YEAH!会 youth ministry in Japan

“Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come” (Psa. 71:18 NIV).

Over years of ministry in Japan, I have heard the statistics of suicide, bullying, and depression among youth in this country. So I have prayed for the people who minister to these precious souls, as well as for the junior and senior high students who love Jesus but may be the only Christian in their class or school. Although I have helped at the denominational level in planning and speaking at our youth camps, I was surprised when God opened the door for me to start a youth group at our church.

It was 2020, and we did not know how the world was about to change. Our sister church across town had just called a new pastor who had two daughters. At our church, one student had just started junior high school and another had just started high school. It seemed like a great time to start a small youth group.

I was willing to start the group. However, I had three questions brewing in my mind:

1. How could I relate to young Japanese students?
2. How would they interact with each other?
3. How could we develop a way for the students to invite friends?

My first question was based on the fact that I had just turned 50 years old, and it had been a long time since I was in high school. One morning, I was reading Psalm 71, and verse 18 jumped out at me. I had been finding new gray hairs every day, and my body was feeling all its 50 years. But the psalmist asks God not to forsake him even when he is old and gray. His desire is to declare God’s power and mighty acts to the next generation. I resonated with these words even as I wondered if I could relate to the students.

I prayed fervently and then offered to start a youth group with the four young people. They were thrilled, which amazed me. Their parents were also thrilled that someone wanted to hang out with their children and talk about Jesus.

Jesus reminded me that it does not matter how old I am or if I can speak Japanese perfectly or if it has been decades since I was a teenager. What matters is that I love the students and let his love pour out of me into them.

The second question for me was how the students would relate to each other. There was one high school boy and three girls of various ages. Would they get along? The students from the two churches had not had many opportunities to interact. Would they sit quietly? Would they talk?

We started with a pizza and movie party. We had a great time and made plans to start meeting once a month. It was 2020, and large church gatherings weren’t possible/permitted, and when we were, it was in distanced groups of just a few. Thankfully, we were a small enough group that we could meet, even in our small church, and keep the proper distance.

The first official meeting was a bit quiet, and my wondering started to grow into worry. However, when the snacks came out, everything changed! Food and teenagers are a universal pairing.

As we shared prayer requests at our first meeting, I used shorthand in my notebook, writing the first letters of each one’s first name: Y, E, A, H. I thought, Hey, that would be a fun name for our group. We want to remember that being Jesus followers is not all solemn and quiet but also full of fun. So we named ourselves YEAH!会 (“yeah meeting”). Even though some students have since graduated and new ones have joined us, we still use the name.

Our meetings are full of singing, reading the Bible together, sharing what we are learning, prayer, games, and snack time. In the beginning, we had a student who played guitar, so she would accompany us as we sang. We have also used YouTube videos to lead our singing. The students did not seem to be concerned with the accompaniment method. They just enjoyed singing praises together. I was encouraged by their enthusiasm.

I did not have a curriculum to use and again started to wonder about my relatability. Yet God’s word is living, active, and useful for instruction. We found that reading a Bible passage together, sharing what stood out to us and why, and asking any questions we might have about it gave us more than enough applicable material for learning. Through these times, God reassured me that my presence and vulnerability with the students was enough. He also showed me how open the students could be with each other.

We have found YouTube videos from the BibleProject (聖書プロジェクト) to be interesting and helpful in our studies. The first time we watched one of these videos, the students were enthralled and immediately pulled out their phones to look it up for themselves. Sometimes we take turns reading verses, or sometimes we listen to the passage being read through the Drama Bible app (聴くドラマ聖書). The variation in voices adds to the richness of the passage. This is a free app and, again, the students pull out their phones to look it up. Once more, God reminded me that he is always showing us new ways to find and follow him.

Our denomination has a well-established youth ministry with gatherings four times a year. We meet for two one-day gatherings in autumn and winter. Then we have two camps, a one-night camp during spring holidays and a three-day camp during summer holidays. Because we were not able to gather for camps in person from 2020–2022, YEAH!会 became even more important for our local students. God’s timing was certainly right on time.

Also, because we had established the youth group at our church, the students were more willing to join in the denominational gatherings when they resumed because they would be attending them with each other. We enjoyed meeting at church for online gatherings and also riding together, singing, and playing games when in-person gatherings resumed. Here was God reminding me again of his trustworthiness in helping the students to build relationships with each other.

I love one of the traditions of our denominational youth gatherings. At the end of our time, we go around the room, each student and leader sharing what they learned or what encouraged them from that gathering. When I first joined the committee and heard they were going to do this, I was skeptical. But it pleasantly surprised me to hear the students share their hearts with each other. And when I was the speaker, I was encouraged to hear that they were paying attention! One of my favorite things I heard was from a high school girl attending for the first time. She said, “I learned that I am not the only one!” She had felt so alone as a Christian in her school and neighborhood. Even though these students do not live near each other, these times together encourage them.

I will be returning to the US next year, and at the moment, there is no one to take over the leadership of YEAH!会. As I have been praying about this and about my third question, how students could invite their friends, God showed us another local ministry. A pastor at a church nearby, whom we have known since starting our church, is a local leader for hi-b.a., a high school youth ministry. My former coworker also worked with this ministry.

Just as I was starting to write this article, I attended a hi-b.a. meeting with two of my YEAH!会 students. One is a girl who has been attending off and on throughout her first year of high school. The other is a boy who just finished junior high school and will be starting high school soon. He loved the youth gathering and is excited to go back.

Since it was the last meeting of the school year, one of the third-year students was asked to share his testimony. He talked about how he was invited to the meeting by a friend and met Jesus through this ministry. Then the pastor shared about hi-b.a.’s purpose: to connect students from different schools, encourage them in their faith, and for the students to become evangelists in their own schools. My third question was answered.

It has been a joy for me to be part of YEAH!会 and to witness God’s work in each student, within our church, and inside my own heart.

Photo submitted by author