Faithful fruitfulness despite brokenness
Discovering God is at work, even when it doesn’t look like it
God’s ministry
Woken by the phone ringing, I found myself lying on the floor of my apartment in Asahikawa, having collapsed in exhaustion. A fellow missionary was phoning to ask how my first evangelistic event after leaving language school had gone. “No one came!” I replied.
The following year (1982), I was shocked when the World Literature Crusade1 Every Home Campaign tract and church flyer I politely handed to a lady working in her garden were tossed onto the burning leaves. Her pointed action of turning her back to me pierced my soul. Yes, ministry in Japan was hard, but wasn’t this deliberate rebuke too much?
Before I finished my first four-year term, I realized I had no one to evaluate my performance. I longed for someone to come alongside me, even if only to tell me how much I had failed in ministry. However, in the farewell service before I left for home assignment, three people responded to the salvation appeal by the visiting speaker!
I was beginning to learn that ministry in Japan is God’s ministry, not mine, and that faithfulness can lead to fruitfulness.
A long obedience in the same direction
In my third term in Hakodate, Peter Holgate, the OMF national director of South Africa, gave me A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society by Eugene H. Peterson.2 Using Psalms 120–134 (the Songs of Ascents), Eugene Peterson stresses the importance of growing in faithfulness to God while moving forward one step at a time.
Over many years, I have continued to learn that I am first called to live in communion with Jesus, being led by his Spirit. As I learn to walk faithfully in his present Kingdom, I realise my self-worth is not in my work but in Jesus’s unconditional acceptance of me. This is when ministry deepens and where fruitfulness is manifested in unexpected ways.
Paul and Susan Kummer write,
Joy in the Spirit flows from confidence in God; it comes from a life of rest. Therefore, you can stop striving to prove yourself to Him or others. Cease comparing yourself to others, reject thoughts that time is running out, or that somehow you are missing God. These thoughts bring stress and fearfulness! This is no way to live. Yes, souls need to be saved. Yes, your teaching has and will change lives . . . These are important, but God’s not worried, nor does He take a break. He is always working.3
Be ready for the unexpected
Fast forward to December 2018. I had already been ministering in Hokkaido for 40 years and was comfortably busy preaching monthly in two pastor-less churches, officiating at weddings, and serving on various boards of Christian groups. I was content.
I returned from mobilisation in South Africa and went with my wife, Karen, to see the COEN ministry on 10 December. Café COEN, COEN English, and the COEN Bible Community were started over 16 years ago by Evangelical Free missionaries Mark and Athlee Bowman. They desired to have a place where life-changing connections could take place. The Bowmans were working towards retirement and were looking for a person to take over from them. The customers had been told that the café and English programme would finish at the end of March 2019.
“This is a great ministry. If only I were fifteen years younger!” I said on leaving the café. That night, my wife and I could not sleep well and, independently of each other, knew that God was leading us to this ministry. A week later, we said we would take over.
Karen became the café manager, and lead team member Hiromi Takahashi became the head of the English programme.
We did not know what we were getting into! The first year included many 15-hour days as we tried to learn the Japanese tax system, taught 11 hours of English a week, and cooked for and ran the café. How could we be salt and light to our customers when exhausted? Where would we find money to fund the monthly deficits? Then we entered the COVID-19 years!
But even when we felt barren and tired, God continued to minister in and through us and provide all we needed. We learned to trust Jesus more deeply, daily asking him what to do. God revealed his love to those who entered the café’s door by the way we showed up and by being ourselves. Our customers and English students said they felt at home in the café, interacting well with each other regardless of social status or age differences. God provided many helpful short-term workers from all over the world, along with amazing gifts that enabled us to continue to pay a quarter of a million yen in monthly rent plus all the other costs.
