Early Thanksgiving

We had an early Thanksgiving meal on Monday. This was the first of two meals that our church will serve.

Monday is a Japanese holiday (Thursday is a regular workday), so many local people were able to come.

Those that are off on Thursday can come for the second meal.

In addition to lots of people, there was a lot of good food, plus some games and video.

The girls gave their approval.

Saving the best for last: Pastor Tim gave a neat message about just as we need physical food for our bodies to live, we also need spiritual food (Jesus is the Bread of Life).

Good Times.

Talking to the OCHEA kids

Today we got to speak to the kids of OCHEA. OCHEA stands for the Okinawa CHristian Educators Association (AKA Home-schoolers). We joined this year when Emi began Kindergarten (she is due to start Japanese Kindergarten this April).

This group of kids meet together to have class together. They have a Missions Class on Fridays and we were asked to share about our life and ministry. Since the ages ranged from 4 - 15, we decided to have a few games to keep their interest.

We were impressed with the good questions that they asked and we had a good time.

Audience of One

Have you ever noticed how much a church resembles a theatre?

Up in the front is the stage, where the "performers" are. The congregation, or audience sits in chairs or pews in the back. While this is probably necessary for practical reasons, it does not encourage the proper attitude of worship.

In a theatre, you want to be entertained. Hey, why not, you're a paying audience member, right?

However, in the church, we are not the audience, God is. And the Worship Team are not the performers, we all are.

When we keep the proper perspective on what worship really is, unimportant things like a different style of worship don't matter. A true worshipper is able to worship anywhere.

Why we need to share our faith

I'm not a fan of Penn Jillette. In fact, I had never heard of him before I saw this video. He is apparently a big celebrity magician. He is also an atheist and very anti-religion/ anti-bible.

So why post a video of him? Well it isn't often that we get advice about sharing our faith from an atheist.

Note that it wasn't what was said, but how it was said that made an impact. We need to talk to people instead of at them.

Anyway, watch the video:

"How much do you have to hate someone to not proselytize?"