Pray for Ibaraki

August 30th, 2010

Here are some daily prayer requests for Ibaraki prefecture. Ibaraki prefecture is in Kanto area, which includes Tokyo (Marked below in green). The northern part of Ibaraki is mountainous while the south is quite flat. Ibaraki has a strong agricultural industry and the least number of people claiming to have religious beliefs.

<Ibaraki>

Towns/villages with no churches: 33

Churches/person: 1:17,808

Average church attendance: 28

August 30: Pray that the people of Ibaraki will come to know that there is no security except in Jesus and that their temoral and eternal hope lies in Him (Matthew 8:20).

August 31: Four radio programs on Ibaraki Radio are sharing the gospel, and in Tsuchiura and Tsukuba churches are cooperation in providing cable TV programs for evangelism.

September 1: Ibaraki Christian Gakuen with 2,760 students—pray that this school will remain faithful to the gospel. Pray that the Hakujuji Nursing School will send many faithful Christian nurses to hospitals around Japan. Hakujuji General Hospital is one of the few Christian medical facilities.

September 2: Pray for the many who have no faith. Kashima and Inari Shrines are two well-known Shinto worship locations.

September 3: Facilities for the elderly: Tsukuba King’s Garden with 50 beds, Hakujuji Home and Aiyuen with their long history of service, and others.

September 4: Ami is the largest unchurches town in the prefecture with 46,873 people. The other five larger unchurched towns, Chiyoda, Ina, Makabe, Ishiege, and Yachiyo have a combined population of over 120,000.

*All information and prayer requests taken from “Operation Japan -Prayer Guide- Third Edition” -Japan Evangelical Missionary Association, 2005. To purchase a copy of “Operation Japan” book or the Interactive CD version, go to: http://www.jema.org/joomla15/index.php?option=com_banners&task=click&bid=10.

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How the world came to be –According to Japanese mythology-

August 27th, 2010

Japanese mythology is like Greek mythology in many ways. It has many interesting stories about many different gods, but these stories often have a couple of different versions because of the diversity in its original texts and also because they are mixed together with various folk legends, myths, etc. The sources of the Japanese mythology are the two books written in the early AD700s called ‘Nihon shoki’ and ‘Kojiki’. Those books were written as “history” of Japan, possibly by the order of the Emperor who was gaining power and wanted something to justify his reign by deifying himself as the books identify him as the direct descendant of the gods. Here is a short summary of how the world came to be according to Japanese mythology:

The tale of the very beginning, or how the world came to be, is somewhat ambiguous in Japanese mythology. According to Nihon Shoki, the world was a chaos at first. Then the pure and impure were separated and became the heaven and the earth. And out came the gods that looked like humans. The ones that were born first were neither male nor female, and then four pairs of male and female gods were born. And the last one of these pairs, Izanagi (male) and Izanami (female), got married and started giving births to the islands of Japan and other gods. Interestingly enough, the text does not give any explanation as to how these initial gods came to be, and the other mythological text, Kojiki, has no mention of the very beginning of the world.

Here’s a little more about what happened after that.

When Izanami gave birth to a god of fire, she was burnt which caused her death. Izanagi, missing his wife so much, travels to the land of the dead, where he finds his beloved wife rotten and ugly. He screams in shock and runs away from his furious wife who chases after him. She is furious because he saw her in such a hideous state in spite of her warning not to look at her. After a long chase, Izanagi finally manages to block his wife’s pursuit by placing a huge rock in front of the pathway to the land of the dead. She curses him and says “I will kill one thousand men a day from now on” (The rock was so heavy that it called for a thousand people to be removed.) To that Izanagi replies: “Then I will make sure I get 1,500 people to be born every day.” It is explained that this incident is the reason why there are births and deaths.

After the terrible trip to the land of the dead and back, Izanagi decides to purify himself. As he took off his clothes and dunked himself in a river, many gods were born. He went on to wash his left eye and the sun goddess (Amaterasu O’omikami) was born. When he washed his right eye, the god of the moon (Tsukuyomi no mikoto), his nose, the god of the ocean (Susano’o no mikoto). Those three gods were appointed to rule over the world.

