Worship (and Coffee) with Grace Fellowship

January 11th, 2009

The evening service in the rented space of Grace fellowship provides a chance for people to enjoy an English-language worship event. Whether you are a language student (or teacher!) or an international visitor, there's a hearty welcome to be found!

Held in a community centre, the service at Grace was preceded by a shared meal, giving the members a chance to catch up with the previous week's news. Relaxed and informal, we sang songs together and Martin Ghent gave us all something to think about with his sermon on spiritual gifts. (There was also a short message aimed at the children, but I admit, it taught me a lot that I didn't know about the Amazon River!) I also had a chance to give my testimony, although I think I may have spoken a bit too fast for everyone to understand me...

We weren't ready to say goodbye right after the service, though - after packing everything away, most of us went on to the local coffee shop. It was a great chance to have some social time together, with great coffee and a fair few laughs!

- Jonathan

First Sunday Service

Praise God that Sunday November 23 saw the first meeting of the new Grace Fellowship! The service was in English and there were quite a few new faces. Tom and Sarah, from the US, joined us with their 3 boys and 2 girls, as well as Karen, an interpreter from New Zealand. It was good to also see some of the familiar faces from International Chapel. A couple of students who are not believers yet from the English conversational class held before the service also joined us.

Due to the nature of the fellowship, Grace consists predominantly of short-term, transient members. Please pray that the Lord would strengthen the fellowship and that attendees would be committed to meeting regularly and serving one another. Also ask the Lord to provide a committed, long-term core group of Christians so that we can see Grace become a permanent flourishing house of God where his name is glorified, a permanent fellowship of the Japanese church and not just of the expat community.

Thanksgiving party

Grace Fellowship had a Thanksgiving celebration on last Saturday (Nov 29). Praise God for the many people that came! About 70 people attended, mostly non-believers!

We enjoyed a turkey dinner, with some delicious home-made pies afterwards. The evening also featured Michael and Miyo giving a presentation where they told the history of Thanksgiving in the US. This was illustrated by a traditional Japanese-style kamishibai, where pictures on a back-lit translucent roll of paper are rolled along to show one frame of the story at a time.

We also enjoyed a time of singing songs of thankfulness to God, lead by the short-term team from Australia. Martin gave a message about what place we give God in our lives, and that we mustn't give him just a single "slice of the pie" but instead put him at the center of all we do and are thankful for.

Join with us in thanking God for all that he has done for us in starting up Grace Fellowship and for bringing so many people to us who do not yet believe.