Some thoughts after meeting Tokyo House Church Movement

After the experience with Kansai Be ONE network, I was exposed to another house church network in Tokyo, both were equally mentored by Mr. Mitsuo Fukuda, the house church movement leader in Japan.

A quick reference that I would love to make about this group is that: these are very genuine people, being in the field for many years, have various denominational background, had decided that it's time to move towards what God wants for Japan rather than what they themselves or the denominations want for Japan. It was an interesting meeting where many seemed simple straight forward issues (eg. Lord's supper, baptism, funeral, etc.) being discussed: the way of doing it, how to go about with it, and cautions on principles, exchange opinions of different cultural/doctrinal background. They meet up regularly (once a month) to encourage each other, share their work with each other, I guess in some sense, creating the accountability in what they are doing too. As Richard said, this is probably minority of the vast missionary field that we have in Japan, but it's a good start! ^^

When Heart4Japan began to pray for "Breaking down the walls of denominations, sharing resources on the table", we thought this would only happen in another 10 years time. Yet, the Lord again had favored on us, we have indeed soaring together with our prayers and intercessions on His wing, that in less than 5 years, people from different denominations started to get together, thinking seriously about what God wants for Japan rather than their want for Japan. I thank the Lord for this blessed hours with these missionaries, みんなすばらしかった！

What I would like to see more in this group, is probably the availability to pray together after bringing out issues that we face in the field. It is important to take time to pray together, and seek for His confirmation again for what He had stirred in us, so that the accountability is not only lie on reporting and gaining consent of each other for what we are doing, being reminded about our principles of what and why we are doing this, but also going back to the relationship with God, that is this ultimately what He wants, regardless of what we "biblically" believe. For this, time is needed to pray and seek God together in a quiet place. If we don't have this time, we are not much different of doing "what we want", except this time, we are listening to others who come from other denominations, which is in another word, "a council of wise men". The reason for change is really the fact that we see the failure in past was because we have not been seeking His heart for Japan. I know it is hard for missionaries to take out a few hours in a day to work on this, but I figure, and time/place are often a struggle to achieve this, but I think it is still worth for us to try to move to this. A place where we can hear Him, not only alone, but with the others! Feeling His heartbeat does not equal to understanding of what He has in His mind. When we seek for His heart together, our decisions can then be more concrete, and we will have the confirmation of peace that He install in each of us.

Well, I probably have spoken out of the perspective and experience of an intercessor for Heart4Japan usual practice, but what do you think?