3.11Letters and Notes
A. To the Member Churches and Councils of the
East Asia Christian Conference Dear Friends in Christ: This year, shortly after the Asian Ecumenical Conference on Development in Tokyo, and immediately after the E.A.C.C. Continuation Committee meeting at Atami, the Urban and Industrial Committee met at the Kansai Seminar House in Kyoto, Japan, from August 5 to 7, 1970. I would like to express our common concern to you by describing briefly what I would consider the highlights of the meeting. 1. First of all, one of the most joyful things is that we see the spontaneous expansion of our work at the grassroots level. We consider that the primary emphasis of our Committee is to make the urban and industrial mission the movement of people in industrial and urban society in Asia today. It is a mission among the people, especially among depressed and suffering people in urban and industrial localities. The E.A.C.C., U.I.M. Committee exists as the organ to support such local engagement of people of God. Our Committee is the enabling committee, allowing local groups to do the concrete work in relation to the needs of suffering people in the urban and industrial society. 2. Secondly, we have been putting the emphasis on the training of leaders in the urban and industrial mission. Unless we have the people, even if we have buildings and good handbooks, there will be no assured ground for the development of our work. In this sense, this summer we were happy to witness the growth of active and responsible leadership. In the E.A.C.C., U.I.M. Training College held at the Kansai Seminar House immediately after our Committee meeting, from August 20 to September 11, we had about 25 very active young leaders who have been passionately involved in the struggling ministry in the urban and industrial society in Asia. I have confidence that the U.I.M. work will continue to develop by having this kind of committed young men and women. 3. Thirdly, we took a momentous step in Kyoto in relation to the joint action with the Roman Catholic Church on leadership training in community organisation in Asia. Harry Daniel and I made a special trip to the Philippines last March in order to make contact with leaders of the Jesuit Mission there. It was good to have Father Denis Murphy, a Jesuit missionary from the Philippines, in our meeting in Kyoto. He expressed on the part of the Catholic Church, willingness to participate in the joint programme of training in the community organisation in Asia. in chairing this meeting, I was very much overwhelmed by his making this historic decision, a decision which will bring significant results as the first regional joint action between the E.A.C.C. and the Roman Catholic Church in the field of community organisation in Asia. I was moved by this decision, partly because we could enter into this joint action with the Roman Catholic partners in our U.I.M. work in Asia, but also, I can not think of the work we will be doing without thinking of the suffering of people. The nature of the community organisation demands the deep involvement of God’s people among the suffering people in Asian cities and its industries. We have a complex feeling both in rejoicing in this new venture and in accepting the fact that we will be ready to suffer for the sake of justice and dignity of suffering people. It is a joyful decision, yet a costly decision, in order to actualise what we have decided. We need your prayers. 4. In the last three Committee meetings we have tried to sing new songs relevant to the contemporary urban and industrial situation. In Kyoto we sang together the contemporary Japanese folk songs which were compiled by John B. Walker and arranged and illustrated by a group of young people. These were published as a special issue of Church and Labor Letter No.122. We need to discover and to create new songs relevant to the urban and industrial society in Asia today. We are now beginning the new project of gathering new songs of Asian cities and industries. For this we have Professor It-c Loh of Tainan Theological Seminary. Prof. Lob came to participate in some of our meetings in Kyoto this summer. He will be travelling during the next several months to many countries in Asia in order to collect such songs. We ar~ very grateful to have his cooperation and the understanding of the Tainan Theological Seminary in releasing him for this project. It is our hope that by the time E.A.C.C. meets for the General Assembly in 1972, we can publish the New Songs of Asian Cities and to sing them together. For this, and particularly for the work of Professor Lob, we want to have your cooperation and help. 5. The last item of my concern in relation to the U.I.M. Committee Meeting is related to the personnel change. As you know, Harry Daniel was invited to be a staff member of the Division of World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches. He began this new work on October 1,1970, in Geneva. He has helped to promote substantially the pioneering work in the urban and industrial mission in Asia. We will be missing him very much. But we know he will help our work from Geneva and he will continuously be a joyful co-worker in this field. At the E.A.C.C. Continuation Committee in July, the Rev. Jae Shik Oh of Korea was decided as the successor to Harry Daniel. Rev. Oh is the General Secretary of the Korean Christian Student Federation. We welcome him in our work and look forward to the days and nights we struggle and move together in our common task. Mr. Oh and his family are planning to move to Tokyo in the near future. The Committee has decided to meet again in the Philippines from March 1 to 5, 1971. Truly Yours, B. To the Officers, Member Churches and Councils of EACC and Friends of EACC-UIM[2] Dear Friends in Christ: The Urban and Industrial Committee has met in Manila from March 1-5, 1971, in order to review its work and to plan for future action. Let me share just briefly with you some of the important points of our decisions. 