Communal Dance and the Holy Spirit?

On Thursday, July 15, 2010 my family witnessed this Obon Festival dance just a few blocks from our apartment building in Tsukuda Jima (on the other side of our building from the post below). Festivals like these happen all over Tokyo. By the end of the month there will be two more in different areas within walking distance.

The hypnotic singing of this older gentleman continued for 2 hours straight three nights in a row. He sings and the whole neighborhood dances around him. I'm told this same dance and song, which is particular to this small neighborhood, has been going on for hundreds of years. I had no idea before this festival how particularized each festival is to the small neighborhood where it occurs.

The dance is a friendly welcoming of the spirits...the gods, people who have lived in that area in the past, and dead ancestors. Being on an island, this particular festival also prays for blessings upon dead bodies who were found by fishermen flowing down the river and those with no relatives or friends when they die.

It really made me wonder...what would a Japanese to celebrate Pentecost look like? A dance to welcome the Holy Spirit? And what about this style of music in worship? Would it be called traditional worship or contemporary worship? Obviously, neither! It would be something new and unique. It would be Japanese. It would be a renewing of Japanese culture and not a remaking of American culture (as most Japanese Christian worship is). It seems to me that this is what we need to strive for. I pray that more and more Japanese artists will become Christians and have the skill and wisdom to reach deep down into Japanese hearts to worship God. Who knows what the result will look and feel like?

First Adult Baptism at Grace City Church

Grace City Church celebrated for the first time the baptism of an adult during the worship service on June 27, 2010. Sayaka Yoshida was first introduced to Christianity through the community of Oyumino Church, started by my missionary team in Chiba. When Grace City started, she then became a frequent attender of the church and the worship team. We are all very excited for her.

This video was taken during the prayer for her just after she was baptized.

Roger Speaking about Japan

I gave a concert at First Baptist Church in downtown Jacksonville, Florida as part of their evening service on May 3, 2009. I am told 5,000 people were in attendance. This excerpt is what I said about Japan during the service. My wife, Abi, was just about to give birth to our third son at this time, hence the comments about babies in the beginning.

Pictures from the trip

The group also enjoyed picking cotton, shooting guns, riding in the back of pick-up trucks, riding a huge rice picker, singing on the radio, and sitting in the cockpit of a crop duster. Here are some pictures from the trip along with music recorded at one of their events.

Gospel Voices of Japan

October 10-20, 2008, a group of 10 Japanese came over to find the roots of gospel music in Mississippi and Memphis. It was an extremely powerful trip where God moved in so many ways. Here is some of the group singing at Greater Community Temple COGIC in Memphis.

General Assembly

Abi and I had the honor of helping to lead worship at this year's General Assembly for the Presbyterian Church of Japan. Over 300 pastors and elders attended from every Presbyterian church in Japan. It was also the first time ever in the history of the church to have a contemporary worship style in the meeting. Change comes slow in Japan...but it comes!

Chiba Area Worship Seminar

We spent this past Monday, October 8, with other worship musicians in the Chiba region talking about issues concerning keyboardists in Japanese churches, especially in the Presbyterian Church. I was one of the guest clinicians along with my wife. Here were some of the questions we were asked from the group we were working with: What is more appropriate for worship...traditional or contemporary? How do you decide the tempo of a hymn? How do you keep a hymn from getting slower and slower? Does the worship musician lead or accompany? In praise songs, should you play the melody on the page or make up a melody? How do you make the melody stand out on the organ? etc. I was a little surprised at how basic the questions were. The worship resources (teachers, musicians, songs, books, etc) in Japan are fewer than you would believe.

This was only the third worship seminar the Presbyterian Church of Japan had ever done. It was encouraging to see how much interest there was from musicians and that the church is trying to help support their musicians. One of the speakers said "Let's never forget how important our worship musicians are." It was the first time we had ever gone to a worship seminar in Japan, but I think we will be attending many events like this in the future.