By: Chef Tamago
Some of the finest disciples I have met are Japanese. Their culture promotes active, full participation in whatever they have publicly enjoined. They invest in what they choose to pursue. They dress the part, talk the part, go all out to establish their association with the culture of the event. In Christianity, however, the expectations are not so clearly defined. There is no consistent attire or behavior specifically assigned to the role of ‘church goer,’ so it takes a long time for someone who has entered into this new cultural context to settle into the role of being a Christian. Thus, when it comes to active roles within a church, the Japanese seem quite willing to allow others to take the lead, particularly if it is a missionary-established church. Apart from the known behavior of helping to set up and clean up, etc., they often do not know what to do. I admit this is a broad generalization, for there are many Japanese who are fully engaged in living out their faith in Christ. Additionally, those who don’t are not different from what we experience in a western church context, honestly. So, why bring up the concern of discipleship?
There are three things the missionary must keep in mind. First, it is the Holy Spirit who woos someone to become a seeker. Second, it is in receiving a message of truth that will captivate the soul and start a new conviction, i.e., a journey toward Jesus. Lastly, that conviction will not last if there is nothing to sustain it. We partner with The Holy Lord through prayer with the first goal in mind, and in our invitational witnessing, join in the second. It is in this third thing that I am focusing on in this article. People do not ‘become’ in a vacuum of example, we learn what we see and experience. If there is a lack of genuine discipleship in any church, it may well be that those who are leading are not demonstrating a conviction of belief in the reality of Our Saving Lord.
Serving alongside many missionaries over the last 40 years, I have noticed that some of the struggles that go along with evangelism overlap with the Japanese lack of entering into discipleship. In part, this is because much of what it means to be a Christian happens in secret. Our personal devotion times and family prayers, etc., are not typically visible to the public, nor broadcast to the church often. The early church was so well known for living out their faith. They attracted both seekers and persecutors because there was something publicly visible. They lived and behaved differently than the society around them, though often their physical appearance was much the same. There was an advantage in their circumstance because the pagan cultural norms were so different from what a Christian life was meant to look like. In Japan, however, the contrast is not so sharp. How is the Christian to be visible, then, in a culture that is already so well behaved?
Discipleship itself is the pursuance of learning to be like the subject of their commitment. Discipleship does not begin once one makes a commitment to Jesus Christ. It begins when one sees something of value in another life and wants to emulate that. If the person is not able to be present with the subject of their discipleship, their only option is to be present with those who are further along this discipleship journey. In other words, we become the example of what discipleship looks like right and need to allow our public and private expressions of faith to be visible. We need to continue to be discipled ourselves, for “no student is greater than his Master.” (Mt 10:24)
How is your discipleship journey going? Are you allowing culture to dictate the terms of your faith, or is your discipleship growing daily? With the plethora of public opinion thrown in our faces, we do well to not only seek to ignore it, but draw away from it. We have, in other words, a godly source to define our cultural beliefs, social actions, and public pronouncements, The Righteous One, in whose image we have been created. That image will always be an example of all that is better, truer, more holy, regardless of the culture we serve.