\u2019t happen overnight,\u201d said John Malcolm, lead pastor of <\/span>Calvary Church Hong Kong<\/span><\/a>. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t without our own set of challenges \u2013 but it feels like a blessing for us, that we can still be of help.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Calvary Church is just one of many churches across Hong Kong that were forced to relocate, downsize, or even shut down after three years of stringent COVID-19 restrictions, lockdowns, and seemingly endless uncertainties over border reopenings that gripped the city during the course of the pandemic, according to the Hong Kong Christian Council.<\/span><\/p>\n

The subsequent wave of emigration, along with still stubbornly high\u00a0 rent prices, and far lower congregant attendance are just some of the factors that fueled this unprecedented trend of church closures and relocations in post-pandemic Hong Kong.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at churches in Hong Kong \u2013 both local and the international, there definitely has been a decline in churchgoers due to COVID-19 and the migratory wave that followed,\u201d said Tobias Brandner, a professor of theology at the Divinity School of Chung Chi College at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and author of the 2023 book <\/span>Christians in the City of Hong Kong<\/span><\/i>.<\/span> \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBased on my estimation, there has been a 20 to 30 percent decrease in church membership,\u201d he said, adding that the past few years have proven to have a detrimental effect on churches, pastors and congregants alike.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Pastor Malcolm with his wife attending Calvary Church Hong Kong\u2019s first service at its new location<\/p><\/div>\n

Official <\/span>figures<\/span><\/a> from the Hong Kong Home and Youth Affairs Bureau in 2022 estimate 1.3 million people identify as part of the city\u2019s Christian community, and more than 300,000 of them attend church services on a regular basis.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But a significant number of Christians are believed to have left Hong Kong in the past few years. Data from a Hong Kong Church Renewal Movement report released in 2021 revealed that 60,000 congregants are believed to have emigrated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many felt optimistic that the post-pandemic wave of emigration would subside in the past year, but it\u2019s unclear whether it has, as more updated numbers are not available.<\/span><\/p>\n

With people leaving Hong Kong and fewer people attending churches, the number of congregations in the city gradually declined, according to estimates from the Hong Kong Christian Council.<\/span><\/p>\n

Government <\/span>data<\/span><\/a> from July 2022 indicated there were a total of 1,450 Protestant congregations in the city, but the latest numbers from last year<\/span> showed <\/span><\/a>that the number of congregations has dipped to 1,300 \u2013 suggesting\u00a0 at least 150 churches may have shuttered within the past two years alone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But it remains unclear if the 2023 figure excluded non-Chinese speaking churches. The Home and Youth Affairs Bureau did not explain whether it did and the difference between the two sets of figures.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some churchgoers in hopes of seeking spiritual guidance through church services during the pandemic \u2013 and even as far back as the city\u2019s 2019 political unrest \u2013 were left without a place to go.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Others instead chose to find a new congregation near their own home, or in some cases, emigrated overseas.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even as churches across Hong Kong have re-opened their doors, attendance is far lower than pre-pandemic levels, with some losing as many as half of their congregants, according to church leaders.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Many congregations don\u2019t qualify for government subsidies or assistance they need to stay afloat, unlike other sectors such as the tourism industry, because churches usually rely on private donations.<\/span><\/p>\n

