Problem. Adventist churches in China do not operate under a denominational structure. As the government continues to open more churches, an increasing number of people become Adventists every day. Because of the fast growing pace of many churches in the past three decades, not much attention has been given to the health and quality aspect of church life. Therefore, the question of how to help the church to grow and to become healthy has become an urgent matter. Purpose. The purpose of this project is to develop and implement a strategy to improve the health of the Ciba Seventh-day Adventist Church in Southwest China by applying Christian Schwarz's Natural Church Development (NCD) principles in the context of Chinese Seventh-day Adventism and the local culture. Method. The methodology was to use NCD to profile the Ciba church in southwest China and to identify its minimum factor, the lowest score among the eight quality characteristics of NCD. Attention would be given to the special context of the Chinese Adventist Church and Chinese culture in regard to NCD principles. One year after Ciba has worked on its minimum factor, a second profile would be done to compare with the first, and the result would be documented in this project. Result. Holistic Small Groups was found to be the minimum factor as the result of the first profile. Strategies were developed to increase this quality characteristic. However, the result of the second church profile showed little improvement of the minimum factor. Conclusions. Looking back at the results of the two church profiles and development and implementation of the strategies, it is still too early to tell if NCD principles can be useful in China. But I do believe NCD is a good measuring tool to help the Ciba church to identify its weaknesses. The potential that this experience may have a bigger impact in China lies in the fact that the Ciba church members were willing to put themselves to the test. As they share what they learned with Adventists in other parts of China, the possibility of raising awareness of the importance of a healthy church is very promising.
Abstract In this paper I try to make a brief presentation of the concept of reengineering expressed in the literature. In the second part of this paper I will try to list the stages of the reengineering methodology and to develop them succinctly. At the end of the paper I will attach a case study on reengineering and conclusions on this topic.
In recent years, edible landscape within the urban area (ELWUA) has become a topic of intense study in the field of landscape research worldwide. Urban agriculture could contribute to the sustainability of cities in various ways: socially, economically and environmentally. Therefore, facing the two global challenges of urbanization and food security, the integration of urban agriculture is suggested to be used as a strategy for sustainable and resilient urban development and providing a productive green infrastructure for the future cities. Especially at the present, agriculture is being rediscovered for use in modern urban space and becoming more and more popular in cities all over the world. During the last twenty or so years, the number of related concepts, research projects, conferences and teaching practices has greatly increased, especially in western countries. However, compared with the tremendous upsurge of research on ELWUA in western countries, the research on edible landscapes in China so far has mainly evolved around the issue of integrating agriculture in the suburbs and rural area, but only a few mentioned cases within the urban area. Therefore, there is an urgent need to fill in the research gap in the field of the edible landscape within the urban area (ELWUA) in China, thereby to contribute to the understanding of the essence and significance of the contemporary ELWUA in China in the 21st century. First, this dissertation reviewed the relative definitions, history and services of growing food within urban area, and the types of urban agriculture in Europe as the knowledge foundation of understanding the contemporary ELWUA. Then, taking Beijing as the research area, the research used an empirical research approach (by means of field surveys) with the aim of finding out the ELWUA's physical characteristics (including spatial characteristics, type of edible plants, evolution process, materials and technology), social characteristics (including the information of the participants, organizational forms and motivations), ELWUA types, ELWUA services and people's perceptions towards ELWUA. During the process of carrying out the field surveys, 38 sites were selected as the research cases and semi-structured interviews to six groups of people who are related to ELWUA were completed. After that, the characteristics of the ELWUA in Beijing were found through the comparison with European ELWUA cases. Finally, recommendations on how to use edible landscapes as a strategy to serve the sustainable development of Beijing and other metropolitan cities in China were proposed. The main contents and conclusions of the empirical research include: 1. The edible landscapes which exist within the urban area of Beijing are mainly a phenomenon that emerged along with the modern urbanization process of China. They could be classified into three main levels and nine