Church and Religion

This blog post is from a friend's facebook post, an interesting bit on churches. China is seeing great results with the "Simple" approach; Japan is working with the "Conventional" approach. The chart on the left originally came from a Simple Church website by Bob Sears.

The chart in itself was interesting, but the part that was even more interesting for me was actually the comment chain that followed this posting... I've abbreviated the names and deleted some of the comments. JG is the one who posted this and is a missionary in Tokyo.

MG: I LOVE the "simple" approach! I hope Japan can get into it! May the Japanese find Jesus as Japanese as they are!

DM: Well done!!! I appreciate the disclaimer at the top though. I personally think that probably both kinds of churches are useful and necessary. Part of the problem is that we've been so strongly influenced by the "Conventional" approach for such a long time that "Simple" gatherings are often not valued as genuine *church* experiences.

MG: One thing I love about simple churches is how inexpensive they are financially. They get great ROI! They take a lot more commitment, though, to work, which is part of their genius.

DM: In my experience, a conventional church takes a HUGE commitment of time and energy (and money too!!) . . . far, far more than a simple church community.

A big difference between conventional and simple is that not only is there less work to maintain a simple environment, the work that is needed is shared within the whole community while the burden of maintaining a conventional church is usually carried by a very few. The result is that in a simple community there is a far greater sense of ownership spread among all the members than is typical in the more passive environment of the conventional church.

That being said, I am not a conventional church basher. I came from one. Some of my best friends and mentors are currently pastoring or worshipping in conventional churches. Trashing those churches would be like trashing my own family. I just feel that God has called me to something different. Here in Japan, the conventional way has been tried for a long time and it's not making much headway into the society. Maybe it's time to rethink, to re-imagine what church is and to re-discover the roots of our faith.

ok, you've discovered my 'soap-box' issue. . . .

DW: Both can work, but in most places the people get more out of the Simple over the long haul. any thoughts DR?

KE: I like Mitsuo Fukuda's description of what he calls "elephant churches" and "rabbit churches". He is primarily a proponent of house churches (rabbits), but he admits that elephants also have their role. The problem with elephants is that they are slow, heavy, and have a really long gestation period. Rabbits reproduce...well.. like rabbits! But don't try to get a rabbit or even a group of rabbits to carry a heavy load - to run Bible schools, organize large events, or other bigger stuff, you do need to have a few elephant churches around. (They don't have to have all the "conventional church" characteristics on that chart, though.)

BS: The point is not what works but what medium embodies the truth of the gospel. As Marshall McLuhan said, "The medium is the message".

YJO: v interesting. and the comments even more so, esp to me as one of the newbies here in japan. one thing i've heard a lot is that the "simple" church approach has been tried in japan for a long time too but seems to be even less effective than the "conventional" church approach, mostly because japanese associate having a building with legitimacy and are wary of "religion" at ppl's homes 'cause of the large number of cults in this country. but this comment chain seems to beg to differ..?

KE: I think we are commenting about the ideal, what we think SHOULD work. But your assessment about Japan is the frustrating reality. I am one more person who (with my husband and a couple other missionaries) tried to plant a cell church, but it never quite got enough momentum. What are we doing now? My husband pastors a conventional church, and even "worse" (according to the mission theory) it's an international church... It wasn't what we imagined we would be doing, but it's what God clearly called us to do, and we have seen dozens of Japanese become saved. We can discuss church structure philosophies, but in the end, each of us should do what God leads each of us to do, and those things may all be different.

DW: Because Christianity is new to them, some Japanese people may see "church" in general as a type of cult and not a relationship (or religion, like Buddhism), hence until they sincerely "understand" Christianity, it doesn't seem to click.

KE: Avoiding the word 宗教 might help, but they'll probably think in those terms whether we say them or not. I discovered first-hand that in spite of what our dictionaries say, 宗教 does not mean "religion". We once asked a group of English students to name as many religions (which their dictionaries say means 宗教) as they could think of - they named such surprising things as communism and confucianism, but did not name Shinto. When we asked them why, they said, "Shinto isn't a religion - it's just how we relate to the gods." In English that sounds absurd. Upon further investigation I have learned that 宗教 seems to mean a set of teachings about how to live (which Shinto does not have, but Confucianism does), not a belief system about superhuman entity(s). And neither word describes the uniquely relational nature of Christianity. Semantics, preconceptions, and subconscious categorizations get in the way of real understanding.

YJO: Wow Karen thx for sharing. It's so insightful. I obviously have so much to learn. I thank God for what you n Dan r doing at OIC n the ministry tools that u develop n share. As you said, the most important thing is that we do what God has called us to do. We're actually starting an international bilingual worship service here in Hiroshima in the fall in partnership with the local churches that we work with. Unlike you guys tho, we're not the leaders so it'll be interesting to see what God has in store for us next. :)

KE: ‎@Jenny: Hiroshima? Wonderful! Say hello to it for me - the first 6 1/2 years of our ministry were there, and we have fond memories! (Sorry to get off-topic, John.)

During our 4th of July end-of-term party for the Tuesday English classes, Peter gave a talk and asked the students what they associated with the word "religion".  Here were their answers...

When you think of "church" and "religion", what do you think?  What do your co-workers, friends, neighbors, small group members, youth kids, Sunday School kids, and your own kids think?