Growing through my ministry journey

On May 21, 1993, my wife, Susan, and I landed at Narita Airport with our two very young sons. We were in our late twenties. I was confident that we would be great missionaries in Japan. However, my mindset is now significantly different than it was thirty years ago. With each shift in mindset, I have searched for different ministries to match. Each ministry experience then led to new thinking. Looking back, I don’t think I was ever wrong; I was just incomplete and growing. During our first term, I could not have done what we do now. Nor could I return to what I was doing during our first term, but I needed that experience to grow.

Idealistic beginnings

Before we arrived in Japan, I had spent over three years working with a youth ministry in New Jersey to prepare for work in Japan. We spent several years raising financial support. I had a Bible degree and a minor in writing. All I had to do was learn Japanese and adapt to the customs of Japan. I would then be able to write curriculum, teach the Bible, lead students to Christ, and enjoy great success as a missionary. This idealism lasted less than a year. My wife and I struggled to take care of the daily needs of our family, study the language, connect with Japanese, and thrive. Isolation (even with other missionaries nearby), homesickness, struggles in our marriage, and miscommunication in Japanese were just some of the realities we faced.

After two years of language school, we moved to Yokohama to begin ministry with high school students. I quickly realized I would never become Japanese. My English writing abilities were not useful in the Japanese ministry we were part of. There were plenty of good writers among the Japanese staff. I wasn’t even sure we were needed at all. After our first four-year term ended, I wondered if we would be able to return. I felt useless in Kanto with so many others far better equipped to do the work.

Parachurch is the only way

During our home service, I communicated with my coworkers about moving out of Kanto. They had plenty of workers, so perhaps I could work with high school students somewhere else. I proposed Kochi, where I had first come to Japan as an exchange student. The mission counter-proposed Kansai as they were working on reopening a ministry in that area but had no missionaries and just two part-time Japanese workers. We moved to Nara for our second and third terms.

How exciting it was to watch the ministry grow! In eight years, we expanded from two weekly Bible studies for students to eight. My assistance was valuable. We saw students come to faith and Christian kids grow in the Lord. Some even gained courage to be active witnesses for Christ at their schools and in their communities. At the same time, many came from churches with no other young people except their siblings. I visited one church that did have several students, and I sat in on their Sunday school class. They were bored.

I thought, “The church is not reaching the youth (at least not the high school students). This is the way to reach Japan. We cannot rely on the church.” Even though I was active in a church on Sundays, my mindset was one of judgment against the church.

Over time, however, I began to see that my beloved parachurch organization had the same barrier to the gospel that I perceived the churches had. To hear the gospel, unbelievers had to come to a Christian meeting or event. The Christian students were encouraged to bring their unsaved friends to our events. The more experienced I became in the ministry, the more time I spent preparing messages and planning events. At the same time, having been inspired by Jesus and Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1‒10) and the movie Patch Adams, I began to engage with high school students outside of our meetings—at McDonald’s, on trains, in parks, and in stores. They were often happy to have a foreign adult initiate conversation with them. I wanted to do more of this, but my responsibilities kept growing. The lack of time and energy to go out into the community and seek out students to talk with frustrated me. Finally, I made the difficult decision to leave this ministry. I would give the local church a try.

Churches are doing effective outreach

My mission suggested some ministries in the Kanto area. So back we went to the place where I had felt so useless during our first term. But now I would be able to focus on outreach in a church. From the start, I was impressed by the number of unbelievers that came into the church during the week. There was a morning café, gospel choir practice, English Bible study, and a preschool program. All of these weekly or monthly programs attracted unbelievers. They mingled with believers. They saw and heard the gospel. The church also had several weekly prayer meetings at different times—early morning, late morning, afternoon, and evening. The church was praying for each other, and they were praying for the community.

The church had a reputation of compassion in the community. A woman who had lost her baby in the womb came into the church seeking help. Starting with the pastor, several people surrounded this woman with love and assistance. My past judgment of the church was not accurate. This church, and probably many others, were serving the community in various ways, and people were recognizing the church as a safe, enjoyable, and even compassionate place to come. They were seeing Christians as good, loving people.

Having seen all that, I still found one aspect frustrating—the church building-centered ministry. I was expected to be at the church building five days a week even when there was nothing going on. I was discovering on my bicycle commute to the church that I was able to meet lots of people along a riverbank path—people walking their dogs, elderly sitting on benches, and children playing in parks. Again, my time and energy were spent in the confines of the Christian meeting place.

Balance and inspiring others

For personal reasons, we left Japan for a few years. I served as a mobilizer and recruiter for our mission organization in the US. I met many college students interested in ministry in Japan, but they wanted an internship—some sort of short-term experience in ministry to see if God really wanted them in Japan long-term. Our Japan director suggested we start such an internship program when we returned to Japan. After the triple disaster of March 11, 2011, missionaries traveled into the disaster area to help out. We joined three other SEND missionaries in Miyagi when we returned to Japan in 2013. We came alongside a church whose building had been swept away in the tsunami.

From a rented building with a café and an apartment, this church worked with volunteer teams to help victims. By the time we arrived, temporary housing was set up. We served people in the rented space with a café and a children’s program. Later, we added children’s English classes. Additionally, we were getting to know the neighbors around our rented house. At their request, we started an English time for them in our house. With interns now serving with us, we also looked for ways to meet unbelievers at neutral locations—not a church building and not our home. We joined English conversation groups in Sendai. We went on guided tours and got to know the staff of the tourist information desk. We assisted in a sports chanbara (sword fighting with inflated balloon-like swords) outreach at the local school led by a local Japanese believer.

This season of ministry allowed me to use skills I gained from previous term experiences in the parachurch organization, local church, and every day interactions with Japanese people. I set my schedule so I was only at the church building two or three days a week and at our house once or twice a week for set programs. And I went out into the community for daily jogs passing the schools and participating in non-church-related activities. It became natural to do this with interns who were observing and participating in what missionary life might look like.

Currently (and probably in our second to last term as missionaries in Japan), we live in a small city with no church. We are hosting interns while we serve a church in a neighboring town and carry out ministry in the church building, in our home, and in the community. It seems I’ve gone full circle, back to my initial idealism. This time, however, it is not centered on becoming Japanese. Rather, it is about living life not so much as a missionary but as an intentional believer every day. I embrace my own journey. Perhaps there will be yet another chapter as I near retirement (from ministry in Japan), but for now this is where I find myself. I’m glad for the gift of reflection and for the growth and expansion of my thinking as I’ve gone through different stages of joyous ministry. Changes sometimes brought about frustration, but I’ve come to appreciate what each stage has taught me.

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