Faithful administrator

A couple of weeks ago I listened to a sermon about faithfulness, one of the fruit of the Holy Spirit—characteristics we should see growing in Christians. Instead of talking more generally about this characteristic, our pastor looked at a real person in the Bible: Daniel. 

A fruit photo was called for...and why 
not share with you one of my favourite
"Japanese" fruit: nashi, aka "Japanese
Pear". I don't like "Western" pears,
so loving nashi has been surprising.

As someone who grew up on Bible stories, the things that first come to mind about him are the amazing stories: spending a night imprisoned in a lion's den and not being devoured, being chosen by King Nebuchadnezzar to be brought into his royal service and then resisting the king's food, interpreting two king's dreams, and praying to his God despite that being illegal. Not to mention his three friends who didn't die after being thrown into a furnace.

But I have never really thought about Daniel as an administrator. 

It pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom, with three chief ministers over them, one of whom was Daniel. The satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer loss. Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the chief ministers and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. At this, the chief ministers and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. (Daniel 6:1–4 NIV)

The preacher pointed out these things about Daniel from this passage:

• First Daniel was part of three chief ministers over 120 local governors with the goal of the king not suffering any (financial?) loss.
• Then Daniel so distinguished himself that the king planned to set him over all the kingdom.
• Daniel had "exceptional qualities". In a different version (ESV) it says that he had an "excellent spirit" in him.
• His colleagues tried to find fault in him, but they couldn't "because he was faithful" (ESV). He was "trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent" (NIV). 

He had a lot of responsibility and was clearly gifted at what he did.

The story continues. Those conspiring against Daniel asked the king to make a new law that made it illegal to pray to any other God or man other than the king for the next 30 days. They lied to the king, saying that everyone had agreed to this law (but clearly Daniel had not). The penalty was the lion's den. The story says that when Daniel learned the decree had been published he went home to his upstairs room and prayed, just as he had done before, three times each day. He was discovered and they "dobbed" him in (Aussie and maybe British for reporting someone for doing wrong).

Daniel clearly didn't hide his devotion. When the king gave the order, he said, "May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!" We focus in on the lions and the rescue, but do you note that even the king knew that Daniel, one of his most trusted administrators, served his (foreign-to-the-king) God faithfully.

Over the years I have become more and more an administrator, a team leader, and a project/event manager. I enjoy what I do. It's a quiet job that I mostly do on my own from my own home. Though I interact with dozens of people through my week, it's usually via email or other text-based ways. Somehow it's easy to get discouraged. 

I don't know if other people who do administration get discouraged. I see some of the little (and big) tasks that go into the running of our Japanese church and am so thankful for the people who do them. They make sure supplies are ordered, that buildings are cleaned, that minutes are taken, that finances are managed, events are organised, and equipment maintained. Without administrators, our churches, missions, organisations, schools, governments, etc. wouldn't run. People tend to only notice administrators if they're doing a bad job!

But clearly administrators are valuable in God's sight too. Being faithful in what I do is glorifying to God, even when it doesn't feel that way. I found this such an encouraging sermon!

Ordinary deeds are not so ordinary?

Many people don't think of missionaries as ordinary. I've blogged here for many years in an effort to show that I really am just quite ordinary. Somehow we put big titles on people that makes them seems greater than ordinary. It's not just us. If you say someone is an actor, or a rocket scientist, or an Olympian, or _____. There are plenty of other titles that you could put into that space that makes us go "Wow, that person is pretty special" and quietly to ourselves say, "compared to my very ordinary life".

Image by Thomas Mühl from Pixabay    

Somehow we attach great significance to these things and little significance to the more usual things. I read an article by Tim Challies this week about this, about how some dream of being rich, of being convinced they could do big things if they just had a lot of money. The author suggested we've got it all wrong. He suggests thinking on Galatians 6:2 "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ" (NIV). 

Challies quotes John Stott's commentary on that verse: "To love one another as Christ loved us may lead us not to some heroic, spectacular deed of self-sacrifice, but to the much more mundane and unspectacular ministry of burden-bearing."

What does bearing one another's burdens look like in my life this week?

I had two single ladies at church separately tell me of their burning desire to be married. I listened and promised to pray for them. (And followed through on that promise.)

I had a friend confess that she's sad. She's had many goodbyes recently. I shared some of my own goodbyes and sadnesses with her and we commiserated with one another.

Another good friend told me and a mutual friend over a text-chat about some choices she has about how she spends her time, about her heart for a specific group of ladies at her church, and wondered if God was calling her to do something practical for them. We listened and promised to pray.

I had an unexpected opportunity to have dinner alone with a new-ish friend on Monday. She asked about my boys and kept asking and listening...I told her more than she expected to hear from that simple enquiry. I was blessed by being able to tell some of our story and to be amazed again at what's happened for us in the last few years.

Also on Monday (it was a huge day!) I had coffee with a colleague who told me he felt flat as a result of various events that are happening to others in his life. I listened, and prayed for him.

I simply hugged several people this week. This isn't usual in Japan, most of those happened at a mission event where I caught up with a few people I haven't seen in a while. I've also discovered a Japanese lady at church loves hugs and so I'm leaning into that.