1. In Manila, we officially agreed to cooperate on a joint project with the Roman Catholic Church on the training of leaders of community organisation by establishing ACCO (Asian Committee for Community Organization). The plan was formulated by the EACC-UIM Committee in Kyoto in August 1970, and was supported by the Roman Catholic counterpart, the Catholic Asian Committee for Community Organization (CASCCO) which met from October 12-15, 1970 in Lorete College, Manila. At the first official meeting of ACCO, which also met in Manila just prior to the EACC-UIM Committee Meeting, the following were appointed as the officers: Chairman, Masao Takenaka; Secretary, Fr. Denis Murphy; Members, Jae- Shik Oh and Fr. Blanco. The office of ACCO will be located at the Institute of Social Order in Manila and Mr. Jae-Shik, the EACC-UIM Secretary, will serve as the treasurer during the present year. ACCO wishes to provide an opportunity for leadership training for Community Organization in Asia. While aiming at setting a national training centre in everyone of the fifteen countries in Asia, for the time being it seeks to start a training programme which run for a duration of at least six months, in three centres; namely, Singapore, Manila, Seoul. Ron Fujiyoshi and Herb White are named as Consultants to ACCO. For detailed information of the training scheme, write to Jae-Shik Oh, c/oiapan Christian Center, 551 Totsukamachi, 1-chome, Shinj uku-ku, Tokyo 160,Japan. 2. The UIM Committee has decided to hold the next Consultation just prior to the next EACC Assembly, taking for its theme, "Celebration of People in Time of Change". Unfortunately, we do not know yet the time and date of the Assembly but it is expected to be held some time during 1972. It is expected that about 60 people will attend this Consultation, including 15 UIM National representatives, 10 local project staff, 15 local lay leaders, 13 consultants and staff and the members of the UIM Committee. 3. Further, UIM yearly-emphasis themes for the coming years were discussed and decided as follows: in 1973, "Peoples and Cities in Asia"; in 1974, "International Economic Justice in Asia"; and in 1975, "Regional Leadership Training". 4. The Directory of Urban and Industrial Mission Projects in the EACC Area was published at the time of the UIM Committee Meeting in Manila. It included most of the UIM projects in the EACC area, covering 73 projects and more than 340 people involved directly in 15 different countries. Since this is the first effort of the EACC-UIM Committee to publish a Directory, there will be some errors and omissions. We would appreciate your help in pointing these out so we can bring it up to date. 5. Another encouraging decision which the UIM Committee made at Manila was related to the concern for increasing the support of UIM work by Asian churches. At Manila, the total of $3,050 was set as the goal to be raised within Asia for the UIM work in this area. We believe that whether the amount of a contribution is large or small is not important. The important thing is to have the commitment of a number of people for the support of this work. The Committee was very enthusiastic in supporting this decision. It is a sign of selfhood of the people to see the continuation of UIM work in Asia. 6. In connection with the restructuring of EACC, after considerable discussions, the Committee made the following decisions: While expressing positively an agreement to have close cooperation of UIM with other programmes of the EACC, the Committee felt strongly the need to carry on the UIM work as it is today, as this Committee has been distinctly mandated to do. Rather than spreading the resource and energy too thinly, there is a need to continue the work of UIM with a specific identity and concentrated emphasis. This is also required for the development of the joint partnership with CASCCO, where the representative of EACC and CASCCO officially work together in the framework of ACCO as described above. 7. In regard to the publication of the folk music project, a collection of contemporary folk music related to Christian concern, this has been promoted by the visit of Professor I-to Lob, the head of the Music Department of Tainan Theological College. In July and August he will be travelling in India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam. Our aim is to compile his collection into a booklet called "New Songs in Asian Cities" to sing together at the next Assembly of EACC. Any help you can render and especially the contribution of relevant materials from your country will be deeply appreciated. For contact, please write to Professor I-to Lob, Tainan Theological College, Tainan, Taiwan. 8. In relation to the emphasis of the community organisation, we are planning to invite Saul Alinsky to visit Asia in June 1971. As many of you know, Alinsky is one of the promoters of the community organisation methods in the United States. Granted, all of what he does is not necessarily applicable to Asia, and also it is too much to expect from a relatively short visit. But a man like Alinsky will help to enlighten and promote this work for gaining understanding and interest of the wider public. It is meant to provide educational opportunity for the community organisation method, not only among the churches but also to the general public. We will let you know as soon as we have a definite itinerary, which is still in the process of finalisation. But it is good to be able to inform you that he has accepted our invitation to come to Asia. 9. Always, whenever the church tries to engage in her work in a new way, there is the question of the theological basis. We are also very conscious of this fact in our UIM work. We have published already Mission in lndustiy, an EACC Handbook on Industrial Mission, 1969, in which our theological perspective is stated. In response to further comments and questions, we have decided to continue the theological search. Dr. Kosuke kloyama, Director of the South East Asia Association of Theological Schools and Masao Takenaka are going to jointly write a booklet which will examine and clarify the theological basis of UIM work. Dr. Koyama has agreed to work on the task. He and I will be meeting in June in Kyoto to finalise our draft. 