Christian Dysphoria

I have an identity problem. Regarding my identity, as a believer, God's Word says that I am His child. Christ's atonement gives me a a new identity as an adopted son of God. The power of sin over my life has been destroyed by Jesus' finished work on the cross. The problem is that most days I have a hard time believing this--because I just don't feel like a child of God. I continue to sin; I don't see the overcoming life that I want to have, and feel that I should have.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

The Apostle Paul at his Writing Desk by Rembrandt

Recently the news has been filled with people that are confused over their identities. Rather than embracing what we feel we are, we should embrace what we really are; what God has created us to be. I was born into sin, but I was born again into righteousness through Jesus' blood shed on the cross. As a disciple of Jesus, born of the Spirit, I have a new identity even if some days it doesn't feel like it. Rather than embracing the sinful nature, I am told in the Word to cast off my sin and to run with reckless abandon towards Jesus. 

We need to embrace who we really are. As a Christian, I need to have my identity transformed by the Gospel; to daily live reckoning myself dead to sin and alive to Christ.

Jesus; Eternally Begotten of the Father

Baptist traditionally are 'non-creedal;' but that does not mean that we ignore the historic creeds of the Christian faith. Rather, it means that we hold the Bible to be more authoritative than the creeds. Many Baptist churches in fact regularly recite the Apostle's Creed during Worship--I for one would love to see more of them teach on it regularly. The Apostles Creed contains, like a grain of wheat, the essence of the Christian faith, distilled. I am convinced that many Evangelical Christians would benefit from being taught to understand and use the creed to strengthen and share their faith.

A couple of days ago I had a short conversation with two Mormon missionaries outside of a train station. My heart was breaking for both them, and those that they were seeking to reach--because of the error that they were going to lead them into. My emotions got the best of me, and I pleaded with them to renounce their false prophet and turn to Jesus.

After the conversation, it was impressed on my heart again of how important it is that I be rooted deeply in prayer, the Scriptures and good doctrine. Thankfully, yesterday I was able to spend time in Hebrews, Mark and Galatians. I was even able to participate in a bible study where young Japanese believers were digging into Galatians chapter 1--super encouraging.

Today, I have been meditating upon the Nicene Creed, which I do believe is an accurate and concise statement of what the Bible teaches about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; 

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spake by the Prophets. And I believe one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

Helping Without Hurting in Japan (Part One)

Apology: By necessity of speaking to a topic as broad as the health of the Japanese Church I must unfortunately make sweeping generalities--we can all think of examples that contradict parts of the following post (and the upcoming series), but I hope you will hear me out and deeply consider whether there are deeply rooted dependencies in the Japanese Church stemming from the past and current shortcomings and failures of missionaries. 

A lot has been written in recent years about unhealthy dependencies in global missions. Usually when this topic comes up it primarily has to do with finances. Books like 'When Helping Hurts,' 'Toxic Charity,' and 'When Charity Destroys Dignity,' rightly point out that the way that affluent, mostly Western churches often seek to help the Global Church through financial charity frequently leads to more brokenness than it alleviates.

However, finances are only one way in which the Western Church and the way that it does missions actually serves to weaken the Global Church rather than strengthening it. In the late 19th century, John Livingstone Nevius, a prominent Presbyterian missionary to China identified three ways in which an indigenous church must be self determining in order to truly be considered a mature church--the church must be Self Supporting, Self Governing and Self Propagating (Evangelizing). Later, another missionary theologian, Roland Allen pointed out that to be fully mature, the indigenous church must also be Self Theologizing.

Roland Allen clearly shows in his book 'The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, And the Causes That Hinder It,' that at his time, many missionaries and missions organizations that claimed to be pursuing Self Supporting, Self Governing and Self Propagating indigenous churches were often doing so only in theory, but not in practice; 'they honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.' In fact, many of them were, and still are, facilitating dependencies in order to maintain power, influence--and many cases out of fear of the potential dangers associated with fully autonomous indigenous churches; namely, syncretism.

The recent interest in financial dependencies in missions and their unhealthy impact on the Global Church really only deals with a quarter of the problem--there are much deeper ways in which Western Missions continues to hamstring indigenous churches, their leaders and their health.

Why so few missionaries grapple with this... [source]

This has been a topic that I have spent my last five months in Japan dwelling on; and one of the main reasons I haven't written much,. It has been rather difficult to write about something that could easily be seen as undermining my very call to ministry here in Japan. However, that has only convicted me further of the importance of grappling with this topic.