These are just a few small examples of bearing one another's burdens. They aren't worth bragging about and I certainly don't deserve any accolades or applause. These are things that any of us can do wherever we are. What have you done this week that will go unnoticed and perhaps be forgotten by even yourself by the end of next month? (And no, you don't have to tell us, just think about it!)

Podcast episodes about neurodivergence and the Christian life

I recently listened to a three-episode podcast series about "Neurodivergence and the Christian Life". You can find them here: https://ccl.moore.edu.au/podcasts/

I am not a big podcast listener, but this subject matter is close to my heart, so I gave it a go. Actually, I found it a little academic and stiff, especially at the start of the first one, but it was worth sticking with. It's a huge topic and what they've done only barely touches some of it. But there were also sparkly moments, especially when they talked directly to neurodivergent adults and parents of neurodivergent kids.

Us and church and neurodivergence

Our family has managed fairly well over the years to be present and somewhat involved in church, but sometimes at a cost. 

Most of the church services I've been part of in the last 25 years have been in Japanese, and the truth is that my Japanese comprehension is not great, certainly not for a lengthy monologue that is a sermon. Add on to that the neurodivergence that our family carried with us, and I can't say that church has been a place that I got much nourishment for my soul. Our kids are not so disordered that they couldn't sit in through most services, but I was always on alert to help them stay settled or, in latter years, encourage one of them to leave the service when he was too disturbed by the sounds coming through the loudspeaker. 

We visited a lot of churches whenever we were in Australia, often as guest speakers. Getting our family seated in places so that everyone was content was hard, and (often at the same time) fending off offers for the kids to join the Sunday School as visitors. Our kids put up with a lot as we were often one of the last to leave after these visits because we were there for "work" and spent a lot of time talking to people afterwards. I have to say that the last two home assignments we have done ('18 and '23/'24) have been easier because we haven't had to take our kids around with us.

Back to the podcast

But back to the podcast, the third one includes a section about dealing with meltdowns and discipline that triggered in me a bunch of emotions:

"And if you can notice—as a parent, if we can notice these things in our child and identify some ways to comfort them, then sometimes you can actually release the pressure without a meltdown. And so a loving thing to do as a parent is actually to be on the lookout for these and to be on the lookout for ways to help them." (From the transcript here.)

This type of proactive parenting is exhausting. I clearly remember being at a small New Years Eve party at a friends house with our teenage sons and being unable to enjoy the evening. It was a familiar place with familiar people and we had all chosen to be there, but I was on edge much of the evening as I watched one of our sons struggle with the social gathering. Church is more predictable, yet a worship service has very little latitude for behaviour deviation and none for noise. Years and years of this wears on you. In some weird way I'm grateful for the pandemic because we had fewer social gatherings to deal with in those years!

Overall, the podcast was both encouraging and frustrating. I heard neurodivergent adults talking about their struggles and also about ways they've been helped and encouraged in their faith. I'm glad it's being talked about, but also longing for change to already have happened! I don't know what part I can play in that, but can at least continue to pray for the neurodivergent people in my life who are struggling and, when opportunity arises, to talk about our experience. This month I have been asked to give my testimony at our English-speaking service. I'm planning to share just a little bit of our walk with neurodivergence and the challenges I've had trusting God through it all.

'Twas the week before Christmas

I did my usual Monday grocery shop this week and was a little overwhelmed by the crowds. It was hard to get a park in the huge carpark under our local shopping centre (there are more than 3,000 car parks at the centre, the majority of them are undercover). And in the grocery store itself there were lots of people "hunting in packs" and more notable were those who looked like they'd been at it for a long time: their trolleys were full to overflowing, they held long lists, their eyes were bleary, and occasionally they could be heard on the phone consulting other important parties. It was pretty crazy.

'Twas the week before Christmas, 
when all through the mall,  
shoppers descended like a mad summer squall 

—penned by David Marshall, Dec '23

Because we're about to travel and be guests of our parents, I wasn't buying much, but I know our mums are probably stressed about all this, just as these (mostly) women appeared to be. I hope that we will be able to be gracious guests and not cause too much trouble!

But really, what I want for Christmas is not the "perfect" meal or decorations or presents, I just want to honour our families by spending time with them, some of whom we haven't seen for more than five years. We put so much emphasis on making this celebration "just right" that we can easily forget the more important things.

Obviously, as a woman of Christian faith, the most important thing to me is that we're remembering that this is about Jesus, the son of God, the miracle that God came to earth to be one of us. Without that event, this celebration would never have started. Unfortunately, as we all know, in many places, he's completely forgotten, overtaken by many other aspects of the season. And even those of us who are Christians can let the general fervour and busyness of the season overtake the meaning of the story that has grown a little too familiar to us.

A bit of a blurry photo of the outdoor
carols service that our eldest son's church
ran for their community. He's on the guitar
on the left of the picture. It was fun to join in
this and encouraging to hear the origin
story of the season told clearly.

