Grandpa and Grandma Soccer

The way we carry out gospel ministry—God’s ministry—to children, teens, and adults is of vital importance. Unfortunately, the “how” of ministry is often colored by our ethnic, theological, and home church cultures. For example, my American and church cultures often suggest that ministry done from a position of power, whether it be economic, technological, lingual, or educational, is best. However, over the last 30 years of ministry in Japan, God has graciously taught us that a ministry position of weakness is better.

Soccer in the park

If we were seeking to do ministry with kids and teens by attracting and wowing people, Donna and I would fail miserably. Let’s face it, being 61 and 60 respectively, we have nothing of ourselves that impresses the youth of today. In fact, we have every excuse not to play soccer with kids in the park: “We’re too old,” “Japanese grandparents don’t do this,” “we might get hurt,” “we can’t understand them,” “they will laugh at us,” and more. These excuses have some validity, as we have experienced them in various ways. And yet these weaknesses have become the very vehicle for God to get great glory.

A few years ago when God said, “Hey, Chris and Donna, why not play soccer in the park near the church and get your exercise with kids?” we began to lug our portable goals, cones, and balls to the park weekly. We almost always start with a story from the tract called The Happy Letter¹ and explain topics such as God, Jesus, creation, sin and forgiveness, and purpose for life. Sometimes we even sing and pray, and often we invite them to church. Next comes the fun as boys and girls, beginners and more experienced kids, join the ranks of those who want to play with these two old foreigners! We are blessed and bemused at how something so simple can bring such joy and meet so many needs, even beyond the spiritual ones. Kids long for acceptance, love, and simply time to be noticed. We are also humbled to be noticed, as even on non-soccer days, kids seeing us walking in the park will run to us with greetings, smiles, and affirmation of attendance at the next soccer day.

With little spiritual fruit that can be seen, some may wonder why soccer, or why kids? In our later years, God is enabling us to take a long view of ministry (see 2 Peter 3:9). While we cannot always see spiritual outcomes, we are always encouraged to continue when kids greet us at the park with words like “Soccer Jiji, (Grandpa), we are here early today for the Happy Letter!” Or “Miss Donna, I read the whole Happy Letter, and today I brought friends to hear it too.”

In our minds, we enter ministry with vulnerable weakness because the park is their turf. We are using a vehicle for ministry that they like and that they can relate to. When I teach English, I am operating more in my comfort zone and from a position of power, as I am good and able in English. In soccer, not so. These bodies can only do so much. With kids and teens, not so. Our ears can only hear so much, and our minds can only understand so much. Oh, to be able to understand everything that is going on around us is often our heart’s cry, but God still says, “Go be with kids at the park . . . and stop whining.”

An old friend returns

At this year’s Valentine’s Day church outreach, many attended, but one person was exceptionally exciting for us. Yuri, now a third-year junior high school student, showed up and asked, “Do you remember me? In fifth grade, I used to play soccer with you at the park.” Here five years later, Yuri shows up at our evangelistic event after being invited and brought by a new attendee at our church. This attendee was a childhood friend and schoolmate of Yuri’s mother, and they had not seen each other for 30 years! God’s ways are beyond our ways and marvelous!

Being at the park and playing soccer with kids has yielded numerous contacts and given us ministry opportunities beyond the park. At the above-mentioned Valentine’s Day event, special music was provided by a young man in his mid-thirties who teaches kids’ soccer at the park from time to time. After the event, he asked us to officiate at his wedding in the fall and invited us to speak about God even though he himself is not a Christian yet.

Vulnerable weakness

The difference between operating with power (think human accomplishments) or vulnerable weakness (think reliance on God) in ministry can be seen in the two letters Paul penned to the believers in Corinth. Here the cross is used as a foil to the two competing ministry power methodologies that were in vogue at the time. Greeks valued wisdom expressed through oratory skill. Paul proposed the foolishness of God in the message of the cross. Jews demanded a sign. They wanted a ministry validated with power. Paul countered with a crucified Messiah, a stumbling block to the Jews (1 Cor. 1:18–25). To us, teaching English seems to be ministry done with power, as it puts the one who must learn it at a disadvantage. Jesus did not say that Japanese must learn English to come to him. In our case, we like sports but are not professional in any sense of the word, nor do we expect the kids and teens to be great. We come alongside them and offer them time, attention, and love in a land where not much of that seems to be happening.

In the beginning of this article, I suggested that how we do ministry is of vital importance. Adopting the practice of vulnerable weakness (in our case, the ability to be laughed at by kids and not understanding their words or feelings) is a God-approved and validated way to carry out his ministry and mission. In other words, fear concerning our inabilities, age, or lack of resources should not stop us from trying something in ministry. The more we lack, the more God infuses that opportunity with his power so that he gets the glory. God’s Word gives us a credible basis for which to enter any ministry boldly despite our many inadequacies and weaknesses. This basis is to adopt, in thought and practice, a ministry that is at home in God-dependent vulnerable weakness: “We can do ministry and mission through small, insignificant ways, in failure, in suffering, in obscurity, focusing on God’s relationship building matrix towards people.”²

In recent years, I volunteered for the reading program at a local elementary school and got to read stories of my choice to various grades. I used the Children’s Bible and told them that these were true stories and not made-up ones. As at the park, children were receptive, listened well, and even had questions. I attribute this to God keeping his word to us that he will bring the increase though we may not see it at present. Ministry from positions of power ask questions like who’s the famous speaker, how many attended, how big was the event, and so on. If asked how we validate spending time at the park playing with kids, my answer is that we don’t have to validate it. It is God, not statistics, who validates ministry methodology. He works over the long term. This long-term orientation to ministry and hope may seem weak to those who support us or to those we are accountable to, but D. A. Carson reminds us, “We must return again and again to the cross of Jesus Christ [weakness to Jews and foolishness to Greeks] if we are to take the measure of our Christian living, our Christian service, our Christian ministry.”³

Soccer with kids and teens in the park is ministry done in vulnerable weakness. It is a weakness of venturing out of our comfort zone and away from human abilities. It is a weakness born of relinquishment of fame, name, and accomplishments while trusting in God to keep our bodies moving and rust from setting in. God validates this just as he validated what happened on the cross. God uses human weakness to do his ministry so that he gets much glory.

1. Yada Kanta 矢田貫太 「ハッピーレター」[The Happy Letter], 3rd ed. (Japan: Glory Books, 2012).
2. Christopher Sadowitz and Jim Harries, eds., Paul Planted, Apollos Watered, but God: Vulnerable Weakness in Ministry and Mission (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2023), 40.
3. D. A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004), 13.