A new way of evaluation
Shortly after we took over, we drafted a lead team document capturing what we saw as essential in our ministry. Our “why” for Café COEN was this: “COEN exists to manifest God’s love in a community, fostering an atmosphere that invites us to love God and people through life-changing connections in Hokkaido. Jesus Christ is central to COEN and the ministry at COEN. When we look at Jesus, we see God (Col. 1:15–17, 2:9; John 1:18, 14:9; Heb. 1:3). We seek to be Jesus to our congregation/ customers. . . . Our evangelism is non-threatening. This means we do not want to push our beliefs on those in the community. Instead, we initiate showing and wait for them to share. . . . We do not force conversation, ‘redirect’ conversation to faith issues, or forcefully debate Christian apologetics without being asked to do so.”
How can we evaluate how well we are achieving this? Many supporters want to know how many people have come to faith in Jesus Christ. However, I saw that my role is more like asking how much has my ministry moved this person towards Jesus? How much have I helped that person grow in faith? (See the illustration to the right.)
- We have seen a gruff retired professor change over the years to enjoy the café a few times a week and, in his own way, care for those also seated at the big table. Has he moved from -4 to +1? (We are waiting for him to confess his faith.)
- We have seen a Christian seemingly fall away from fellowship but be renewed in a vibrant and growing faith, introducing her daughter and son to us. Maybe she was moved by the Holy Spirit from +1 to +6?
- We have seen a person on the autistic spectrum timidly enter the café, gain confidence, and come in almost every day. From -9 to -6?
God works despite setbacks and tragedy
We have experienced many setbacks. Some volunteers had to return to their home countries during their ministry because of medical needs. One person in whom we invested a lot of time and energy ended up totally rejecting us. The biggest shock was when we heard that our coworker, Hiromi Takahashi, had died on 18 June, 2023, in a head-on collision between a bus and a truck in Yakumo.4 Hiromi was the kingpin in the English program, the café, and the Bible Community.
Yet God was at work—in the newspaper and TV interviews; through the outpouring of grief by our customers as we ministered together, consoling each other; and through the amazing NHK clip on the Hokkaido evening news after her memorial service.5
What’s next?
Karen and I have always said that because God pushed us into this COEN ministry, we should not quit because things are tough. Jesus would need to lead us out clearly. This happened in October 2023, four months after Hiromi’s “graduation.” Despite our customers’ disappointment, the café closed on 2 December.
What will happen next? As Scott Erickson depicts in his illustration, there is always resurrection after death; new life springs from the coffin.6
We continue to keep in contact with our café regulars online, meeting in smaller groups over meals. We thought we would need to spend a tonne of money to restore the rented space to its original condition before returning it to the landlord. However, a long-time COEN-connected family will take over the café as a children’s café and activity centre called Open Sesame starting April 2024. This means that the COEN Bible Community (church) can continue to rent a room on Sundays, remaining in the same place!
These past five years have been the hardest of my 45 years in Japan, but they have also been the best! I think that I have been able to interact with people at a deeper, more personal level than any church plant with which I have been involved. I look forward to the future, taking one step at a time.
1. World Literature Crusade was renamed Every Home for Christ in 1987.
2. The current version: Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society (Westmount, IL: IVP Signature Collection, 2019).
3. Paul and Susan Kummer, Equipping the Saints: Raising Up Everyday Revivalists Who Sustain the Move of God (Shippensburg: Destiny Image, 2022), 122–123.
4. “Did the truck stray out of the lane? Collision with a bus, 5 people died in Yakumo-cho, Hokkaido” トラックが車線をはみ出したか バスと衝突、5人死亡 北海道八雲町, Asahi Shimbun (Japanese website), https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASR6L4VL1R6LIIPE007.html (June 19, 2023).
5. I have saved an English translation of the NHK video transcript and corresponding article about Hiromi’s memorial service in my personal Dropbox files: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/diq1ujk071qfyfx9h5oym/2023-07-18-NHK-News.pdf (accessed January 12, 2024).
6. Scott Erickson on Instagram. Scott gave permission for this illustration’s use in this article.