This is only some of it. Pretty interesting stuff. I (Tomo) grew up in Japan but didn’t know these stories in detail until I did research to write this article. Most Japanese people probably don’t know much about the mythology either, but it’s interesting to know them because the basic world view is still at the root of their culture and mindset.

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What’s a Church?

August 24th, 2010

Lord willing Tomo and I will be moving to Japan next Summer to begin planting churches. Consequently I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what a church actually is, how it should function, what it is supposed to be doing. A blog post is not going to do a topic of this scope justice but maybe I can get one point out and spark a little dialog.

The church has been given the tremendous task of taking the gospel to all nations and making disciples, yet in many instances it is less effective than it could or should be in accomplishing this goal because the members of the church do not realize that they are the church and if they do not work together to accomplish this task then the church will never be able to accomplish it either.

This is my opinion. It seems to match what I have observed. To most Christians a Church is a place that they go to, or an entity they belong to, like a club.  Often Churches appear divided into two groups: attenders and leaders. The attenders are interested in finding fulfillment, fellowship and spiritual nourishment. They seem to assume that the leaders will do the work of fulfilling the great commission, or that they and other individuals will do it on their own. Meanwhile The leaders often seem to be most interested in attracting more attenders, and therefore cater to their needs and desires. If this all that a church does, then the church is never going to be very effective in fulfilling the mission Christ gave it to do.

When I look at the local church I see the front lines of God’s army. (I know it’s not politically correct to mix war metaphors and religion these days, but let me be clear that this is indeed a metaphor, I’m not talking about jihad.) The leadership should prayerfully set the church on an active mission to spread the gospel and make disciples. The members should latch hold of that vision and every single one of them should find a way to serve and help fulfill the mission. Rather than being a place people are duty bound to attend on Sunday mornings, the church should be the focal point of ministry and service to Christ. It should be a place where we worship, mature, tithe, serve, teach, plan, meet, fellowship and work together all to the glory of Christ, in the hope that Christ will bless our efforts and through them call people everywhere to salvation and cause them to grow and mature to complete and perfect sanctification.

Committing ourselves to serving under, over and alongside a group of people requires a certain amount of vulnerability and emotional risk. It requires a huge portion of our time and our lives. But as I read through the New Testament, it seems this is exactly the way the church functioned and is supposed to function today. When it did, God blessed it and the gospel spread like a wild fire throughout the known world.

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Why Japan?

August 16th, 2010

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

Romans 10:14-15

I have often explained to people why I decided  to get involved in missions to Japan. The simple answer is that there were many factors involved which, taken together, led me to believe that that was what God wanted me to do. However in this post it’s not necessarily my intention to go over those factors which led me to Japan, but rather to present some information that may lead you to be involved in the work God is doing in Japan.

Japan is an island nation, comprised of four main islands, and thousands of smaller ones. It has a throughly unique culture which means that the Japanese mindset is very difficult for westerners to grasp. Geographically the majority of Japan is covered by mountains and forests. It has a land mass roughly equal to that of California, and a population over 1/3 that of the entire United States. This explains the stark contrast between serene natural beauty and crowded, sprawling cities. Economically and politically Japan is among the most successful countries in the world.

From a spiritual perspective however, things are not so bright. Out of a population of 127 million, less than half of one percent follow Christ. The other 99.5% are trapped in materialism, Buddhism, Shintoism and ancestor worship. The suicide rate is more than double that of the United States. Though most have heard the name Jesus, the vast majority have never heard the gospel, or even know a Christian who could tell them.

The Church in Japan is small. Average attendance is less than 40 people per a congregation, and there are more than 1,600 cities towns and villages which do not have a single Church within their borders. It has been said that in order for a group to influence the population as a whole, the group must comprise at least 2% of that population. Currently the Church in Japan falls far short of that. For the last 150 years Protestant missions have been working in Japan, and yet the Church in Japan is still not large enough to evangelize the rest of the country on its own. There are few Christians that can afford to go into full time ministry, because of the high cost of living and small Christian population to support such efforts. There is a continuing need for missionaries in Japan.

Seeing this need first hand was what kept forcing me to consider whether God could use me in Japan, and if that was the direction He was calling me. I was made aware of the need, and God began to show me that He had given me the opportunity to be a part of meeting that need; that He could use me to do so. We’d like to present that need to you, and give you an opportunity to help meet the spiritual needs of the Japanese, by partnering with us to take the hope of salvation to Japan.

