mission.japan

Further missionary musings

Friday, March 16, 2007

Another one of the ideas I might try if I had sufficient gold and experience points. A stats re-roll couldn’t hurt either.

The whole selling point for sending missionaries to Japan is the fact that not a whole lot of people are Christian. Less than one percent, et cetera et cetera. I suppose sending missionaries helps. But I’m wondering if the traditional missionary track is an example of the Mythical Man-Month scenario put forth by Frederick Brooks. I don’t think we can expect to keep throwing missionaries at the problem and see a proportional increase in new Christians.

Perhaps a more fundamental problem is that the Japanese simply don’t care. The standard of living is generally very high—life is stressful, but there are all sorts of material comforts to distract from the problems of daily life. Religion has no purpose, no real place or usefulness unless it’s simply to keep with tradition.

Those that do care and realize there’s something missing in life are few and far between. They also usually don’t have enough time to find the answers they need. Coming to church often enough to gain a sufficient understanding of the Bible is a tremendous commitment. Sunday is supposed to be a day off, a time to recharge before heading into the next work week. And yet we ask these people to carve at least two hours out of every Sunday morning. I know if I weren’t a Christian I’d have a hard time making that kind of commitment.

I think to make any sort of major progress in Japan, missionaries should change tactics. I’ve talked about a cafe before, but maybe that’s not quite enough. Christianity has to be presented in a form that can be absorbed easily and (most importantly) asynchronously. A form that is entertaining and yet fits in with the busy lifestyle everyone seems to have here.

For the 16-30 age group (probably the group most open to Christianity) a manga (graphic novel) series might be a good solution. The story should show what Christianity looks like in real life—both the good points and the failures. It should answer the tough questions, be gritty when necessary (cottony fluff won’t win any hearts), vividly honest, and entertaining. The comic book format makes it easy to pick up, read for a few minutes on the train or bus, and put away—no Sunday commitment necessary.

There’s actually already something like this for kids called Lammy (what the name means I don’t know), so my idea would just be an expansion of the comic book strategy for an older age group. As usual the main problem is money and talent, but I’m sure there have to be at least a few talented artists and writers in the the Japanese Christian community who can put something like this together.

Comments

Secret Monkey Ninja For Jesus wrote on March 17:

?imagine if the church (here, there or anywhere) stopped focusing on people all together?crazy you say?just crazy? what if we were mislead as to the goal of missions in the first place? what if the goal of missions and outreach and evangelism wasn't to save souls and help people?cause you are right on?they got all they need earthly speaking?but what if the focus shifted from people to God? what if we said that we were here not because the people need us, but because our God is a jealous God (pretty sure that's biblical language but do the homework for yourself) and He deserves the places of honor here and He deserves the glory? what if the paradigm completely shifted and we spent more time thinking about the fact that God deserves the spaces where the shrines and temples are in the cities?He deserves the places of honor in our homes?He deserves our time, energy, attention and devotion because He alone is worthy and it has little to do with the needs of people? maybe things just aren't God focused enough to make any sense?so they don't?

David Schaab wrote on March 18:

Actually, isn’t that the problem universally – we really don’t care enough. Sure, we go to church, even in the states – but do we even think of Him in the fullness of His glory? We send missionaries because “we’ve always sent missionaries” – and yet we don’t know our neighbors. And worse, we don’t give to the One who deserves. Derek is correct in that we continue to do the same western approach to evangelism – not willing to go outside the lines. But SMNfJ is also correct in knowing Who deserves the glory. But is that limited to the shrines, temples, and churches? I think not – He must be shown in all that we do (and He will still let us enjoy the comforts of life in the present as well as in eternity.)

Derek Schaab wrote on March 18:

Ninja: Good article in the Tegami, thanks for pointing it out. Kind of goes with what you’ve said before—no English, but all the Bible studies you can possibly want. I’m very disenchanted with the whole English idea, as you know. The connection between English and the church seems too fragile to rely on. Same with the other events.

Is that what you mean by concentrating too much on people? We need people for a functioning church, but maybe we should have a clean separation between church (totally God focused) and fun (totally fun focused). Just because we play basketball or go ice skating doesn’t mean it has to be a “church” event. I think it should just be friends hanging out and enjoying each other’s company. Completely agree on making God the sole focus, though. If we didn’t do that we’d be hypocrites.

In other news I’ve restarted the Bible study with Chie. She seems genuinely interested in finishing the text before I have to leave (that will be a daunting task), and in general it’s just a lot of fun to talk about the passages we read. It’s quite possibly the only time when I’ve thought, “This is precisely why I’ve spent time and money on learning the language and getting here.” I wish I had more time to do studies like that.