In December, I sat next to Carlos on a bullet train, hurtling from Tokyo to Hamamatsu to visit a pastor named Felipe. Carlos was baptized at our church plant in Tokyo in 2021. He is from Brazil and works at a large company in Tokyo. I brought him with me to Hamamatsu because the church we were looking to support there speaks Portuguese and Japanese and is composed of Brazilians, Japanese, and Japanese Brazilians. I asked him to be my cultural translator and help me evaluate this church.
On the ride back, Carlos held up his hand parallel to the ground and said, “In Tokyo, we are reaching the top of society; people in large companies, who studied abroad, who speak English, and have money to live in Tokyo.” He held up his other hand a foot below the other, “But, in Hamamatsu, they are reaching the bottom of society who have little money and work in the automotive plants.” Then he added with a smile, “It’s really brilliant if you think about it.”
It’s true. This part of Japan is home to less wealthy Japanese citizens and immigrants who work long shifts at auto parts manufacturing plants so they can send money back home to their families in Brazil, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other countries. The pastor left Brazil to work there without a full salary to take the gospel to these people in Japan, who are often overlooked. He has worked without financial support for eight years, working construction part-time to put food on the table. The church has met in the homes of three different families because they could not afford the venue in their city for $100 a week. The pastor told me they wanted to do more and reach more people, but they did not have the finances to rent the venue or even pay him to work full-time.
Jump to an elders meeting in downtown Tokyo at the end of last year. The four elders, I, and three other men appointed as elders in 2024, discussed the situation and decided to use some of the Tokyo church’s mission fund, collected from the 10% our local church gives in yen, to support the church plant in Hamamatsu.
Rarely am I so moved by a vote in a meeting to ratify a financial decision. But God has allowed me to see the story arc and the way that the mission of God is a story of passion for Jesus among all people, spreading from local church to local church around the world and throughout generations. I remember Christ’s Church of Oronogo’s leaders voting to support us, deciding to make us part of a capital campaign, and deciding to lend operational support to our mission. At the time, we were a far cry from a sound investment. We were a small team with few resources and big prayers for our city. By God‘s grace and power, our small team turned into a network of churches. A few of them have grown to the point of establishing local eldership. One of them just paid it forward for another team, with few resources and big prayers for their city.
Imagine all the story arcs we will get to connect one day in heaven, where we see just how far the tiny mustard-seed-sized kingdom of God has grown into a massive tree.
BLOG AUTHOR:
Laya McAllister
Laya grew up at Christ’s Church and is currently a student at Ozark Christian College.
Jay + Caitlin Greer
The Greers work with Mustard Seed Network to plant churches in unreached areas. In 2011, they planted their first church in Osaka, Japan, and in 2020, they planted a church in Tokyo, the core of the world’s largest urban area by both population (37 million people) and economy ($2 trillion). This church continues to grow and is part of a larger church-planting movement to reach Japan with the hope of Christ.