Now some people might be wondering why this topic is relevant to Japan--Japan is a first world nation, and apart from the recent influx of finances from the Global Church to deal with the impact of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, the Japanese Church for the most part is financially independent of the Western Church. It supports its own institutions and clergy; and therefore on the surface would point to being a mature church.

However, the Japanese Church's dependencies are not quite as easy to point to as the financial dependencies in the churches of many developing nations. The unhealthy dependencies in the Japanese Church are primarily dependencies of Propagation, Theology and Methodology (Governance). 

In upcoming posts we will look at some of the dimensions of dependency within the Japanese Church.

(1) Namely, that the Japanese Church continues to maintain an unhealthy dependency on missionaries for evangelism, discipleship and church planting;

(2) the Japanese church continuously has failed to cultivate indigenous Evangelical theologies that lead to further maturity and effectiveness but are instead reliant on contextually incongruent Western theological voices (this is still an area where, because of my lack of fluency in Japanese I am not able to fully substantiate);

(3) and probably most importantly, that the Japanese church continues to be reliant on Western paradigms of church leadership and vocational ministry that hinders the maturity and growth of Christian lay people--meaning that the greatest potential catalyst for reaching the Japanese with the Gospel, the Japanese Church, is largely unequipped for the task of sharing the Gospel with their own people.

What is the role of the missionary in Japan? How does a missionary help without hurting? Probably one of the main reasons that these dependencies are so deeply ingrained within the Japanese Church is because of the effectiveness of Western missionaries (and increasingly missionaries from the Global Church). Has our short-term effectiveness resulted in long-term ineffectiveness for the average Japanese Christian? Are our evangelistic and discipleship methods reproducible by Japanese Christians? Does our reliance on English ministries, the 'Westernness' of Christianity and outreach events undermine the ability of the Japanese church to reproduce similar efforts? We will look at all of these questions and more in upcoming posts.

Breaking the Silence

こんにちわ！ひさしぶりですね。Hello! It has been a long time.

For the past three months I have been busy studying Japanese--and while I haven't been short of topics to write about, I have been short of energy.

In two weeks I will be on winter break--and hope to write a few things between now and when class starts back up in January.

These days I have been reading the writings of a very provocative theologian by the name of Roland Allen--suffice to say, I have been thinking very deeply about the role of Western missionaries in Japan and in which ways they can either be helpful or harmful.

Stay tuned for some of these upcoming posts!

A Suitable Field Vehicle

So recently I discovered that it was standard operating policy for a career missionary with my agency to have a field vehicle. Prior to this I had just assumed that I would buy a 100$ bicycle and do most of my commuting by mass transportation, by bicycle or by walking--just think of the health benefits! That is probably what I will still do, but having a vehicle will help me to travel more freely, give rides to others when I need to, and in case of emergency be able to help others without access to a vehicle.

In setting up a starting budget, we asked around to find out what I could get a quality used car for in Japan--and it wasn't all that more expensive than in the USA. However, there are additional costs. Gasoline is much more expensive in Japan, there's insurance and keeping the car licensed which is significantly more complex (and expensive) than in the USA.

However, as I thought about what kind of car I would like to get, a few things popped into my mind... thus this blog post, what would be a 'suitable field vehicle,' for a missionary in Japan.

Kei Cars

Vanilla flavored car.

These super-compact cars are the entry model for many Japanese drivers. They are economical, efficient and environmentally friendly. Considering how much narrower many streets are in Japan compared with the USA, they might actually be a good choice for me. However, if you recall how funny the 'Big Man in a Little Coat' scene was in Chris Farley's movie 'Tommy Boy?' Well that could be me in one of these tiny tiny cars. Which reminds me...

Bosozoku

Dragon Ball graphics add to its appeal.

Bosozoku literally translated to 'reckless tribe.' It describes a distinctively Japanese youth culture that revolves around motorcycle gangs. Part of this culture is about making outrageous modifications to motorcycles--which was relatively inexpensive for young people back in the '70's and '80's. However, as these young people grew up, they began to modify cars also. Some of these cars can be quite gaudy by Western standards, but that is part of their appeal.

Recently I attended the Reaching Japanese for Christ Network Annual Conference in Kirkland WA. The main topic of this year's conference was contextualization of the Gospel for Japanese. I have been thinking a lot about contextualization for the Japanese and in thinking about a suitable field vehicle I couldn't help but wonder if in order to reach Bosozoku with the Gospel, one must become Bosozoku.