But while restaurant and other business closures made the headlines almost daily during the Covid years, church closures have seen minimal to no coverage in the city\u2019s media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The churches that closed<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trevor Zaccheus, former pastor of Calvary Church Tuen Mun \u2013 a smaller sub-branch of Calvary Church\u2019s overall operations in the city, made the tough decision of closing its congregation\u2019s doors late last year after 16 years of faithfulness in ministry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He and his wife now reside in Red Deer, a small city in central Alberta, Canada, after emigrating from Hong Kong in the summer of 2023.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Like pastor Malcolm, the couple also faced rising financial burdens for their longtime church venue as well as low attendance rates and empty chairs, all while trying to maintain hopes of staying afloat.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But for Zaccheus, the decision was something that was felt on a much more personal level.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition to leaving our jobs, it was more about the church and the family we\u2019ve built over the past 16 years,\u201d Zaccheus said, speaking via Zoom from Canada. \u201cYou build a relationship and connection with them, and they become like family. That was the hardest part of leaving Hong Kong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While breaking the news to their nearly 30-member congregation was by no means an easy feat, the couple ensured that members were equipped with a steady channel of communication and another congregation to go to in the wake of their departure from the city.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo what we tried to do,\u00a0 before we could make the move to Canada, is make sure that everyone was rooted and plugged into a church elsewhere \u2013 local or non-local,\u201d said Zaccheus.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a result, many longtime attendees of Zaccheus\u2019 congregation found a sense of peace in the midst of the sudden loss, allowing them to remain active in a spiritual community through encouraging messages and sermons held via pre-recorded videos on Zoom.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite their church\u2019s closure, the couple says their bond with members of their congregation remains strong. Zaccheus said that he and his wife actively communicate with many congregation members through a WhatsApp group chat where counseling, daily devotions, and much-needed prayers are shared on a near daily basis.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe still keep that group on,\u201d Zaccheus explained. \u201cThere are many members who I’m still in touch with.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For one church, it was a story of survival\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some churches like the main Calvary, however, managed to stay open, but had to make a tough decision to relocate to cheaper quarters.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Hong Kong\u2019s soaring rent and sky-high demand for housing supply continue to exacerbate businesses, eateries, and other major establishments post-pandemic, churches also have been caught in the crossfire.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hong Kong consistently ranks as the second-most expensive place in the world to live in after New York City. And as local inflation increased, rent rose to multi-year highs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite it being a culmination of several factors, it was the fluctuating financial situation of Calvary Church that played one of the more obvious roles in Malcolm\u2019s decision to relocate it to a cheaper location.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom an individual standpoint, the personal finances of some of our congregation members were down 40 to 60 percent,\u201d Malcolm recalled. \u201c[That meant that] in 2022, the overall income of our church itself declined by at least 30 percent.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He cited rent costs, mass emigration, job losses, and the lack of enthusiasm in tithing \u2013\u00a0the Christian practice of congregants giving back 10 percent of their annual earnings to the church \u2013 as the major causes of the church\u2019s unprecedented monetary woes in the post-pandemic era.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As an international church in Hong Kong, the main Calvary Church had grown exponentially since its founding in October 1989 \u2013 going on to plant several ministries across almost every part of the city, from areas surrounded by crowded streets to more bucolic neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city center.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Its success in expanding over the years made it all the more devastating for Malcolm to have to give up the prime location their church was situated at, in the bustling Tsim Sha Tsui district.<\/span><\/p>\n

A pastor\u2019s dilemma<\/strong><\/p>\n

The stress of staying afloat despite financial woes put a lot of mental burden on pastors and church leaders who struggled to hold their congregation together during such trying times.<\/span><\/p>\n

For over 20 years, pastor Malcolm has faithfully led his nearly 100-member flock at Calvary Church \u2013 an international, English-speaking Pentecostal congregation where many members of the city\u2019s local and ethnic minority communities gather every week.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Pastor Malcolm delivering a sermon to his congregation during one of Calvary\u2019s services at the new church<\/p><\/div>\n