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A great visual snapshot of Japan

August 13th, 2010

Came across this video (I didn’t make it myself) that does a great job of showing the country of Japan in some quick flashes. Really gives you a good feel for what it’s like over there.

Japan – Heartbeats of Time from Trey Ratcliff on Vimeo.

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Why Missions?

August 10th, 2010

For so the Lord has commanded us, saying,
“‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles,
that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

Acts 13:47

You might have noticed that this verse appears frequently on our support raising material. You’ll find it on our prayer cards, brochures, even in the banner of this website. We put it there to remind us why we are doing this, and to remind others why they should be doing the same.

Missions is simply the practical act of bringing God’s salvation, through the preaching of the gospel, to the ends of the earth. If you are a Christian here in America you can trace your salvation through the work of missions all the way back to Christ, who not only died to pay the price for your sins but also initiated the the method by which you, two thousand years later, would hear about it, repent, believe and be saved. Were it not for Christ’s command to take the gospel to all nations, salvation would have never reached you.

Participation in missions is not an optional thing for Christians. One cannot be said to be a follower of Christ unless they obey what Christ commands. Missions is not something that we do when we have the time, or the money, or the desire to become involved in. It is something that we must insert into our budgets, our schedules and our hearts, even if that means sacrificing other things to do it. We as Christians must cultivate a war time mentality of sacrificing and suffering want in order to fulfill the mission which Christ has given to us.

There are millions here in America who need to hear the gospel. Even though the Gospel has reached America, and most here have heard it before, many will need to hear it a second, third, fourth or fifth time before their eyes are opened and they see the truth of it. But outside of America there are millions who have yet to hear it even once. The Gospel has not yet reached all the world. Christ’s mission to the church, though 2,000 years in progress, is not yet accomplished.

That is why Tomo and I are going to Japan. We desire to obediently participate in the mission Christ gave to the church, by going to Japan to work with other Christians in proclaiming the gospel and starting new churches, in the hope of seeing God call many Japanese to salvation. I would like to invite you to prayerfully consider sharing in this exact same mission, by partnering with us financially and prayerfully, to send us to Japan.  This is just one way out of millions that you can be involved in missions, but if it is the way God is calling you to be involved, click here to let us know.

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The Parable of the Laborers

July 14th, 2010

In Matthew 20, Jesus tells a parable about a man who hires laborers at different times throughout the day and at the end of the day he pays them all the same. He offers no explanation for this parable, other than the sentence: “So the last will be first, and the first last.”

This parable has long confused me, and I still am wrestling with it. But I think I’m starting to get it. Let me know if you have another perspective. Here goes.

The most common explanation of this parable is that Jesus is saying that no matter how old you are when you accept Christ, you will get the same reward, eternal life. If a person serves God from the time he’s 5 till the time he dies at 90, he gets the same “pay” as the guy who accepts Christ on his death bed and does virtually nothing for God his entire life. On the one hand I think this explanation hits on the point of the parable, and at the same time causes people to miss it altogether.

Consider the previous chapter, where the disciples had a discussion with Jesus which prompted Him to give this parable. The disciples ask what their reward will be for leaving everything behind to follow Him. Christ replies that they will be rewarded greatly in heaven, as will everyone who sacrifices earthly things for the cause of Christ. He concludes that “Many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (Mat. 19:27-30). Here Christ seems to say that the disciples are the “last that will be first.” They give up everything in this life, and gain everything in the next. They’re last here, but they will be first there. But then He gives the parable of the Laborers.

In the parable of the laborers, some guys started working at 5 in the morning, and some guys started at 5 at night. Quitting time for both was in the evening, and they both got paid for a full days work. This is not fair. The laborers who labored all day complained about this. They worked longer and harder, they should get paid more for it. Jesus concludes that the last will be first and the first will be last.

So how were the laborers who labored last made the first? They all got the same reward. The laborers who started in the beginning of the day still got their pay, they weren’t disqualified because they grumbled. The last were certainly a lot happier. They got what they didn’t deserve. They got way more than they deserved, it was a great day. They appreciated the master who hired them. But the laborers who toiled out in the sun all day long, they were mad at the master. They felt short changed. The master defends his actions in verse 15:

Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’

And that I think contains the point of the parable. Even though the disciples had done good and would be rewarded for their self sacrificial act of leaving everything to follow Christ, they were in danger of developing a sense of entitlement. In the parable they were the first laborers who would be made last. In the parable, the reward for the work was not based upon the amount or quality of the work done, but rather on the generosity of the one who hired them.