But I think it's also a great time to celebrate what else God's given us. For many of us that includes family and friends. I'm thankful for being able to be physically with family this year. It's a great time to get together and be thankful (Australians, especially, without any culture of thanksgiving celebrations separate to Christmas). It's also wonderful time to gather with our communities, with "our people", and be thankful for where we get to live and the people we get to do life with. To be filled with joy at the various fun things planned for this time of year, especially when we know life can be too full of pain and drudgery. 

It's a time of year when things get magnified: bad things can seem worse and small positive things can make a huge difference. Let's take time to acknowledge the good and the joy. And let's release some of those high expectations we have of ourselves and of others, be faster to apologise and to thank, and not so fast to criticise. Let's take pleasure in the small things.

Sacred pathways spiritual temperaments

I've just finished reading a book called Sacred Pathways by Gary L. Thomas. It's about different "spiritual temperaments". That is, about various ways that people find it more natural to worship God. This is fascinating to me, and consolidates things that I've contemplated over the years as I work and live in an interdenominational environment.

I've found the book helpful for a number of reasons:

This helps with the tendency to be judgemental of people who do things differently to you. I work with a lot of different people from a wide range of backgrounds. It's good to have a better understanding of their perspective when it comes to worship and connecting with God, and to move away from that tendency that "only my 'tribe' does it right".

It's taught me about my Christian background and how that plays into the way I think about worship. I come from a tradition that strongly values intellectualism. I see that in how much emphasis they put on the words of songs, and on concentrating carefully on a complex, often theologically rich sermon. 

The big revelation that I had as I recognised this was the struggle I have every week with worshipping in Japanese. I only grasp small portions of sermons and most Japanese worship songs mean little to me. However, I love singing with my Japanese brothers and sisters. That's not an intellectual activity for me, it's a sense-filled one that I appreciate. Sermons often turn into intellectual activities as I work really hard to understand what's being said, and look up various words, but I don't feel particularly close to God doing this. It's a language learning exercise that wears me out every week.

The book has helped me see that there are other ways to worship. This is really helpful because my background, and also the unspoken emphasis of my organisation, is that "words" are all important. As a writer, I have to agree . . . to some extent. But here's the interesting thing: being at church is important to me. When services were only online during the pandemic, I could barely bring myself to listen to a Japanese worship service from my home. However, I appreciate going to a worship service in person. I can only account for that as being I appreciate the atmosphere, the music and the beauty of the building, I appreciate being in the same space as others who are worshipping, and even the comfort that comes from the familiar rhythm of the elements of a worship service.

The book has taught me other things about me. I would never have called myself an "activist" (in fact I tend to run from confrontation), however the book showed me that a deep passion and involvement in mission work, like I have, is a form of activism. I also wouldn't have picked myself to be an "enthusiast" either, but in mission work we take risks and get to see God work in supernatural ways (like people giving money for the last 21 years for us to serve in Japan). Apparently both these things are characteristics of enthusiasts.

And I was surprised at how strongly I had affinity to caregiving, for example offering rides to people, cooking for them, and helping with needs when I can. I love caring for my own family by providing meals for them, and making sure they have a reasonably clean and tidy house to go about their daily lives in (though I don't take that too far, I get bored too easily with housekeeping).

I also didn't realise how much time in nature and appreciating God's creation was also a way I love to worship God. Though I should have known that, given how I love camping and going to parks, taking care of pot plants, and getting out of the city. Having my work desk in a place where I can see outside, especially seeing green, is also important to me.

Probably this isn't a book for Christians who are new to the faith, or who have a shallow faith. But for someone who has been around a while and has a reasonable grounding in basic truths of the gospel, it's a helpful read. I'm already feeling less guilty about not being the best Japanese student, and more appreciative of those who feel that liturgy or incense or fasting or  drawing is a really good way for them to connect with God.

It's always good to remember that the God of the Bible is a big, humungous God. One that we can't put into boxes. It makes perfect sense that just as he's made so many humans, each one different, that he's able to connect deeply with each one, and never in exactly the same way.

[And a very cool thing: I discovered this book through editing an article by a colleague/friend of mine, then found the ebook in my local Australian public library (Ipswich)!] 

Not feeling festive?

How do you “do” Christmas when you’re not “feeling festive”? 

Now I understand that my life is really quite different to many of yours in this respect. I do not live near family and will not be celebrating Christmas with them. In fact I’ve celebrated very few Christmases with my family in the last 21 years! So I don’t really have much experience of all the pressure that families put on one another at this time of year.

I also live in a land where “Christmas” isn’t an overwhelming factor in life. I remember being surprised to see Christmas everywhere in Australia last time I was there in December (2018). The receptionist at the doctor was all decked out in Christmas gear. The pharmacy next door gave me my medication in a red paper bag covered in white stars and Christmas greetings. In Japan you have to work a bit harder to find such things, and mostly it’s in shops, churches, and of course in my own home. Before the pandemic we saw more at our school, with weekly concerts, decorated hallways, lights on the grounds etc. But I’m rarely at school these days and because I don’t have kids in music programs, I’m not invited to concerts.

People in church-based ministries (not our family) are usually very busy this time of year, as Christmas is the easiest time of the year in Japan to invite people to hear about Jesus, so there are lots of events. Not so much these last two years, though.

