prenatal church planting
“When will you start your new church?” people ask us frequently. When we give our standard answer, “we already started in the fall of last year”, often the next question is: “Oh, so how many people attend your worship service?” “Uhhmm, we do not yet hold regular worship services…” By now we have gotten used to the confused expression that usually appears.
Traditionally Japanese church plants start before anything else with worship services. There is something sacred to even just the church planter and his family gathering faithfully for worship every Sunday, a pastor’s wife explained to me recently. Painstakingly they gather more worshippers until like the average church it is mature with about 30 members. Because of this tradition Japanese Christians have a strong sense that a church is not a church without a Sunday worship service. And I agree, that the gathering on Sunday is the central gathering of communcal worship. But is not necessarily the starting point. Especially not in a context where people consider the church ‘finished’ when it has worship services, levaing little momentum for an evangelistic spirit in every aspect of teh church planting ministry.
Last July, when the Dutch short term mission team joined us for two weeks, we had our first so-called tryout worship service. It was a memorable moment, the first worship service of GraceCityChurchTokyo. It made us long to gather for worship every week – and we will gather for more tryout worship services this fall. But it also made us better realize – which is the reason we hold them – what we need to do before launching public worship services that will have Christians and non-Christians experience the transformign power of the Gospel. To start with we will need to find our own worship style. A taste of music that connects with the central Tokyo young professional. And we need a worship team that can develop that style to make it effective in communicating both the need for the Gospel and the Gospel itself. We look forward to Roger and Abi Lowther joining our church planting team this fall to help us develop this crucial ministry (your prayers for sufficient support is appreciated). They have a heart for using arts in mission. And so does Grace Tokyo. In a recent interview, Rev. Makoto Fukuda explained: ”I think the arts are very important to do ministries in our church because the arts have a role of showing profoundly the beauty/truth of God, love/grace of Christ, and recreation by Gospel.”
October will be art month in our church plant to underscore the importance we place on reaching the art community with the Gospel and collaborate on making Tokyo an even greater city for God. Artist provide us with a unique window on how the Kingdom of God can break through in our city. As part of this special month dedicated to developing our faith&arts ministry as part of our church planting vision, we are planning an art forum. Several artsist will give short presentation on the interaction between art, the city and the (city) church. Also they will give recommendations for our ministry. Contributions are planned by artsist Makoto Fujimura, renowned for his combination of abstract expressionism with the traditional Japanese art of Nihonga. Fujimura started the International Arts Movement (IAM) and was a member of the influential National Council of the Arts from. And we are also in talks with scenario writer Yu Shibuya, who wrote Jitensha (Bycicle), the short movie that has just been accepted into the 66th Venice Film Festival in the Corto Cortissimo International Short Competition.
By the way, there is so much more happening these next few months, such as dicipleship/leadership training. We will start another CROSSROAD seeker Bible study series, and a follow-up on the previous one. We will have a stress management seminar as the start of our counseling ministry, and of course several events surrounding Christmas. It is our prayer that by that time we will have sufficient momentum in gathering a new community of believers and seekers that we can formally launch the church - and start public worship service in the new year. We hope to give birth to a new church.
Therefore, we can explain this in-between phase best as prenatal church planting. The church has been conceived but not yet born. I am sorry for this analogy, but it is so natural for us to think in these images being confronted with a belly growing bigger and bigger. The twins seem to be doing well. They are lively and we all enjoy the prospect of these two little beings being added to our family. But for now it is best for us to take great care so they can continue to develop before they enter this world. Likewise we will put every effort (as far as the twins allow us in the next few months) to take great ‘prenatal’ care of what God has entrusted us in GraceCityChurchTokyo.
