AT first, he thought that being English educated, he didn’t have any chance to serve the Lord full time but God had a plan for him. Eventually, James Kwang dedicated himself to full time pastoring of the Chinese Methodist Church in Australia. To top it all, he was elected as the Bishop of the Chinese Methodist Church in Australia in 2010. He retired in 2019.
What are his plans after retirement? In this interview with Wong Meng Lei, he opens his heart.
What was your background?
“My mother loved our Lord deeply. She gave birth to 12 children. We were brought up as Christians and we went to Sing Ang Tong Methodist Church. A year after I went to the UK to further my studies my sister wrote to me saying that my mother felt that if one of her 12 children would dedicate full time to our Lord she would be most delighted.”
At that time I did not take it seriously because I was English educated and the church needed Chinese speaking pastors, the matter would be irrelevant to me.
I was born in Sg. Merah, Sibu in 1957 and went to UK to study Civil Engineering after completing my secondary school. After graduating I returned to work in Sarawak.
My family and I migrated to Perth in 1987 after I worked in Kuching for 5 years. After two years in Perth, I obtained a builder license and set up my own construction company. However I was already serving actively in the church and was a voluntary preacher.
Four years later, I felt the need of the English-speaking congregation of Kingsway Methodist Church as there was a shortage of pastors. I also felt that making money did not mean much to me. Thus I discussed with my wife my intention to dedicate myself full time to the Lord. Subsequently I enrolled in Westminster Theological College in 1995 to equip myself for the ministry.
Tell us about your work after you graduated from Westminster Theological College.
However 2 weeks after entering the seminary I was diagnosed with liver dysfunction and was admitted to hospital for 10 days. By God’s grace I kept up with the progress of my theology course. Because of the restructuring and merging of the seminary, through attending intensive courses I managed to complete the 4 year-course in 2 years. I graduated at end of 1996.
Because of the church’s need I was already shepherding the church when I was still in the seminary. A year after entering the seminary, my wife also enrolled into the theological course of the Bible College of Western Australia and served as the Local Preacher of the church I was serving. 5 Years after my graduation my wife took up counselling course. We complemented each other in our ministries.
In my 25 years’ pastoring ministry, I pastored a church for 2 years while still in the seminary, and served at Immanuel Methodist Church for 15 years from 1997. I served as Bishop from 2010 to 2018.
What is the Chinese Methodist Church in Australia like?
Currently the Chinese Methodist Church in Australia (CMCA) has 27 churches and preaching centres. Of these, the three churches in Australia West District, namely the Kingsway Methodist Church, the Immanuel Methodist Church and the Grace Methodist Church have both Chinese and English services. The Hope Methodist Church has English service only. Calvary Methodist Church and Gospel Methodist Church have Chinese services with English translation. We have to pay special attention to those young Australian born Chinese. They are the successors of the church but they don’t speak Chinese.
One problem I noticed in my 8 years as Bishop is that many pastors of CMCA does not pay attention to the traditions of Methodist faith, such as John Wesley doctrine of grace and salvation as well as holy living as taught in the Bible. Because of that, during my first term in office, I invited speakers to speak on the tradition of Methodism.
In my second term I focused on the application of the Methodist traditions. To extend beyond theory and theology I also wrote an application guide.
I believe that the 4 years of work have helped to guide our church in the right path of Methodist traditions
I believe that if CMCA can adopt fund pooling system it can do a lot more in future. I feel sorry that I was unable to implement that during his term.
What do you think are the urgent needs in Australia?
Many mainland Chinese are migrating overseas and Australia is one of the hot spots. The numbers of believers of China origin are growing in the Chinese Methodist churches. In many bigger churches more than half of the congregation are Mainland Chinese believers. More than 90% of the congregation of Preston Methodist Church in Melbourne for example are Mainland Chinese believers. 60% of the congregation of Glory Methodist Church are Mainland Chinese believers. Carlton Methodist Church and the Sherwood Methodist Church have many believers of China origin too. Seriously speaking Chinese Methodist Church in Australia has about 4,000 members of which 30% are Mainland Chinese believers.
We are very grateful to the Malaysian Chinese believers for bringing a lot of blessings to the church and also bringing the gospel to these Mainland Chinese. However the culture of the Mainland Chinese is different from that of Malaysian Chinese and so it takes time for the two to integrate. On top of that the foundation of their faith is different and so it is not easy to evangelize to them.
Currently CMCA has 40 full time pastors, 37 of whom are from Malaysia, 2 from China and 1 from Singapore. There are also 7 retired pastors.
As more and more Mainland Chinese believers are joining the Australian churches, we urgently need Mainland Chinese pastors because they have the same cultural background and so it would be easier for them to pastor them.
The local churches find it difficult to hire pastors from overseas because of difficulties in the application of work visa. That is also one of the reasons for the shortage of pastors. To apply for a work visa one’s annual income has to be over AUD70,000 and the church can’t afford it.
That’s why the churches are hoping that more young permanent residency members can dedicate themselves to becoming pastors and be shepherd of the sheep for God.
In addition there is now a calling to form the “English Provisional Annual Conference”. This is because of the increase in number in the English churches and also that most of the younger believers are English educated. He agrees that due to language and cultural differences the Chinese and English churches need to be managed separately sooner or later.
Tell us about the Mission district in PNG.
The Chinese Methodist Church of Papua New Guinea has been the mission district of CMCA all these years. Rev Ngu King Ming is in-charge of the district. In the past eight years four preaching centres were set up in the outer islands. The fifth was opened this year. There is also a Bible study class. The largest church is the Methodist Church in Papua New Guinea. A mission conference is now set up with four full-time pastors. To further expand the gospel ministry more pastors are needed. Pastor Esther Yung is currently pastoring the Chinese Methodist Church in Solomon Islands.
The gospel ministry among the nationals is the focus of ministry in Papua New Guinea in future. We have done a good job in social care work especially the Methodist medical team and that is a blessing for the local community. Unfortunately the set back is the security problem.
What about the Chinese Methodist Church in New Zealand?
The Chinese Methodist Church in New Zealand has set up Provisional Annual Conference in March 2018. The missionary work of Fiji Island is also under the care of the New Zealand church. Currently there are nine churches and eight full-time pastors.
Why do you wish to go into politics?
I believe that to bring changes to a country like Australia that legalizes same-sex marriage it is most necessary for Christians to participate in politics. For that I intend to participate in social work now that I am retired.
As a Methodist, we should uphold John Wesley’s aspiration to live a holy life, to care about the development of the society and also to bring about transformation in this society by participating actively in politics, especially in this age.
Australia is the 26th country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. The parliament passed the same-sex marriage bill in December 2017. As a result of the new law the Australian government has made great changes in the distinction and definition of gender in education and culture. Now, as long as you think you are a woman, you can use the female toilet, even if you are clearly male; and same for male toilet. There is now no distinction between male and female toilet.
Although the church protested against the bill and also organized various awareness campaigns, very few Christians would participate in politics. There were not enough opposite votes when the government decided on new policies.
So I believe that as long as the church is united and participates actively in politics, there is still hope for future.
What would you wish to tell our readers?
On the other hand, even though Australia is a developed country, a lot of social care work still needs to be done. For example the Australian government has taken in many political asylum seekers, the formerly so-called “refugees”. Caring for them often achieves good results. The number of baptisms per year is the highest in this group.
I would say the most direct way to reach out to people is with social care. Is it not true that Jesus’ great commandments are for us to love God and to love our neighbours?
Interviewer: Menglei
Interviewee: Rev. James Kwang
Recorder: April Lu
Translator: KT Chew