Drifting

The decals add to the mystique.

The drifting subculture really began to take off in the 1990's and has become something of a worldwide phenomenon. One of the most significant ambassadors for drifting was the Japanese manga and anime 'Initial D.' The story, which started as a bit of a parody of itself is about a young man who drives a Toyota AE86 into the mountains every night to delivery Tofu for his father's business--as a result he becomes an expert at drifting, and ends up racing his stock road car against much more iconic Japanese sports cars. Because drifting is more about technique than speed, he overcomes great obstacles to beat much better cars with his humble Tofu delivery vehicle. There is only one car worth considering if one is going to embrace the drifting culture in Japan.

'Murica!

Don't mess with Texas!... in Tokyo.

Not all Western missionaries are known for their sensitivity to local cultures. In fact, more often than not the Western missionary is caricatured as someone out of touch with the locals (this unfortunate stereotype has its basis in reality) and lives lavishly compared with those around them.

If you can't beat them, then why not join them. Believe it or not, you can buy an H2 Hummer in Japan--this would be absolutely one of the worst vehicles to drive in Japan because of the narrow roads. But just imagine all of the Japanese that would look on with envy at the totally awesome display of American superiority
(oh wait, did the Chinese try to buy the Hummer brand?).

Honorable Mention

At the beginning of this post, I said this would be an article about cars--but many Japanese in cities get around by bicycle.

There is a style of bicycle with is ubiquitous in Japan, and that is the humble Mamachari, or Mother's Chariot. Don't let the name fool you, these are unisex utility bicycles. You'll see everyone riding Mamacharis: college students, office workers, and even mothers. Newer models can even come with electric assist built in (these can cost as much as a moped/motorcycle).

I said that they were unisex, but some of them don't give that impression--especially if they are covered with child's seats. However, that only means one has to be that much more assured of their masculinity to ride one of these bad boys (girls?).

The Final Countdown! Some things you can pray about for me.

Tomorrow marks the final day of a two week long Second Language Acquisition course I have been taking in preparation for my future ministry in Japan! I am grateful for the way that God has challenged and encouraged me over the past few months that I have been zigzagging around the US for training. This chapter is coming to a close, and for the next few months I will be focused on wrapping up the last bit of support raising and working on saying quality goodbyes.

Once I get back to Olympia, I will be sending my initial application papers for my Certificate of Eligibility to my team leader in Japan--this is a significant step towards getting my long-term Visa to serve in Japan.  Please keep this process in your prayers--I am a little bit under the wire as it can take up to three months for the Japanese government to process the COE, and I am hoping to be heading to Japan in just about that amount of time! Please pray that the process goes smoothly and quickly.

Recently I found out that language school in Japan was going to be much more expensive than I had initially budgeted for--actually twice as expensive! I also learned that I would need to put aside some money for a field vehicle. Because of these two major oversights in my initial budget, I have a significant shortfall in my one-time start-up costs. God has been faithful to provide for more than 96% of my ongoing monthly support, and I am trusting Him in faith for the rest of what I need to begin my ministry in Japan.

After more than a year and a half of support raising I am only a few months out from my departure to Japan! There will be a commissioning service for me at Turning Point Church in Lacey WA on the evening of August 9th! Everyone is invited--there will be an opportunity to pray for me and fellowship with others who are partnering to reach the Japanese with the Gospel through me.

After the 9th I will spend the next two weeks preparing for my move to Japan--Converge's policy is that the two weeks before deployment are to be used as personal time, to wrap things up well and prepare spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically for the huge transition about to take place. As part of my two weeks, I am hoping to spend about a week in Hawaii visiting with friends and resting--I am hoping to fly to Hawaii on or around the 18th and then onto Japan on or around the 25th. This will be my first time going to Hawaii, and I am looking forward to seeing many of my friends from college while there.

Finally, please pray for a smooth transition to Japan--there are a lot of moving pieces, pray for the Converge Japan team as they prepare for my arrival, and for all those at the home offices in Arlington Heights IL and Orlando FL that have different roles to play!

Brainstorming: Slow Missions, American Christian Victim Complex, Proselytization and Rape, etc.

A couple weeks ago I wrote nine short kernels of potential articles—I found this exercise very rewarding and received generally positive feedback. However, I found that as soon as I had cleared those ideas out, there were others I realized would be ideal for this format as well. So without further adieu, here is the second installment of my micro-blogging experiment!