Since taking over as pastor in 2003, the now 50-year-old Malcolm \u2013 like many other faithfuls in the city, remained steadfast in adhering to the principles of ministry \u2013 giving back to the local community, fellow parishioners, families, and newcomers of the faith through much-needed spiritual guidance, emotional support, and financial assistance through challenging times.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But all that came to a head earlier this year after he made the difficult decision to move his congregation from its longtime location of 34 years in the heart of the city center, opting instead to relocate across town to the suburban area of Austin \u2013 a quieter, more industrial part of Kowloon.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For Malcolm, it was a feeling of being at a crossroads \u2013 facing an unwanted dilemma of shifting to a cheaper, yet more distant location that was rather inconvenient to some congregants, or staying put in the same place despite growing financial difficulties.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The stress was taking a toll on the pastor himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u201cMentally, everything piled up rather fast,\u201d Malcolm said. \u201cI don’t know if it was depression or anything like that \u2013 but it was just heavy. You end up kind of getting clueless after a while. We kept asking, what do we do? And nobody had an answer \u2013 not even the most experienced.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until a mid-2022 family trip to the United Kingdom \u2013 at the height of Hong Kong\u2019s rigid quarantine restrictions, when pastor Malcolm began to feel the burden of a mental weight slowly crash down on him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To him, the world was opening up after the pandemic \u2013 and Hong Kong was merely catching up. And from the outside looking in, Malcolm wasn\u2019t all that eager to return to Hong Kong.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I didn\u2019t want to come back to Hong Kong,\u201d said Malcolm, his head bowing slightly. \u201cBeing out of the city forced me to realize that in my mind, that\u2019s where the heaviness was.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of staying overseas, however, he decided to return to Hong Kong because he wanted to keep his congregation together \u2013 despite the many uncertainties over COVID-19 travel restrictions and the financial burdens the church faced.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once he and his family had made up their mind to return to Hong Kong, it was Malcolm\u2019s said he reinvigorated motivation to press on in spiritually encouraging his congregation, that kept him going.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou kind of feed off of people,\u201d said Malcolm. \u201cMany people I know personally were already contemplating leaving the city \u2013 but for me, I didn\u2019t want to be stuck in a bubble of helplessness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What encouraged him to finally stay together as a congregation were people\u2019s willingness to be involved in the process of finding a new location for the church.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to him, many church members \u2013 particularly the youth \u2013 were constantly on the lookout for any potential locations whenever the opportunity arose.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually, Calvary Church found a suitable location in Austin, a smaller, quieter neighborhood in the poorer areas of Kowloon a little farther away from the old church building near Tsim Sha Tsui, but within an hour\u2019s travel time for most congregants, meaning it\u2019s not too inconvenient for them to make the trip.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In light of all that has transpired, pastor Malcolm chooses to remain optimistic about what the future holds \u2013 not only for his church, but for others who have faced similar situations in the past few years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To illustrate his congregation\u2019s past and current situation, Malcolm likened it to an analogy within the world of professional, competitive sports.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And it was an analogy that resonated with his congregants at the first service at the church\u2019s new location.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLooking back at the pandemic\u2019s aftermath on churches in Hong Kong specifically, I always remind myself that everybody reaches the peak,\u201d Malcolm explained. \u201cIn sports, for instance, the best of the best reach the peak at the prime of their careers. That’s why they’re invincible. Nobody can touch them, and they can do that because they have reached the peak.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut nobody lives on the peak. Nobody lives up there,\u201d Malcolm went on to say, a smile slowly rippling across his face. \u201cYou can stay there for a while, but at some point \u2013 you have to come down.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A glimmering light at the end of the tunnel\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amid grueling setbacks, the main Calvary Church stood tall and remained one of the more fortunate ones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of its members still willingly go to the new church, despite it being in a place a bit farther away than they may be used to.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And just like the way its newly located church began its service, so did a fresh sense of hope and normalcy after years of setbacks and uncertainty.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Congregants gathering to sing as Calvary\u2019s late morning church service begins at its new church.<\/p><\/div>\n

One young congregant described the sense of excitement he felt on the day of the church\u2019s first service at its new location.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in a new, permanent location gives us more flexibility in how we can utilize the space going forward,\u201d said Tom Sicuan, a 25-year-old Hong Konger of Filipino heritage and a longtime attendee of the church.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He said despite the many uncertainties in the past three years, what helped was everyone getting involved in finding an appropriate new location and keeping the congregation together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt really does feel like a place we can call home,\u201d Sicuan said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Advisor: Cindy Sui<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Carlos Escueta<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3626,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature-writing","category-religion","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nUnprecedented Downswing in Hong Kong\u2019s Churches - HKU MJ Casptone Project 2024<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Unprecedented Downswing in Hong Kong\u2019s Churches - 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