Christ wants His followers to have the attitude of the ones who worked for one hour, and got paid for an entire day’s work. He wants their joy to rest not on what they feel they’ve earned, but in the generosity of the one who called them.

I think that in Matthew 19 and 20 Christ is pointing out an apparent paradox. In Chapter 19, Christ implies that Christians will be rewarded for their acts of service to God. Some will probably be more greatly exalted in heaven than others. But in chapter 20 He’s saying that all will be greatly exalted, and all will be glorified and all will receive eternal life. And none of that is earned. All of it is a gift from God. Somehow Christ wants His followers to work hard for eternal rewards, and not have any thought in their minds that they deserve the rewards they are working for. He wants us to have hope and joy that our hardships are not in vain and that everything will be worth it, and yet be completely humble before God and before other believers. We’re supposed to seek rewards, but not link our rewards to our self worth. This is completely counter to human nature.

Our worth before God is not measured by the amount or quality of service we give to Him, but by His grace and generosity in saving and redeeming us.

I think there is some mindset of eternal humility here. I think it’s sort of like this. Our glory right now is like a match lit in a dark place. Maybe some people are even as glorious as a candle. But in eternal life we’re going to be exalted and made as big and bright as a bonfire. Maybe some people’s bonfires will be bigger than others. But all these bonfires will be orbiting a the sun at a distance of about 6 feet. God will be in heaven, so glorious, so exalted, so bright, that we will both enjoy the incredible glory we’ve been given, and at the same time have no thought of comparing ourselves or exalting ourselves over others because we’ll be in the blinding sunshine of God’s magnificence for all eternity. Who cares if my fire is bigger than yours, when the sun is right there infinitely outshining all of us?

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Door to Door Support Raising

June 26th, 2010

Add this to a long list of things God has gotten me into that I never imagined I would ever be doing: door to door support raising. I didn’t even realize that’s what I’d be doing when we set out to implement our newest, and to date, craziest, support raising strategy, but sometimes God has His own plans (technically He does all the time, sometimes I just forget it).

The idea was to save money on postage. At least that’s what I thought the idea was. Tomo and I were recently preparing our June newsletter, which includes a DVD, when we realized that it would cost about a $1.50 in postage to send each one. About 60 people on our mailing list live in the South Orange County area, so we figured we could save some money delivering those ourselves, and hey, it might be a good chance to say hi to some people we haven’t seen in awhile. After plotting the day’s deliveries in Google Maps, we set off. By the end of the first day I was blown away by how much better God was at organizing things than I was.

People are busy, and I’ve often been a little discouraged at how difficult it is to get an appointment to go talk to someone about our Japan. I usually play phone tag with people for a few weeks, exchange emails, texts, then they go on vacation, and when they get back, sometimes they can squeeze in a time to get together with us. And that’s just how life is here in California, we’re all busy people. So, I figured we’d show up, hand over the envelope, exchange small talk and be off. But instead we almost always found ourselves invited in, and asked about how things were going, and what we were up to. Turns out driving to someone’s house and knocking on their door is often the best way to talk to them.

Last week we spent four afternoons doing this. It was probably the most fun I’ve had support raising since I started. We got to know some of our supporters better, reconnected with friends I hadn’t seen in years and even meet new people for the first time. Sometimes we just caught up on what we’d been up to, sometimes we just dropped off the envelope, often people wanted to pray with us, and a few times we gave a full on support presentation and left with people promising to pray about financial partnership. Having something to hand over turned out to be the perfect excuse to drop by for a visit. No one minded, in fact almost everyone said they appreciated that we took the time to stop by in person to talk to them. But if they were busy we just gave them the newsletter and DVD, and went on to the house on our list.

We’re still waiting to see what God will do as far as raising up actual financial support, but regardless of that we had an encouraging and enjoyable time. We’ve still got about thirty or so deliveries to make, and I’m excited to see more old friends and meet new ones. So if we show up on your door step in the next few weeks, don’t be too surprised.

