What is Church?

What does "church" mean? Is it a building? Having a pastor? A programme? A Sunday meeting? Or is it two or three gathered together in the name of Jesus to be disciples and make disciples?

When we came to Fushimi last September one of our aims was to explore a different way of being church, one which focuses on the essentials of evangelism and discipleship. House churches like this are spreading rapidly across Japan as small groups of people experience Jesus together and share him with their friends.

Fushimi is a large district in the very south of Kyoto; it is one of the poorest parts of Kyoto with the second highest unemployment rate in the city. We are still finding our feet here, but we have already become involved in a number of groups of people in our local community, and God has blessed us in many ways. He's given us favour with key people and leaders within those groups, and he's brought people to us who are open to hearing about the Good News. When we moved into our apartment, one lady on our floor wanted to study the Bible with us. She soon became a Christian and we meet with her and one other lady each week. We've become the leaders of the children's committee for our residents' association, and that has helped us to get to know local families. One lady Henrietta met at a mother and baby group is reading the Bible and has asked us for prayer about a family situation.

But while God has given us a few individuals who are open to the Gospel, Japan is a group society and we are more excited about using the potential of that society to form small churches. As an example, we've also both had a burden to learn Japanese Sign Language and reach out to Japan's Deaf community, and each week we take part in a sign language group both to learn the language and also to get to know people. Our aim is to see a church - not a building or a programme, but a small group of people meeting to be disciples and make disciples - established within that sign language group and other groups we are part of. We've found one lady in that group who is connected to a Deaf church, and so our hope would be to get together with her and possibly others within the group to study the Bible together and learn more about Jesus.

That's what we want to see: the Gospel becoming rooted within groups and communities inside Japanese society, people who already know each other and trust each other sharing and prayer for each other. That's what we're praying for in Fushimi, whether you can call it a church or not!