Connecting with Japanese men

In her epic poem Aorora Leigh, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.¹

Could it be that every Japanese man is “afire with God”, but we (and they) don’t realise this? Could it be that Japanese men are closer to turning to Jesus, the Light of the world, than we could ever imagine or believe? Maybe God’s work in Japan is so slow that we don’t perceive it.

Many years ago, I think I created distance between the Japanese and myself by only seeing Japanese as people who needed to be saved, as people who had no value outside of believing in Christ. How wrong I was! As Kōsuke Koyama writes, “Human value is illuminated by God-value.”² God created man in his image (Gen. 2), thus giving us all immense value. In his speech to the men of Athens, Paul says, “He is the God who made the world and everything in it . . . He himself gives life and breath to everything . . . His purpose was that the nations should seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:24, 25, 27–28 NLT).

Japanese are sensitive to the people around them. Japanese men know when we accept them as they are, as people of value who are loved and appreciated. Building genuine friendships with men creates bridges of trust that allow us to be open and honest about the reality of our relationship with Jesus.

God at work through me in Japan

Here are some instances of ways that I have interacted with Japanese men:

Onsens (hot springs)

Onsens are a great way to connect with men. The social pecking order pretty much ceases to exist when we are up to our necks in relaxing hot water.

One of my favourite places is Futamata Radium Onsen in Hokkaido. Once, I was in the outdoor bath with five other men. I felt constrained to say nothing for the first 45 minutes and simply listened to the men discussing the meaning of life and what might happen after they died. There was some disagreement. Then, one of the men turned to me and asked, “What do you think happens after we die?” I was able to talk naturally about Jesus and his kingdom moving into completion in the new heaven and earth!

One tip: go into the cold water bath often. Alternating cold water and onsen water will prevent overheating and headaches, allowing you to stay talking for a longer time, and it is helpful for your immune system.

Sports and games

Sports club memberships enabled me to meet the same men repeatedly, calling each other by first names. Working out and sweating together creates a kind of bond!

In two different church plants I worked in, I asked not-yet-believing husbands whose wives were Christians to teach me how to play go and shogi. The act of submission, wanting to learn, lends itself to creating an atmosphere of openness (but don’t blow it, as I did once, by learning too quickly!).

Running in Japan is different from South Africa. In my home country, there is a camaraderie among all runners. Most Japanese who participate in races are too focused on their personal best time to talk. In my case, I was always slow and thus able to enjoy talking with the stragglers and slightly injured men.

Park golf, a form of golf very popular in northern Japan, is another way to interact with men naturally, especially when one goes to the same course several times. My third son received his first park golf club from a kind man. Another time, while waiting for the next tee to open, I got into a conversation with a man who quietly told me he was a Christian but had stopped going to his church. We enjoyed good fellowship and discussed his possible return to church.

Volunteer activities

I volunteered for the FIFA World Cup in 2002 and was the official translator for the Senegal team at the World Basketball Championship held in Sapporo in 2006. Training together and then serving together as volunteers in the actual events seemed to remove the distinction between foreigner and Japanese. Good times—good relationships formed.

Before becoming busy with my current ministry (Café COEN) and before COVID-19, my wife, Karen, and I volunteered one day a month to interact with older adults at their local adult daycare centre. One third were men with sharp minds. We learnt a lot and were surprised at the warmth and acceptance of the group. At first, they did not want us to talk about Jesus, but then they realised that Jesus was an integral part of who we were.

English classes

Teaching English is common among foreign workers. Keep on! One group of middle school English teachers I taught in Hakodate 35 years ago asked me to read the Bible with them and discuss it. We went through most of Genesis and Romans. One man (now retired) still keeps in contact with me. I got to spend some time with him in Hakodate on a prayer trip two years ago. Once, this man seemed so close to believing in the Creator God; now, he says he is content with traditional Buddhism. I keep on praying for him.

Officiating at weddings

Weddings create so many connections, so many opportunities to encourage men (the groom, the bride’s father, some of the congregation). Through New Year cards and Christmas presents, I am still in contact with about 1,000 couples whose weddings I have officiated. During pre-marital counselling, many couples, including the guys, open up and speak from their hearts.

I continue to meet some of these people at the city office and hospitals, even having people come up to me in the street and ask, “Do you remember you married us in . . . ?”

Café COEN and COEN English

All my experience in Japan was God preparing me for my current ministry running COEN. We can connect with our regulars at a deep level, seeing them all as part of our “congregation” and entering into their joys and sorrows over coffee and cake. Although only one quarter of our regulars are men, they integrate well into the bigger group. One gruff retired professor is changing and comes to the café at least twice a week to read the Bible. We strive to be Jesus to each person, treating each person with value and dignity. Jesus gives us unique opportunities to talk about God’s love.

My Monday evening elementary teachers’ English conversation class (two men and a woman) is extraordinary. I am amazed at the compassion and care these teachers show for their students and each other. We are honest with each other. Almost every class sees one of us being encouraged and affirmed by the others. And these are not yet Jesus followers!

Conclusion

To reveal God’s love to Japanese men, we need to become as human as Jesus to value men who are not yet in the Kingdom. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

Ecce homo—behold God become human, the unfathomable mystery of the love of God for the world. God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love . . .

Only because God became human is it possible to know and not despise real human beings. Real human beings may live before God, and we may let these real people live beside us and before God without either despising or idolising them. This is not because of the real human being’s inherent value, but because God has loved and taken on the real human being. The reason for God’s love for human beings does not reside in them, but only in God. Our living as real human beings, and loving the real people next to us is, again, grounded only in God’s becoming human, in the unfathomable love of God for us human beings.³

May we be those who see what God is doing among men in Japan and, as Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes in her poem, “take off our shoes” to worship in anticipated amazement!

1. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Aurora Leigh,” Book 7 (1856), text published at A Celebration of Women Writers, http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barrett/aurora/aurora.html#7 (accessed Aug. 2, 2021).
2. Kosuke Koyama, 50 Meditations, (New York: Orbis Books, 1979), 62.
3. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), 31, 34.