Having started up activities last December, the Missionary Order of St. Augustine (OMSA) aspires to be an orthodox Anglican outreach in Tokyo. Our hope is ultimately to grow into a community through which many unchurched—and Tokyo arguably has the largest unchurched population of any city in the world—can come to a saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are tremendously blessed to have been given use of the space of a sister church, Mitaka Evangelical Church (MEC), where we hold traditional services of Holy Eucharist on Sunday afternoons. I had preached at MEC and addressed their large young adults’ group on several occasions. It is one of the most vibrant churches I’ve ever encountered. They have Sunday attendance running at around a hundred people (a megachurch by Japan standards) and an average congregational age of, I’d say, around 39—compared with around at least 65 for nearly all Anglican churches and many other Protestant churches. They have a lot of young and growing families. Most Japanese couples today produce below-replacement-level families. Not MEC.
Many members of MEC turned out for OMSA’s inaugural Eucharist. It was a great show of support, and very encouraging. It felt like a great way to get things off the ground for the Order.
Surprisingly to me, they kept coming back. Especially the young people. Not INSTEAD of MEC’s morning service but IN ADDITION to it. That level of commitment for young Japanese people is astonishing. Only the Holy Spirit can create such a hunger to worship.
So, perhaps I should not have been surprised by the turnout at the Ash Wednesday service last week. I was very glad to be able to observe the day, which has always been very significant to me and my family. MEC had never had an Ash Wednesday service before, and its members came in even greater numbers than on a normal Sunday, including a handful of children, despite the lateness of the hour and the fact that it was Valentine’s Day. There was a palpable excitement afterwards, with lots of talk about ashes.
At the service, I preached on the traditional Lenten disciplines: prayer, penitence, almsgiving, meditating on the Word, and fasting or “giving up” something. I went into the last topic in a bit more depth, just because it runs so counter to the consumerist mentality of modern Japanese society.
Turns out they’re all in. I found out yesterday that the young adults set up a voluntary LINE group (LINE is a chat app in Japan like WhatsApp) to share what they were giving up for Lent. Alcohol, sweets, online games, watching Instagram reel, buying too much at convenience stores. As well as how they would spend more time in the Word and in prayer. Not only that, but on Saturday they reported in on how they had fared so fare with keeping their disciplines, and how they could improve. Their earnestness is just breathtaking.
Not to mention the questions I get every week after Eucharist. How and when do we make the sign of the cross and what does it mean? When do we bow during the Creed and why? How long should we kneel during the Prayer of Consecration? Should I say Amen before receiving the host?
They’re so into it. It’s a bit hard to take in. It is not what I had envisioned starting out, but I am so grateful that God has used OMSA to touch these young men and women and help draw them into an even richer expression of their already lively faith. Down the road, I see the Lord working through them to reach others, and I pray that the Order can support them in any way possible. And that we can be another possible tool for their evangelism.
I’m very much looking forward to the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, another first in that space. Apparently, so are they.
Thanks be to God.