In fact in Japan, if you aren’t a self-starter, you might miss Christmas altogether. It can be a little lonely if you’re used to celebrating with family. But we’ve got our small family routines and traditions that mean it’s just a quiet, at-home affair.

But back to my first question: how do you deal with the season if you aren’t in the mood for festivity? 

A couple of weeks ago I struggled to get my head into the right place to come up with social media posts for our mission for December. I wasn’t feeling festive. I think, even beginning to feel a little jaded. I mentioned this to a couple of friends and one later shared this short article that helped: https://m.facebook.com/547967600/posts/10157506078937601/?d=n

It’s just a Facebook post, so I’m not sure if you can read it. To summarize. The author’s family was tasting grief and she went to a candlelight service at their church as she usually did. She writes: 

I felt like an imposter. I was a cloud of grief and darkness amidst a cheerful celebration. I felt guilty for dampening the time of rejoicing 

As I sat I found myself talking to Jesus. "I'm ruining your party," I told him. 

It was his response in that moment that changed Christmas for me forever. He told me, “Cassie I came to that manger as a baby not for those in celebration, but for those in mourning. I came for you. In this moment. Right here.”

She’s right. Jesus came, not to be celebrated with tinsel and shallow joy. He came because this world is in pain. We are hurting and needed him to come to comfort us, to save us.

So, I girded my loins and pushed on to do the usual things we do at this time of year. Not with a light heart, because it’s not been a light year. I continue to grieve the losses, to feel the sadness and confusion, the frustration and angst. But I also remember my Saviour who actually chose to enter this sad, confusing, painful world for me. He didn’t have to. I don’t know what kind of grief he felt leaving the fellowship of the Trinity for life in a human body. It’s beyond my understanding. But because he did, I choose to trust him and celebrate him.

I’m thankful that we don’t live in a place where we have to do lots of events just because it is December and that’s what you do. I’m glad for the quiet of the season that’s coming, when school finishes and we have a brief hiatus before the craziness of January begins. I’m hopeful that I can spend time resting in the love of Jesus, waiting on him.

(And I tried multiple times and ways to get a photo to load on this post, but could not. Sigh.)

Be excellent at what you do for the Lord

This article "Christian Authors and the 'Good Enough' Fallacy" is specifically "geared toward [Christian] authors who are trying to write full-time and/or who are serious about getting their work professionally published". However, it touches on an important point that goes much wider than that. 

The article talks about an attitude that can sometimes slide into Christian activities. Doing "just enough" and trusting that God will do the rest.

This is not how I would approach any ordinary job. I come from a health professional background and certainly one of the big things we had to learn how to be was "professional". That's a hard concept to define but includes doing the best you can, drawing a line between personal and work, acting with discretion, being reliable and respectful, and always seeking to improve. I think we sometimes fall down on these things when engaging in "Christian" work."

God exhorts us to do our best:

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might." (Ecc. 9:10 ESV)

"Whatever you do, work at it heartily, as for the Lord, not for men." (Col. 3:23 ESV)

"Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts." (Ps. 33:3 ESV)

This was said of Hudson Taylor, the founder of OMF International (called China Inland Mission at the time): 

“He prayed about things as if everything depended upon the praying . . . but he worked also, as if everything depended on his working.”

I think it is a nicely balanced perspective. Exodus actually gives us a nice picture of the skills that people have. Numerous times people are described as "skilled workers":

"Also I have given ability to all the skilled workers to make everything I have commanded you" (Ex 31:6 NIV)

"Then Moses said to the people of Israel, “See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft. And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab the son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan. He has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, or by a weaver—by any sort of workman or skilled designer." (Ex. 35:30-35 ESV)

Quite clearly God explains that he's given the skills to people, but also that he expects that they use those skills to produce excellent work. The work particularly being undertaken in this portion of the Bible is the building of the tabernacle (in the desert, in those years of wandering between Egypt and Israel) that the Israelites used for many years before Solomon built a permanent temple.

I'm passionate about this and have pushed to make the magazine I work on a work of excellence, rather than just "good enough".

Today I went into the office of the Japan Evangelical Missionary Association (an association of over 1,000 missionaries working in Japan under various mission organisations and independently). I helped them pack the Summer issue of the magazine. It's always satisfying to see this end stage, and such a different thing to what I do most of the time (playing around with words and images). It's great to lay my hands on a physical copy of the magazine we put together.

In order to make excellence happen in the arena of the magazine I manage, I've gathered people around me in the team who feel the same way. And they keep pushing me—every single issue! 

This photo particularly illustrates the dedication of our designer to excellence. She couldn't find a photo to fit this particular article, so she and her husband staged one. They downloaded an appropriate form and started filling it out. It fits the article perfectly, but took some time and effort and creative thinking!

It's time for me to go on with making our dinner, but I want to leave with the parting thought that sometimes we (and I'm talking about the church in general here) approach mission in the "good enough" way. We pray. Yes. that's really important. But sometimes God is calling us to do more than that. To take some risks, to commit to more than just prayer.