Side note: How many friends do you have that live within ten minutes of you that you haven’t seen or talked to in the last five years? Try stopping by their house some time and saying hi. It’s kind of fun.

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So how exactly do you raise support?

June 15th, 2010

Often I’m asked for the specifics of what we do to raise support. The simplest and truest answer is probably “stumble around trying things and pray God does a miracle.” Support raising is not something I’m naturally gifted in. But that’s fine, even sometimes glorious, because when it works I know it’s not me, but God. It’s a wonderful feeling to succeed in something you know you’re terrible at. I imagine Peter really had a good a time walking on water because he’d never had much of a talent for it till Christ told him to come out and join Him.

The standard support raising strategy we have is to call people up and ask if we can meet with them. If they’re willing we go to their house (or have them come to ours), we talk with them for about an hour, sharing what God’s calling us to do in Japan, and how they can partner with us to do it, and then invite them to support us. We also call churches for about the same reason, except in addition to asking the church to support us we ask if we can speak at a Bible Study, or even the main service. And we’re always trying to meet new people, and ask for referrals.

We’ve got two new things we’re trying. The first is this video that we made into a DVD. It’s a ten minute presentation and our contact information. We’re in the process of sending out about 200 of them. Our hope is that people will watch the DVD, and that God will move them to join us in reaching the Japanese for Christ. We also hope that people will give the DVD away to a friend to watch. Ideally each of the 200 DVDs will be passed around to many people, so that potentially thousands might get a chance to hear about what we’re doing.

The second new idea we have is to hand deliver the DVD and our latest newsletter to people living close by. The reason we came up with this was to save on postage, as it would be expensive to mail 200 DVDs out, we thought it would be good to hand out as many as we could. We’re hoping to spend a few days driving around and delivering them to people ourselves, both to save money, and to say hi. Many of the people on our mailing list are old friends that I haven’t seen in a long time, and many have never met Tomo, so it seemed like a great opportunity to reconnect. If we show up on your door step, now you’ll know why.

Please be praying that God uses this DVD project to call more Christians into a deeper involvement in missions, and ultimately to take the Gospel to Japan and that God will call more Japanese to salvation through Christ.

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Support Raising Lesson #1

June 7th, 2010

Doing is secondary to being. I tend to forget that. Doing what God wants me to do is a good thing, right? It’s obedience, and obedience is simple: “do these things, don’t do these other things.” So I try my hardest to obey, only to fail time and again. The reason I fail is simple: there are many things God wants me to do, that I don’t enjoy doing. I can only force myself to do things that are unpleasant, frightening or just plain boring for so long before I turn to find some comfortable, time wasting, fun distraction. If I focus on doing what God wants me to do without being the person He wants me to be I’m doomed to failure from the start. Who I am determines what I will do. But how can I focus on being something I am not yet? If who I am determines what I do, then there’s nothing I can do to change who I am. Left to my own I am doomed.

Thankfully God does not leave me alone. Only He can transform my heart and my desires so that I long to do the things that He commands. I can’t transform myself any more than I could make myself be born again, but I can go along with the transformation. I can chose not to resist it. I can get rid of the things that might slow it down. I can surrender the things that my flesh desires, and cast off any hope or dream that would distract me from doing what God wants me to do. I can find refreshment and encouragement and wisdom in God’s word. I can come before Him in prayer asking Him to work in my life, begging for a new heart that longs for His glory, and finds the greatest joy in His presence and in obeying His commands. And I can do that every single day, in fact I have to, because “my heart is prone to wander.”

But doesn’t doing all that land me right back where I started: with a focus on my own actions and exercising my own weak will? I don’t think so. In this case it is not about God giving the instructions and me following them. It’s about inviting and trusting that God is in the middle of those actions, giving me the strength to do them, that He is in me and working through me, that He commands, and then gives me the desire and the ability to obey, and for some inexpicable reason rewards me for doing so.

What does all this have to do with support raising? Support raising requires a lot of actions. I have to make phone calls, give presentations, speak at churches, write letters, and do many other things that are incredibly difficult for me. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the task before me, or to equate being a successful fund raiser with being a successful Christian. I presume that any ministry can fall into this same trap.

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