Where Everybody's Crazy

The shukoukai is pretty much over - I'm just about recovering from the last night's seinenkai (20s and 30s) emergency meeting. It's been a seriously fantastic experience. In a sense it reminds me of the Crusaders camps that I used to go on, in that I'm returning in a spirit of naive optimism. And that is not particularly usual for me, but I've entered into it all the same.

There's been quite a lot of emphasis on the role of returnees in putting the Japanese church to rights, but also on the fact that such a thing has to start with the individual. The topic of this conference has been "living in peace" and with the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima there's been a certain amount of handwringing about the war, but this has lead to really practical discussions - what sort of attitude should Japanese Christians take towards the recent laws about the Japanese flag and anthem, for instance. It's been fantastic to see Japanese Christians engage in this sort of stuff.

There's been a lot of blue-skies thinking too. Morinaga-sensei wants to reunite the church. No, I mean, the whole damn thing. Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic. Yes, he knows how difficult it's going to be and he still thinks he can do it.

Do you know, no matter how cynical I am, I think he's actually got a reasonable shot at it. He's planning to start by uniting the church in Japan, and then working outwards to the church in the world. To be honest, if anyone is going to reunite the international church, I'd be happy to put money on it being Morinaga-sensei. It's going to be a lot of fun working with him next year. (Oh yes, that's only recently been decided - I'm going to be working with London JCF next year.)

There's also been a lot of talk about the church in Japan being reformed by those who are coming back to Japan after having been saved overseas. I think that, well, this is about time and whatever works, works, but (a) Japanese converts coming back from overseas are probably going to be bringing with them Western thought-patterns as well as Christian truth, but (b) this doesn't matter because the church in Japan is pretty much Western already so bringing Western thought-patterns isn't going to screw it up too much. So I can be excited with them about the changes that returnees are going to bring.

The shuyokai (20s and 30s group) is really the reason I'm here. I just love hanging out with Japanese people of that kind of age trying to work out their faith. It is, after all, what I plan to do for the rest of my life. Shuyokai is theoretically the day before the main conference but we have a number of "emergency meetings" every night to make up for it.

One of the groups who come along to that have been doing the very thing that I've been hoping for for years - they're writing Christian songs about where they're at, as Japanese people overseas, right now, and offering all this to the Lord. It's this sort of thing that gives me hope that missionary work will someday end. (Because, of course, the goal of any missionary is to go home because there's no need for missionary work any more. That is, if they're honest, and that they don't want to stay in charge of the church that they've planted, or whatever...) It's basically the sort of thing that I thought, in my naivety, that I would have to teach the church, but here they are getting on with it without our help - Hallelujah!

Here's a quick and dirty translation of one of the songs that they've written:

We were all born in different places,
And we've come different roads towards different dreams,
We can't do anything by outselves,
But we're glad that we're all made one in the Lord,
So we praise Jesus, O Jesus,
Only you lead us on,
with power and love,
So we praise Jesus, O Jesus,
Only you lead us into truth,
And in your light we walk.
Even if we're suffering, and even if we're worried,
We'll still sing of your salvation.

They write songs about the fact that their friends are going back to Japan, and that they won't see them any more; or that, as foreign students in a foreign land, they feel like strangers and wanderers on this earth. They write songs about where they're at, and I can only hope that many other Japanese churches start doing the same...