Organic opportunities in education

The PTA meeting started smoothly, and then—wham!—a hand slapped the conference table to my left. Accusations of disrespect flew across to the administration sitting on my right, countered by accusations of non-communication in language that belittled the work of volunteers. Tempers flared, arms tightened across chests, lips pouted. What was supposed to be a model of cooperation had quickly dissolved into an angry display of mistrust. I began praying, “Jesus, give me discernment and bless me with the words I need.” And, as the PTA president of my child’s high school, I sat there wondering, Jesus, how did I get here?

How did I get there? I felt woefully inadequate, both culturally and linguistically, and was operating way outside my comfort zone. To answer that question, and before telling you how the meeting ended, allow me to share my family’s vision to focus our ministry on the arena of education. For it is in this arena that we seek to proclaim the good news, equip believers, and start new churches.

Living incarnationally in Japan

Ask us why we wake up every morning in Japan, and my wife and I will answer: “We live to incarnate Jesus Christ to our community, so that people may taste and see that the Lord is good, and may hear the Good News of true life found in having a love relationship with Jesus Christ.” Yes, it is a mission statement. No, it is not framed and hung on our wall. It is our faith response to live out John 1:14:

The Word became flesh and blood,
And moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
The one-of-a-kind glory,
Like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
True from start to finish (MSG).

To fulfill this mission, we continually pursue relationship building within our local community and seek to engage in activities that create connections and foster long-term relationships. While celebrating and encouraging the myriad ways this can be accomplished, we personally have felt led to live incarnationally in the education arena in two main ways: 

1. We connect with our local community through an education center we run.
2. We educate our children via the Japanese public school system.

Connecting professionally

We have utilized English outreach ministry throughout our entire time of service in Japan. Much of our current ministry and teaching philosophy originated from our service with Asian Access (Life Ministries at the time), whose leadership and staff innovated and shepherded a paradigm for incarnational ministry in education. We have deep gratitude for every missionary that has invested in us over the years.

Our desire is to be present in our community and for activities to help bridge people to our church. Much of what we have always hoped to do in a church setting we now achieve through the platform of the education center, such as marriage and parenting workshops, leadership development and business outreach, camps, social parties and interactions. All of these we can do in greater numbers by the church rethinking its outreach strategy and learning to proactively operate within the education arena.

We are incorporated as a general incorporated association (ippan shadan hōjin) that runs Flip Education Center. We chose the name “Flip” as a way to represent “transformation,” which we personally view as kingdom transformation. We currently rent a building and offer English classes four days a week and a cram school two days a week. If all goes as planned, we will have added an intensive Saturday School program and a bilingual, rhythmic ballet “mommy and me” program by the summer of 2020. Workshops, seminars, and social gatherings happen organically, based on need and relationships.

All these programs align with a vision to “raise the next generation by providing a ‘flipped’ education and family environment.” We run the organization based on personally held beliefs, but we are not a religious organization. Flip’s mission is “to provide quality education resources, pursue innovation in education, and equip students to achieve their potential.” Our experience has been that by offering high-quality resources, we develop deeper relationships within our local community. Deeper relationships lead to more frequent communication. Frequent communication naturally leads to various discussions and questions, during which we can point to Christ.

We do face the challenge of how to better connect more people from the education center to local believers in house churches. The same challenge exists for business people who come to know Christ through workshops and seminars but who have never set foot in a church. Our ministry team is currently in a year-long project to rethink and reimagine our structures, specifically targeting how we develop house-church leaders and foster relationships in a highly dispersed digital culture.

Connecting personally

Another way we live incarnationally is in the public education arena. I’ll start by saying we embrace all forms of educating one’s children. We are making no value statements as to one form being better than another, and that, like parents everywhere, we have spent hours praying over our children and choices for their education.

Our four children all started their education in Japanese kindergartens. The eldest two have graduated from high school, with one in a technical school in Japan and one in university in the US. Our third child is now in their third year of high school (12th grade) and our youngest is in their third year of junior high school (9th grade). Except for the private local kindergarten, all schools have been public.

Why did we choose public schools? We believe this to be a key way for us to live incarnationally and to closely identify with the community around us. Public schools afford us opportunities to know, and be known by, many people. I remember one day a group of children passed by, with one stating, “Hey, look at that foreigner.” Another child replied, “He’s not a foreigner. That’s K’s dad.” Public schools allow us to be grounded and connected in our local community.

Here are some of the benefits our children have received. They speak, read, and write Japanese infinitely better than we ever will. They receive quality education from teachers that are aware of their “uniqueness” while helping them to achieve academic excellence. They have made some good, potentially lifelong, friendships with Japanese people. Most of all, they have an intrinsic heart-level understanding of Japan.

Having our children in public schools has brought some challenges. Our ability to help with homework ended early on (they all attended a cram school throughout junior high school for Japanese and math). We worried over our children being accepted and making friends (so far, so good). Would they be able to get into a US university? (So far, so good.) We participate in school life as parents but often feel lost. And the big one—our children often think and process things differently than we do. That’s a sacrifice we have had to place at the cross.

What an honor it has been to journey with fellow parents along the way—connecting at open houses, caring for one another’s children, sharing concerns for our children, praying for our children to pass the high school entrance test. These parents have patiently taught us how to fill out the necessary (endless!) forms, always being willing to offer assistance. We have learned to depend on one another, and these friendships have blessed us tremendously. In the context of relationships, evangelism happens.

Which brings me back to that PTA meeting. Not a pleasant experience, but exactly the type of opportunity for which we have been praying and working! Just before the meeting began, I had the opportunity to share about biblical principles of servant leadership with the principal and vice principal. During the meeting, I diffused anger by acknowledging what was being said and gently steering the conversation back to the decisions at hand. A few arms remained crossed during the entire meeting, but for most, cordiality returned, and the meeting goals were accomplished. And there were even a few smiles. Follow-up conversations revealed appreciation for how the meeting was handled.

These opportunities come through an ever-expanding network of deliberate relationship building in the education arena, and I am blessed by the organic opportunities we have to be salt and light in our local community.