For those of you who don’t know, Lighthouse just sent off a short-term Missions Team to Japan! Since the beginning, Lighthouse has been focusing on Japan as one of its target countries (in terms of evangelism), and we have finally sent our first team. Daichi, Joy, Zach, Mark, Christina (and kids) will be partnering with Christ Bible Institute in Nagoya, spending time with the teams there, and teaching musical worship seminars. Team Member/Summer Intern Zach will be sending daily updates so keep checking back!
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Conversations and Music
Heart & Soul Café is the primary outreach tool for CBI. It is a café attached to CBI where people can come in, get something to drink, and just hangout.
10:30AM – Chapel at CBI.
12:00PM – The Katos arrive at CBI.
12:30PM – Mark & Daichi lead the Worship Seminar.
1:30PM – Ate out with Hide & Paul Kang (CBI translator)
4:00PM – Hung out at Heart & Soul Café.
5:00PM – Heart & Soul Café open mic event.
9:30PM – Ate with team and Daichi’s cousin Masumi.
10:00PM – Got back to the hotel. Knocked out.
We got to have our first worship session here in Japan. I didn’t really understand anything because it was primarily in Japanese, but it’s awesome to be able to witness people of other cultures worship the same God we worship in America. There were little things, like translation of the message and style of music, that differed. I’m sure there were other subtle differences that I didn’t catch, but it was the same God we were worshiping: the staff in the words that were being sung and me in seeing the glory of God in His people here at CBI.
At the Worship Seminar, Daichi talked about the necessity of having your heart and mind be in worship to God everyday and not just during Sunday service. Mark went over more practical things you should think about as you set up a worship set such as keeping it Gospel-centered and communicating with the speaker.
Heart & Soul’s Open Mic Night brought in a lot of people. Apparently, it was a pretty small crowd. I can see that these types of events are a great place to do outreach. It’s not so much that it’s a great place to do open and direct evangelism. But it allows for conversations to happen and friendships to form. Hide said that to the Japanese, becoming good friends is essential to talking about deeper things like the Gospel.