Shouting in the Shrine

The day has run away with me (lots of editing) and I've not gotten to actually completing a post here (I have started two, though, just not finished them). So I'm going to cheat and give you a link to a post I completed earlier for the OMF Japan blog. 

I shared it today on Facebook and it's been well received, I do recommend you check it out. It's about an elderly Shinto priest in Hokkaido who because a Christian after watching various members of his family become Christians. This is a really encouraging story: https://omf.org/blog/2017/08/05/turning-up-the-volume/

56th birthday of our church

Today, 56 years ago, our Japanese church met for the first time with nine people. This morning one person who was there 56 years ago, the subsequent pastor of the church, addressed us briefly. I believe he was working at CAJ at the time the church began. Together with some students from the school, he started a small church in a home. As he said this morning, it's exciting to see where things have gone since then. Now the church has its own building, with plans to extend, and about 200 people attending each Sunday over three morning services.

In a land where there are less than 8,000 churches, less than 1% of the population are evangelical Christians, and the average size of a church is under 40 people, this church is larger than usual. Though our pastor is in the majority as being over 50 (70% of Japanese pastors are in this age category).*

This morning our pastor pulled out a ladder at the end of the service and hopped up on it to take a photo of the congregation.

We pray that many of the small churches that are being planted right now in Japan might be able to take such a photo 56 years from now, of the hundreds attending and praise God for what he's done in their midst in those years.


*The source of my statistics in this paragraph is from an infographic that I posted last year here.

Creativity and Christianity

I came across a couple of articles about creativity ages ago and have just dragged them back out of my bulging "draft blog post" folder.

I love the work I do, I've got the freedom to use my gifts to be creative as well as to build others up. So these short articles are very encouraging to me.

The first article I found has an enormous title: Why Christians should paint, dance, quilt, act, compose music, write writes, decorate cookies, and participate in the arts. It lists eight reasons why Christians should be creative. I bet you can think of more, though I wouldn't have thought of these eight if I'd made the list, for example, "beauty reminds us of the Beautiful One" and "when we use our gifts it reminds us (and others) of the Giver of every good and perfect gift". 

Here are some of the creative things I like to do, and why:

• I love to bake as it gives to others, but I also find it very satisfying to work through a series of steps and get a defined result. I actually find it relaxing if I'm not rushed. 
• I love enjoying nature (with and without a camera) because it reminds me of the Creator and lifts my eyes and heart up beyond my current problems. When I share my photos (and blog posts too, I guess) it give pleasure to others and takes them to a place of admiring the work of the Creator too.
• I love to write because it's a gift I have and I can use it to encourage or challenge or inform others. A bit like baking, I like to have ideas and work to get them written down in a way that others can appreciate and enjoy. Editing writing is similar, whether it is my work or someone else's, taking the "raw ingredients" and forming them into something that will benefit others is very satisfying.
• I loved doing cross stitch, it was a relaxing pastime. But also something that I found easy and could create things that I could give to others to give them pleasure. I've taken a break from it in the last year or so, but unfortunately haven't found a viable replacement yet.

This second article (Three things I know about creativity) is by a writer and editor (sounds like someone I know...). She writes about three things that creativity needs:

• to live life: so we have fuel for stuff to create as well as to create space for creative thoughts to form and arrange themselves
• solitude: peace for our souls to be able to commune with God
• community: for refinement, feedback that improves whatever it is that we've created.

I've only just scratched the surface here, I know there's lots more to this topic than I'm seeing or could cover in one tiny blog post. For example this fascinating article from Relevant magazine asking "Is there a place for creative Christians?" with answers by a variety of creative Christians.

It's something I'd like to keep thinking about. As a writer and an editor and an individual who enjoys a variety of creative endeavours.

What do creative things do you enjoy? Why?

Surprising history of Christians in Japan

Christianity in Japan has an interesting history. Did you know the first Christians in Japan were Catholics? And that there have been martyrs here too?

The usual dating of Japan's first contact with Christianity is 1549 when Francis Xavier, a Jesuit priest, arrived in Japan. His stamina, zeal, and willingness to suffer resulted in thousands of conversions in just two years. By 1600, there were about half a million baptised Christians in Japan. However, a period of intense persecutions where thousands of Japanese Christians were martyred followed. Christianity was banned and Japan entered a period of national isolation from 1639—1854. Japan reopened its doors in 1854 and the ban on Christianity was lifted in 1873 (but not until more persecution had been carried out). After 1873 many Anglo-American Protestant missionaries arrived in Japan. 

During WW2 the church was again persecuted as the state sought to control it. After the war ended, there was an influx of evangelical missionaries, with a strong emphasis on evangelism and church planting. It was during this post-war period that OMF (our organisation) began work in Japan, in 1951. (Adapted from OMF International's 31 Days of Prayer 2015, an internally circulated book.)

During the sermon at our church yesterday we heard some more history:

Twenty-six Christians were martyred in Nagasaki in 1597 and as result many Christians went into hiding. These Christians and their descendants continued to practice their faith secretly. Two and a half centuries later missionaries discovered a large number of these hidden Christians in Nagasaki in a place called Urakami.*

A large church, the largest Catholic church in all of East Asia at that time (1925) was built in Urakami after that ban was lifted. The area became the centre of Christianity in Japan. The church apparently had 12,000 members in 1945 and about 8,000 of them died when the atomic bomb dropped in that city exploded only 500m from where many of the members were gathered for mass that day.