types, which are: 1) the urban food gardening level, which includes family gardens, guerrilla gardens, community gardens, renting farming garden (called "Happy Farm"), educational/demonstration gardens and Danwei kitchen gardens; 2) the urban greening and landscaping level, which includes edible greening and landscaping with fruit trees and edible greening and landscaping with crops or vegetables; 3) the urban farming level, which includes agrotourists' picking farms and experimental farms. In which, the edible landscapes cultivated by the public mainly emerged during the rapid urbanization process since the Chinese economic reform was carried out in 1978. It is a response of the urban dwellers that are living away from the rural landscape and nature who wish to pursue a healthy life (including leisure, health, food supplement and healthier food) and a pastoral life, rather than only simply an initiative for food production. Growing food within the urban area in Beijing mainly consists of urban residents' spontaneous activities and it is inseparable from the daily life demands of the Chinese urban dwellers. Because it is an expression of the "people's will", it is a natural phenomenon and a cultural product embedded in the Chinese cultivation culture and rooted in the Chinese rapid urbanization process. The ELWUA in Beijing can supply multiple services for urban citizens, including 1) provision services, 2) environmental services, 3) social services, 4) health services, 5) economic services, 6) recreational services, 7) educational services and 8) cultural services. 2. The comparison of the ELWUA in Beijing and European cities indicated that to date the development of ELWUA in China is still in its infancy and has its own characteristics, which could be reflected in: 1) family gardens and informal guerrilla gardens, which are usually built by individuals, account for the majority of the total ELWUA in Beijing, 2) most of the ELWUA in Beijing is located in private space or semi-public space, 3) most of the ELWUA is bottom-up spontaneous activities of the urban dwellers, only a few were built under formal organization, in which, most of them were built only for public greening but not for people's cultivation, 4) there is a large proportion of aged retirees in the spontaneous "urban hobby farmers", 5) there is a high demand for growing food within the urban area from the urban residents, but there is a disparity of the perception and attitudes towards ELWUA between the public and the government or other administrations of urban landscape, 6) a lot of potential ELWUA services which could contribute to the urban healthy development and the well-being of people are still waiting to be recognized, explored and applied. 3. The development of ELWUA in China is currently facing a lot of challenges, which mainly include: 1) ELWUA is neglected even excluded from the urban landscape planning by urban authorities, 2) perception of agriculture being inappropriate in a city and lack of vision, 3) lack of space and land tenure uncertainties for ELWUA, 4) lack of organization, management and maintenance, 5) lack of knowledge and technical guide, and 6) the challenge of combining the aesthetic value of ELWUA into urban landscape. Based on the findings of this research, recommendations on how to use edible landscapes to promote the healthy and sustainable development of Chinese cities in the 21st century were proposed: 1) ELWUA should be supported as an ordinary urban practice and integrated as one component of the urban landscape, 2) more potential urban space should be excavated for ELWUA, 3) a systematic looped guide, which includes a) planning, b) building, c) maintenance and management, and d) monitoring and evaluation, should be formulated to support the implementation of ELWUA, 4) a publicly available environmental monitoring and information system on health security should be set up.
As the main beneficiaries of the economic reforms, members of China's middle class are primarily preoccupied with maintaining their status. Participation in politics is not high on their agenda. The mass media in China has become apolitical, largely to cater to the middle class' consumer and popular culture. It is in fact weakening the political and civic interests of the middle class, reducing their motive for direct political participation or interaction with the government. (CIJ/GIGA)
The newly emerging middle-income stratum represents China's economic and academic elite. Civic attributes and the role the middle class plays in the process of social transformation in China have remained overlooked. This study examines the consciousness of self-identity and social affairs of this middle stratum. Surveys are drawn from two cities in China, Beijing and Shanghai. The result reveals that the majority of respondents are uncertain about their identity of being in the middle-income stratum. However, research shows that while this group shares many social traits in common - a high level of educational attainment and professional skills, and a strong interest in social and public affairs - there has been no sign that this group will function as a social group yet. Social behaviors of the middle-income stratum demonstrate strong individual endeavors rather than coordinated efforts of this newly emerging social group. (J Contemp China/GIGA)
