Church

One thing I thought I'd write about is my church in Yokohama. I don't know how typical this church was - I'd say probably not very! - but in case you're interested to hear about church-going in Japan...

I found the church online; it was an ordinary, I guess you'd say Protestant, church. The reason I chose it was because it was multinational and bilingual - I didn't want to go to a church with only other ex-pats, since I was living in Japan, but nor did I want to go with only Japanese, where I wouldn't understand anything.

In that sense, this was perfect; there was a good mix of Japanese and international people attending. The church was led/run by Japanese Hawaiians, who spoke fluent English and Japanese. They gave the church a unique flavour; a lot of people wearing Hawaiian shirts, wearing leis, doing the shaka sign during the messages, etc. It gave it a nice, laid-back feel.

The church had one other quirk, which was that it didn't have a fixed location. There were four or five different venues, and the church moved from place to place according to the week and the venue availability. I got to see some new streets in Yokohama this way. ^_^

The meetings were bilingual. This manifested itself in three main ways:
-overhead projections were in both languages. For example, if we sang a song, there would be perhaps a couple of verses in English, then a Japanese version of the same.
-messages were translated. For example, the pastor would speak in Japanese, and have an assistant translating after every couple of sentences.
-when they handed out message notes, they had copies in both English and Japanese

You might think that it would be disjointed to have messages translated. But the translators were good at their job, and I rather liked it. First, it was good Japanese practice. Then, it meant the messages were usually kept a bit more direct and simple, rather than roaming into obscure theological tangents. Also, hearing a message at a slower pace, bit by bit, gave you more time to think about what you were hearing.

I liked this church. I only went for a few months, but it was a friendly place that seemed to preach the truth. This blog post is not meant to be an ad, but I might as well post the link, since I would recommend it: New Hope Yokohama.