The church has been rebuilt and is again a church with many members. Fascinatingly we were told yesterday that the Archbishop of the church is a direct descendent of the hidden Christians and was also a survivor of the bombing in 1945. Amazing.

The point of the sermon was about "kingdom reversals" where what we expect is often not how things turn out in God's way of doing things (see here for a bit more explanation of that term).

From the above it does seem that Christianity should have been stamped out in Japan. But God had other plans, plans that even involved someone whose ancestors continued to be faithful to God despite incredibly trying circumstances (e.g. can you imagine being in a church of 12,000 people and having 75% of them die at once?).

I'm reading a fantasy novel to my family at the moment, it isn't my genre of choice, but I have to admit that it's shed some light on my faith. I never expected that such a genre would help me understand God and my faith better, but it has! It's easy to live in this world and get a set idea of the way things should work, but in the end our creator has more than one paradigm, many more dimensions that he works with. We should anticipate being surprised at how he choses to work.


*Here's a bit more detail on the late 1600s and early 1700s in Japanese Christianity if you're interested:

In 1587, in an era of European colonization and Christianization of the nearby Philippines, Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued an edict banning missionaries from the country due to the religion's growing power, intolerant behavior towards Shinto and Buddhism, and involvement in the sale of Japanese people as slaves overseas. In 1597, Hideyoshi proclaimed a more serious banning edict and executed 26 Christians in Nagasaki as a warning.
Intent to bring Japan under complete control, the succeeding Tokugawa Shogunate further hardened the country's anti-Christian stance, accusing the religion of obstructing the authorities, antisocial behavior and intolerance towards the established religions. After a rebellion on the Shimabara Peninsula that involved many Christians in the late 1630s, thousands of rebels were executed and a full ban on Christianity became strictly enforced. Only small pockets of Christians, known as the "Hidden Christians", continued practicing their religion in secret. (This is from here).

Stories of Japanese people meeting Jesus

Here is a six minute video with many Japanese and other Asians telling briefly how they met Jesus (most are between 20 and 30 seconds long).

Dangerous territory

This morning I found a great post, one that exposes how missions can easily be idolised as the best form of service that a "good" Christian can do. The old putting the missionary on a pedestal trick! (Same thing happens for people in full-time ministry in their home country, I think.)

Please, please don't put me on a pedestal and don't let me
become arrogant or judgemental either. I'm an ordinary
person, just with a slightly "on the edge of ordinary" journey.

If you've read my blog for a while you'll know that one of the primary purposes I write as I do is to debunk that myth. We are ordinary people, just happens that the streets we're living and serving on looks a bit different to the street that Christians in Australia (or wherever you are) live and serve on (this analogy comes from Jonathon Trotter's blog post that I've linked to above).

Here's a taste of his post:

But aren’t missionaries the crème of the crop? Um, yeah, no. Turns out, we’re just people. We may travel more than most, and maybe we speak more languages than some, but the idea that missionaries are somehow “set apart” is dangerous. I’d like to begin a discussion about this. Care to join?

The article is really worth a read. Worth considering your own attitude, whether you are a missionary or full-time worker, or not.

Could it be pride?
Pride is an evil attitude that can creep into our thoughts as missionaries and we need to guard against it. It's easy to be the special person who stands up in churches and tells amazing stories, but never lets people see the ordinary moments. 

I read an interview in a respected missions newsletter the other day where an Indian couple in a school ministry in India reported that "We really don't have any challenges. . . We have few problems." I question that. I wonder if they just didn't feel they could talk about it, because we all have problems. I simply can't imagine that a ministry with 18 teachers and 300 children has no problems. It could have been a cross-cultural issue, but it could also have been the desire to only tell about the good. Most missionaries struggle with this temptation as they write prayer letters and when they speak. 

It can be too attractive to be the person that people say to (or think about), "I admire you so much, I could never do what you do." Hear too much of that and you are in trouble.

I'm very grateful to be in a Bible study here in Australia where (I hope) I'm considered just another Christian. Admittedly I'm not hiding the problems we've had with adjusting back to Australia.

Admiration gone wrong
Admiration is a sneaky attitude that ones who don't get to go on an aeroplane can harbour and can result in individuals and churches holding up missions and missionaries on a pedestal. I wonder if this is one reason that people go on so many short-term mission trips. Because subconsciously they want admiration? No one will ever say this, of course, but it makes me wonder. I wonder if it holds some people back from saying yes to the call of long-term missions too, because they don't think they can measure up.

Lots of wondering. Anyone want to add their thoughts?

It's what Jesus wants that matters

Here's a rare guest appearance by my husband. He wrote something I thought worth passing on to you on his Facebook page today, in response to this post on John Piper's blog (by Jon Bloom).

I love this paragraph by Jon: 

David working with some students.

