TOKYO (UCAN) – Reverend Kazunori Maruyama who became the pastor of the Koganei Church of The United Church of Christ in Japan in 2008 once attended an ecumenical prayer meeting in the city only to be left feeling it to be “very rigid” at that time.
The prayer meetings were held four times a year on Saturdays with the participation of no more than a dozen pastors and laypeople. Some felt it was a great burden to attend this kind of meeting.
Reverend Maruyama asked Father Ryotaro Yamamoto of the Koganei Catholic Church why there was no involvement by the Catholic Church. The Tokyo archdiocesan priest replied that he was busy on Saturday.
Since the churches of Reverend Maruyama and Father Yamamoto are only several minutes’ bicycle-ride apart, the two clergymen started visiting each other’s churches.
They invited other Christian clergy in the neighborhood to join them.
By the autumn of 2008, there were 11 churches represented at the meeting, and in January 2009, they established the Koganei Christian Network (KC-NET).
Meetings of ministers and priests were held three times a year. During the meetings, the clerics spelled out “their wish to hold some specific activity together.”
They then decided to prepare a common leaflet to notify the public in Tokyo’s Koganei district about Christmas services and Masses. The leaflet, like those commonly used to announce sales at department stores and supermarkets, was inserted in newspapers delivered to homes.
The pamphlet featured a map showing the locations of the 11 churches, while the back showed photos of the pastors and priests as well as their addresses and phone numbers.
Residents of Koganei could choose a church near their homes. Reverend Maruyama hoped the leaflet would give people a chance to know about the Church. Copies of the leaflet were sent to 32,000 families before Christmas.
Koganei Catholic Church received many calls regarding the Christmas Mass.
One pastor said he remembered other Churches in his service. “We have become aware of other Churches,” he said, calling it an extra benefit of the leaflet.
On Jan. 31, the KC-Net held its first ecumenical prayer gathering at Koganei Catholic Church, led by Father Yamamoto. Some 150 people from nine churches took part.
The priest stressed in his homily that the seeds of faith have been sown in Koganei and now the task for all the churches is to cooperate in the work of evangelization. He also asked everyone to continue their efforts for ecumenism.
Miyoko Mochizuki, a 56-year-old Catholic laywoman, said, “The prayer was so ardent that I felt the unity of the Church.”
Katsuya Osawa, a 35-year-old seminarian from the Tokyo Free Methodist Church, praised the meeting as “epochal.”
The KC-Net includes the Catholic Church, Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Japan Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Tokyo Free Methodists, Japan Alliance Church, Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican), Japan Holiness Church, United Church of Christ in Japan and the Mennonite Church.
(Published in UCAN News, February 15)
The prayer meetings were held four times a year on Saturdays with the participation of no more than a dozen pastors and laypeople. Some felt it was a great burden to attend this kind of meeting.
Reverend Maruyama asked Father Ryotaro Yamamoto of the Koganei Catholic Church why there was no involvement by the Catholic Church. The Tokyo archdiocesan priest replied that he was busy on Saturday.
Since the churches of Reverend Maruyama and Father Yamamoto are only several minutes’ bicycle-ride apart, the two clergymen started visiting each other’s churches.
They invited other Christian clergy in the neighborhood to join them.
By the autumn of 2008, there were 11 churches represented at the meeting, and in January 2009, they established the Koganei Christian Network (KC-NET).
Meetings of ministers and priests were held three times a year. During the meetings, the clerics spelled out “their wish to hold some specific activity together.”
They then decided to prepare a common leaflet to notify the public in Tokyo’s Koganei district about Christmas services and Masses. The leaflet, like those commonly used to announce sales at department stores and supermarkets, was inserted in newspapers delivered to homes.
The pamphlet featured a map showing the locations of the 11 churches, while the back showed photos of the pastors and priests as well as their addresses and phone numbers.
Residents of Koganei could choose a church near their homes. Reverend Maruyama hoped the leaflet would give people a chance to know about the Church. Copies of the leaflet were sent to 32,000 families before Christmas.
Koganei Catholic Church received many calls regarding the Christmas Mass.
One pastor said he remembered other Churches in his service. “We have become aware of other Churches,” he said, calling it an extra benefit of the leaflet.
On Jan. 31, the KC-Net held its first ecumenical prayer gathering at Koganei Catholic Church, led by Father Yamamoto. Some 150 people from nine churches took part.
The priest stressed in his homily that the seeds of faith have been sown in Koganei and now the task for all the churches is to cooperate in the work of evangelization. He also asked everyone to continue their efforts for ecumenism.
Miyoko Mochizuki, a 56-year-old Catholic laywoman, said, “The prayer was so ardent that I felt the unity of the Church.”
Katsuya Osawa, a 35-year-old seminarian from the Tokyo Free Methodist Church, praised the meeting as “epochal.”
The KC-Net includes the Catholic Church, Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Japan Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Tokyo Free Methodists, Japan Alliance Church, Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican), Japan Holiness Church, United Church of Christ in Japan and the Mennonite Church.
(Published in UCAN News, February 15)
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment