Alone in a crowd

In a city of 13+ million people, there is scarcely a place to stand or sit without another person close by in Tokyo.  However even with a multitude of people constantly surrounding each other, there is still a sense of loneliness and disconnection within the society.  Isolation has become the norm and one of the most troubling statistics is that the single person household became the largest category amongst all household types in 2010.  

When we accept Christ as our Lord our savior, not only do we build a personal relationship with our loving creator but we are inducted into God’s family.  Each member individually may be lacking and incomplete but blessed with gifts of the Spirit each serve a unique function in one body to further the kingdom of God. ref. Romans 12:4-8

Grace City Church, in the heart of Tokyo, started about 3 years ago and with a growing community of 100+ regular attendees is such a place that invites the lonely and disconnected (and those not so lonely or disconnected) into God’s family.  It’s consists of mostly of Tokyo locals but also foreigners living abroad and those committed to serving full time in Japan.  With our work this week at the English camp, we hope to support the Grace Harbor Project church plant members in building the sense of community necessary to start the 1^st of hopefully many sister churches starting in the Tokyo Harbor district.

One of the most memorable moments of this trip for me will be navigating Tokyo’s subway system with its trains, tunnels, and stairs along with the other PCC mission team members on the way to visit Grace City Church.  As we continued our journey hopping subway lines, we began picking up new friends along the way.  Atsushi, who left a steady job as an application specialist in a hospital to serve full time on the church plant team.  The Radke family, Sean and Lisa and their 3 kids, who moved from Indiana to work with the same team.  Yoco and Hiroa (sp) and their young children, regular church attendees whom the Spirit has begun to push toward the truth of the Gospel.  So we became quite a caravan sharing the weight of bags, kids, strollers, etc. on our journey.  A thought crossed my mind that it seemed like a small illustration of our Christian walk.  Not meant to be undertaken alone but shouldering each other’s burdens in pursuit of Christ.