If we choose the Pearl [ed: that is Jesus], we hear in Judas’s objection the world’s appraisal of us. They watch as we pour our valuable time, intellects, money, youth, financial futures, and vocations out on Jesus’s feet. They watch them puddle in the bowls of churches, mission fields, orphanages, and homes where children are raised and careers are lost. And what they see is foolish waste. Expect their rebuke, not their respect.

Unfortunately we hear this not just from non-Christians, but Christians within the missionary community in Japan. Not rebukes, but softer than that: "it's such a pity". They wonder why we're wasting our time and apparently our ministry by going on home assignment.

This is what David wrote this morning:

Facing a year of telling people about mission. Is what I do with my time worth it?Facing a year of putting down my current role for another one. Is it the best thing to do?"All for Jesus, I surrender" are the words I keep remembering. My year in Australia is what Jesus wants, I am convinced. So it will be worth it and and it is the best thing to do, because it is what he thinks that matters.

Stuck in the muck

This morning we trudged through mushy snow to get to church. We all had snow boots/gum boots on so getting wet feet shouldn't have been a problem. 

Part of our walk home next to a local river. It is gorgeous
out today. Warm enough at 8 degrees. And the snow
is melting at quite a rate. Some places on the way home we
waded through melted snow up to ankle deep.

Except, have you ever seen children and snow? They rarely just walk past it (unless they're bored of it because they live in it for months, like we did when we live in the north of Japan). They touch it, scrunch it, pick it up, kick it, poke it, throw it, rumble in it. So, our boys inevitably got wet socks going to church. 

Therefore I shouldn't have been surprised when I glanced over at my middle son towards the end of the service and found him with his sock off. He had it up to his mouth and was blowing in it!

It reminded me of something I wrote on Christmas Day:

    I wonder how much culture shock Jesus suffered. After all he came from a perfect existence to a very smelly, dirty, painful one. But he did enter as a baby. It's not something really dwelt on in the Bible.
   I wonder, partly because last night I struggled to rise above the smelly and yucky of my world to engage in the Christmas Eve Candle service. I was wearing a mask in deference to our host culture, keeping my messy cold to myself and seated in a pew between two of our boys.
    I tried to savour the singing, though I didn't have enough breath to sing myself, and the Bible readings using my English translation.
    The mask was distracting, when I was having trouble breathing anyway, the mask made it worse by making the air warm... But worst of all was sneezing into it. Imagining having all those yuckies all over my face and breathing through it all was almost enough to make me want to throw up.
    Then there was a distinct sound from my left and the remaining ability I had to smell told me the boy had let one loose. Thankfully Japanese are stoic and there was no tittering, but I can only imagine what they thought, especially after this had happened two or three more times through the service.
    As I said, it was hard to concentrate on the blessed and holy! I'm just thankful that I'm saved by grace and not by the ability to concentrate perfectly.

Yep, church with kids is not something serene, it is not an activity done with a single mind and purified of all that is yucky. 

Yet, I love these boys. They keep me grounded. Just when I might be beginning to think I've made myself holy or becoming close to being acceptable to God, they remind me that my feet are firmly planted in all that isn't pure and light. In fact I'm downright plastered in the muck. No matter how hard I try, there's no way I can become acceptable to God. I'm too messy and live in a world just as bad. 

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (NIVUK)

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness. Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become. (The Message)

But isn't the following something to look forward to: (The Message again.)

Revelation 21:21 The main street of the City was pure gold, translucent as glass. But there was no sign of a Temple, for the Lord God—the Sovereign-Strong—and the Lamb are the Temple. The City doesn’t need sun or moon for light. God’s Glory is its light, the Lamb its lamp! The nations will walk in its light and earth’s kings bring in their splendor. Its gates will never be shut by day, and there won’t be any night. They’ll bring the glory and honor of the nations into the City. Nothing dirty or defiled will get into the City, and no one who defiles or deceives. Only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will get in. 

Belonging

One of the thing I love about having my boys* involved in sports at school is that they are belong to a team. Belonging is something that is very important to most people. While growing up it's something kids long for. So to be a part of a team as middle and high schooler is a big thing. 

Belonging: CAJ's cross country team.

It is one great thing about cross-country and wrestling at CAJ is that the middle and high schoolers all train together. It is a very inclusive atmosphere and they make friends across grade levels there.

I've loved having my son involved in wrestling. From early on the high schoolers looked after him and included him as one of the guys. To see a high schooler come over and talk to my awkward 12/13 year old was sweet to behold. 

I can see it extending a little to his younger brothers too. As we've supported the team as a family, the younger boys become part of the package. Last week we stuck around at the school gym after the dual while the team put the mats away in the smaller, training gym (via a crane: the smaller gym is on the second floor adjacent to the main gym). Our younger two helped roll the mats and the team gave them a ride on the mats across to the crane. The grins on their faces were priceless!

Students involved in sports (or other "teams" like the cast for a musical) gain so much and a lot of it has to do with belonging to a group. They connect in ways that you don't get with just being in classes with others. This is especially great for boys. Doing things together seems to be the way the male sex relates better, more so for boys who haven't yet developed much in the way of social skills. Sitting around having conversation just isn't their thing. My son has many more relationships that he otherwise would have, just because he's participated in extra curricular sport.

