About the situation at the time of my arrival (2012), especially the Holy Day service

About the situation at the time of my arrival (2012), especially the Holy Day service

　As the title says, I arrived in April 2012, succeeding my predecessor, the senior pastor who had built a chapel called "Church of Light. As had been rumored among pastors for some time, the atmosphere of the worship service had almost collapsed, as described below, with about 20 tourists, 70% or 80% of whom were foreigners, visiting the church, out of about 50 church members-related people attending at that time.

　Of course, if devout Christians were gathering to worship, the problem would be lessened, but the majority of tourists were not Christians but visitors who were there for Tadao Ando's representative architecture, and many of them seemed to have no choice but to attend the service, even if they were interested in it. Some people talked among themselves, and others drank from plastic bottles. The worst of all was the endless number of people taking pictures during the worship service, which is prohibited.

　We addressed the issue of manners in worship, including filming, by quickly drafting worship guidelines, and establishing a system to ask visitors to please mind their manners. But there are always those who have the audacity to not follow the rule.

　If I warned them in advance, they would start taking pictures before the service, and if I warned them again, they would stop for a while, but they would still be unhappy. During the service, three or four visitors chatted with each other for a long time.

When I was giving a sermon from the pulpit, wondering if I should say a word of warning, they suddenly leave their seats taking pictures of their surroundings with their cameras.

　Frankly, it makes me and the other worship attendees feel very uncomfortable. For example, it is like when you are forced to go home angry because of a very bad-mannered person sitting nearby you at a concert, instead of being comforted by the music. These things happen as a daily occurrence that repeats itself week after week, week after week, as if such unpleasant experiences were permanent.

　A pattern that is rather common among Japanese people is the contemptuous attitude such as, "Religion is so weird. This is probably due to a prejudice against religion, or perhaps the fact that both anti-social new religions and traditional religions that continue to be practiced with modesty are mixed up together, and the Japanese people have a very low opinion of religion as a whole. There are some people who treat church member volunteers who serve as receptionists with an attitude as if they are looking down on something dirty. The atmosphere of the worship service will change to something different if they are prepared with an irreverent attitude before and during the service.

In addition to these problems of manners during the service, there is also the problem of capacity, which is one of the physical factors that the "Church of Light" building itself can only accommodate about 100 people. Another factor is the limitation of the number of staff in charge of serving newcomers. The volunteers who take them to their seats are exhausted and worn out. Moreover, there are few physically fit young people in the church, and as a result, elderly church members in their 70s and 80s move around as if they were waitstaff at a restaurant at lunchtime, which is not only exhausting but also a heavy burden.

As a new pastor, my mission at the time was to find a solution to these problems. (To be continued in the next issue)