Slow Missions

In my previous post I wrote about how some of America’s strongest cultural values are efficiency, expediency and cost effectiveness. This is manifest in virtually every area of life in America—-however there has begun to be a backlash against our ‘fast food’ culture.  This movement is called the ‘Slow Movement,’ which advocates for among other things a return to more natural rhythms of life as a contrast to the obsession with getting the most, in the shortest amount of time with the lowest investment. I believe that there is a place for this in missions. We must explore the ways in which our own culture of efficiency, expediency and stinginess has impacted the way that we do missions! If we find that we have been syncretistic, are we willing to repent?

Investment in Missions and the Alabaster Jar of Ointment

One of the areas that I have found American Culture seeping into the way that we think about missions is manifest in the way that we speak about missions—-namely in economic terms! Instead of talking about sacrificing we talk about investment. You’re not ‘sending’ a missionary, you’re ‘partnering’ with them. Churches increasingly want a return on the ‘investment’ they are making in foreign missions—-they want to have some benefit to their congregation beyond the joy of giving to the Lord. There is a sinful selfishness behind much of this! Behind this investment language is the subtle sinful refrain, “What is in it for me?” When we encourage people to give towards world missions, we should point them to the woman with the alabaster jar of ointment! She gave it as a sacrifice and the story of her love gift is recorded for posterity. Recently a church made an incredibly large commitment to my future ministry—immediately I began to share with them all of the ways in which I could serve their church. The Pastor replied, “there are no strings attached to our support!” That only made me want to be a blessing to their church even more!

Jesus was Not a Victim

Something that has begun to concern me recently is what I can only, for a lack of a better term, call a victim complex among American Christians. Around the world Christians are being persecuted, some of them even facing death for their steadfast belief in the Gospel! In American, on the other hand, Christians by in large do not face significant persecution—however, you wouldn’t know that based on the rhetoric! I believe we have identified with the blasphemous criminal on the cross rather than with Jesus! Jesus was not a victim. He knowingly and willingly submitted himself to death on the cross. We could stand to learn from him and imitate him. Are we willing to be crucified by our media, by our culture, to go quietly as a sheep to the slaughter. Do we need to defend our rights? Jesus knew that in submitting to the cross he was actually the victor—-we need to die to our rights, to our comforts, to our desire to represent and defend ourselves.

Evangelism and Rape

I have actually started writing a blog post on how the way that we have learned to do evangelism in the west—direct, confrontational, without regard to relationship is tantamount to spiritual rape. I have begun writing it, but it is such a sensitive topic, I haven’t found the energy to engage it deeply. But think about it this way, if you were to meet someone of the opposite gender, and attempt to enter into marital bliss with them after just one conversation, it would either result in rejection, rape or a one-night-stand. Now, I want to be clear, Jesus is a gentleman, he is going to force himself on anyone—but in our own zeal for others to know Jesus, are we guilty of forcing love before it’s time? I would say that we have been, and there is no wonder that so many people respond to evangelism with such disdain and revulsion; both inside and outside of the church. We need to re-think evangelism in terms of the wooing of courtship rather than the pursuit of a one-night stand. This may also explain why we have so many ‘converts,’ but so few disciples! They had a tryst with Jesus, but didn't get the engagement ring.

Missionaries as an Extension of the Church

I believe that missions, rightly understood is the pursuit of making disciples and establishing churches across ethnic, linguistic and cultural divides. Therefore, a missionary is in his very nature a disciple maker and church planter. That means that many things in done in the name of missions are not in fact missions. With this in mind, I believe that to rightly understand the missionary, we must understand them as a ‘elder-at-large’ of the local church. Paul and Barnabas were sent out, authorized, by the local church in Antioch, of which they were local leaders. Their ministry was not significantly different than their local ministry of making disciples and planting churches—-but they were being released to do that ministry in a different geographic and cultural context! Do our missionaries however look like local-church elders-at-large? I believe that we need to return to this paradigm! We need to think of sending missionaries as sending an extension of our own local body. When missionaries return from the field for furlough or retirement, are they treated as church elders and leaders, what is the expectation, what is your experience? This paradigm shift I believe would help both the cause of missions and the health of the local church!