The search for belonging is a common one, not just for kids and teenagers, for adults too. We're always subconsciously searching for other people who agree with us, who have similar thinking about things to whom we can "belong".

It comes to mind at this time of year, a time of year when people generally gather together with others that they "belong to". Family groups, friends etc. It is equally a time when people feel lonely, sometimes because they don't have anyone they "belong" with or because those you might assume they "belong" with have rejected them. Others have had significant people in their lives taken from them by death and so there is loneliness. Others can't physically be present with those they "belong to" like us. Often those of us in these situations make up by spending time with friends.

I was reminded of this theme of the search for belonging by a sermon I heard this morning. One of the points the preacher made was that if we have accepted Christ as our saviour, we belong to His group. All who have done the same are His family and ours too. Like a child that has been adopted. They once didn't belong, but now they do. 

That's the reason for Christmas. Jesus came to earth so that he could make a way for us to belong to God's family. It makes a lot of sense, given the deep longing for belonging that almost every human being seems to have from birth. It's what we were created for: to belong. And it is the ultimate in belonging, we will never not belong, it is forever.

* Yes, I'm speaking about the future, right now only one is involved in extra curricular sports because the school only does this from middle school and onwards.

"What is your mission?"

This blog post, "What is your Mission?" is written by the daughter of a very good friend of mine. She is a young woman I would love to know better, not yet 20, but with such great insight.

She's beating the same drum that I beat here on my blog: that everyone has their own special gift, special place that God has given them. Do that, and don't put people like missionaries on pedestals and by doing that, put yourself down.

I heard a sermon this week that spoke to a similar issue from a different angle. If we accept God's grace we receive all we need to be acceptable to God. We cannot make ourselves any more acceptable. So if you're thinking that a pastor or a missionary or an evangelist or Mother Teresa is a better Christian than you, you're thinking wrongly.

The reason we do whatever "good" we do is because we love the One who freely gave us his grace.

Sons of Korah fans

My boys have become firm fans of an Australian band—Sons of Korah. I must say I'm a bit mystified as to why, but I'm not unhappy.

This is what the band writes about themselves on their website:

Sons of Korah is an Australian based band devoted to giving a fresh voice to the biblical psalms. The Psalms have been the primary source for the worship traditions of both Judaism and Christianity going right back to ancient times. With their unique acoustic, multi-ethnic sound Sons of Korah have given this biblical songbook a dynamic and emotive new musical expression.

They do have a unique sound and it obviously resonates with my boys. We had two albums that have been played repeatedly for months now, so over the weekend I bought another, "Rain" and that is also now being played repeatedly. I love Psalms, they are such great material, so raw and honest and full of emotion, so it is no hardship to listen to these again and again.

Here's my favourite Psalm (139), which appears on "Rain".

We have two ancient iPods and an old CD player, so both boy-bedrooms have access to all the music that we own as a family. It's been great, actually, to see them move on from "children-specific" music to musicians like Michael Card, Jars of Clay etc. They're not taking on classical music so much, but that's okay.

Here's a video of a live performance of Sons of Korah (Ps 117), some impressive guitar playing here:

Interesting Japan-related media

Interesting Japan-related "media" I've seen or read recently:

1. This is the testimony of a Japanese career woman who came to the Lord, primarily out of
her dissatisfaction with her lifestyle.

2. An article about a film made by and about people who have one Japanese parent and the other parent a different nationality. The film director, Megumi Nishikura, said, "People treat me like a foreigner, Japanese people look at me and say, 'You don't look like a Megumi.'"

Such experiences inspired the half-Japanese, half-American documentary maker to join forces with Laura Perez Takagi, a half-Japanese, half-Spanish documentary maker to create “Hafu,”touted as the first feature-length film about persons of mixed-Japanese descent.

3. A joint testimony of a Japanese couple who divorced, yet both came to the Lord and got back together again, more than a decade later.

4. An inflatable concert venue. An innovative response to a lack of live music venues in Japan's disaster zone.

5. This video is about giving ex-prisoners a fresh start in employment:

Christian Clichés that Grate

I have a problem with clichés Christian phrases like

When Christians pray, we tend to throw cliches around.
Disclaimer: this is just a photo of people praying, I'm not
pointing my finger at anyone of them.

1. "God showed up"
2. "God is good."
3. And when praying, "God, be with that person..."

They roll off people's tongues easily, but they aren't really theologically correct. Now you don't often get me talking theology, but really these make me cringe.

1. God's omnipresent: He's always there. This is an oxymoron.
2. God is always good, even when bad things happen. I don't think it is right to say, "God is good," when something good happens. Maybe "God's blessed me." or "God's given me something really good today." would be more appropriate.
3. Again God is never absent, He can't "be with someone" more than He already is. Perhaps we mean, "Help them to feel your presence." or "Strengthen them, give them your power/wisdom."?

Do you have Christian phrases which get on your nerves?

I talked to someone on Sunday who has problems with a church worship leader saying, "Today's going to be awesome." I mean, what if you're having a rotten day? What then?

What clichéd Christian phrase annoys you?