Too Big to Work Together

It has been my experience that churches of a certain size—-usually a thousand or more people tend to cease to work together with other churches in advancing the Gospel strategically either through cooperative missions sending or regional association. Rather than ‘too-big-to-fail,’ there are many churches that are ‘too-big-for-unity.’ I believe that this grieves the Lord! They do their own local ministry initiatives, and may invite others to contribute money or volunteer, but they don’t share leadership or invite others to leadership. They send their own missionaries (because they can) and have their own missions initiatives without the cooperation of input of other (usually smaller) churches or local associations. There is a tipping point where this begins to manifest, and I believe it is the subtle work of the enemy to divide the work of the Lord. Smaller churches tend to understand the necessity of working together, because of their limited resources and manpower; they need to develop strategic networks of cooperation. Whereas larger churches tend to be lulled into a sense of sufficiency—where they don’t need anyone else, in fact, they could probably do wonderful ministry apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. Pursuit of unity in itself is a heart cry for the touch of the Holy Spirit.

American Individualism and the Non-Denominational Movement

The title kind of says it all—our culture values the individual! We tend to think that the normal unit is not the group, but the individual. Despite the idea of ‘unity in diversity,’ or ‘unity out of many,’ we have long forsaken the collective understanding of what it means to be an American. For this reason, it is no wonder that newer churches have largely abandoned formal cooperation through denominations, associations and networks. There is a lack of accountability, transparency—-but more disturbingly, it is actually a litmus test for the selfish independence of the average American Christian. It is a picture of our own isolated Christian lives. As American Christians with this pre-disposition, we must understand that the pursuit of unity, the pursuit of cooperation is actually counter-cultural. The enemy wants to divide and conquer. Cooperation and unity are hard, but worth pursuing!

Unity and Blessing

While at Wheaton College I read J Edwin Orr’s book, ‘Campus Aflame,’ namely because of the burning image of Blanchard Hall on the front cover. The basic thesis of the book is that in order for a Christian College to stay Christian, it needed to experience periodic revivals. One of the interesting side-effects of these revivals, other than keeping a campus faithful, was that they produced a zeal for missions. What I learned was that an interest in missions either preceded or proceeded from a spiritual awakening among students. Meaning, that one could potentially prime the pump for revival by renewing an emphasis on global missions. I believe this is true, in part. What I have only recently seen is that one of the reasons that God blesses an emphasis on missions, is because in order to accomplish the great commission, churches and individuals need to work together in unity; and God blesses unity. In fact, it was Jesus’ high priestly prayer that finally put me on to this! Jesus is praying that we act in unity to accomplish the mission for which we are here on earth, to make disciples! When we work together towards this goal, God opens the flood gates of blessing. I have even seen this in my own life!

The Double-Edged Ministry of Missionaries

With the preceding in mind, I believe that missionaries are in fact agents of renewal and revival in the local church! While developing my support to launch out to Japan, God has been using me to prophetically challenge the local church and believers to a deepened faith in the Lord Jesus, to live and give more sacrificially; to take the great commission seriously. So many pastors are protective of their pulpits, and missionaries are often the worst offenders —-they can be boring, they can be long winded, but they could also be a great source of spiritual renewal and revival for a congregation! Through developing relationships with churches and individuals, missionaries can actually do a great deal of good for the local church.

Making Evangelism Sexy

Last year I did a whole series of blog posts on fruitfulness. I have a lot more material I could write about on this topic, but one idea that has come up again and again is the idea that the true sign of Christian maturity is the ability to reproduce. I believe that there is a clear parallel in the scriptures between making disciples and making babies (fruitfulness in the original sense, aka sexual reproduction). If that is the case, then a natural outflow would be that there is some tie between evangelism and intercourse (I already made the missionary dating joke). I believe that we need to do a better job helping new believers understand how exciting it is to share one’s faith with another person. Of course you’re going to get cold feet, of course there is going to be rejection, of course you’ll say embarrassing things, of course you’ll get butterflies in your stomach. That didn’t stop you from asking your significant other out on a first date! For some reason we’re able to muster up the courage to break the ice when it comes to merely human interactions, but when we want someone to be born again from above we tend to clam up. Blending together two of the earlier mini-blog posts, maybe a new paradigm for evangelism would be courtship (slow missions + wooing); rather than getting a person to make an on the spot (one-night stand) commitment to Jesus, inviting them into a discipleship relationship with Jesus where they begin to get to know Him at their own pace with the ultimate end-goal of a wedding. Maybe that whole ‘Jesus is my boyfriend,’ thing isn’t too off base?