10. One of the most gratifying things in this Committee Meeting was to have the leadership of Jae-Shik Oh, our new secretary of UIM. It is ajoy to see many people like him and we appreciate his concern. He is now swimming this rough ocean of UIM in Asia with the spirit of solidarity. We are grateful to have him and would like to build up a solid teamwork aswe move to the next important years of development of UIM work in Asia. I would like to express on behalf of our Committee our sincere appreciation of your understanding and support of our work and would like to invite your continuous interest, friendly advice and criticism. Masao Takenaka C. The Need for Pioneering Missionaries: Henry Jones, A Pioneering Missionary in UIM in Asia[3] Not missionary agency but missionary movement I like to think of the missionary movement as a pioneering and spontaneous movement led by the Holy Spirit to witness to and actualise the new humanity revealed in Jesus Christ. The frontier quality and spontaneous character of a missionary movement were present from the beginning of Christian Missions. St. Paul, the first missionary in the history of the Christian church, responded spontaneously to the call of the people of Macedonia and engaged in pioneering work in the city of Philippi, the largest city in the Roman colony (Acts 16:12). There was no standing procedure or formal criteria to decide his work. He had to operate in a strange city in a new way. Yet St. Paul, through his missionary experiences, from time to time came to acknowledge that "I have many people in this city". It is conviction that, before the arrival of the Apostle, God was there as the creator of all things and Christ was there as the redeemer of all people and the Holy Spirit was there as the source of renewal. It is the work of the missionary to unveil and discover this potential power of God and help to actualise the process of mature formation, that is to bear the good fruits of the Kingdom. Today, unfortunately, this original impulse of spontaneity and the pioneering quality of the missionary movement are decreasing because of preoccupation with institutional procedures, internal political and personal rivalries and financial considerations. Increasingly mission boards are becoming bureaucratic agencies rather than participants in a spontaneous movement, continuously trying to be on the frontier of both space and time. As a result, today’s missionary movement is losing the quality of bold adventure and is increasing in its concern for maintenance and personal elevation. Thus the people in the street are not attracted. We need to revitalise the original missionary spirit and to apply it to the contemporary world in a bold new way. Henry Jones : Pioneer The Joneses came out of the background of urban and industrial cities of North America, and had the conviction that God is at work in the midst of city and industry. They first worked in Shanghai, China, the largest city in the world, immediately after World War II. The ancestors of the Joneses were Welsh people. They used to enjoy good singing and a happy agricultural life. But as the story of How Green Was My Valley tells, they experienced the miseries and sufferings of industrialisation. So the Joneses came to Asia, not with a sense of pride over the achievement of industrialisation and urbanisation in the West, but with the humble spirit of repentance by saying, "Please do not make the same mistake we made in the West." In Shanghai they experienced the beginning of the revolutionary change and the process of the recovery of selfhood of the working people of China and continuously maintained contact. After thirty years the Joneses recently visited China again and celebrated the renewed fellowship with Chinese friends equal partners in the human community. Deep yet flexible Today, living in a highly institutionalised technological society, our contacts tends to become either scattered and shallow or rigidly frozen. In the former case we have multilateral contacts yet they are very shallow only touching the surface. We seem to be doing many things but are not deeply doing the real things. Or in the latter case, one becomes involved in one particular thing yet losing the broad contacts, becoming like an enclosed fossil. The former is the temptation of church executives who attend so many meetings, conferences, consultations and assemblies covering huge territories and empires yet touching only fragmentally on the subject, just like scratching the surface. On the other hand we see many professionals and specialists who know their particular subject well but make concrete contacts either academic or pastoral. Yet the contacts they make are narrow, limited in time and space. They know what is to be done from the past experience and institutional rules. In contrast, the Joneses have made wide contacts, deeply concentrating upon the human concerns of urban and industrial society. When I first visited the Jones’ home in Tamatsukuri, Osaka, in 1955 after my study at Yale, I was amazed to see that their house was the crossroad of those who were involved in the process of humanisation in industrial society. Jones has made meaningful contacts with various specialists in the field, both Christian and non- Christian men and women, old and young. I still vividly remember that Mr. and Mrs. Jones received us with warm hospitality, including what they call Russian tea which a mixture of black tea with some kind of orange spice. Through Jones we came to know each other and to work together in a new way. Jones seldom dictated what exactly should be done. But he constantly said, "We have got to do something." If someone asked, "What should we be doing?", then he would reply without hesitation, "That’s exactly what you folks should find out." He provided the ground for common thinking and action. If we decided on a certain programme he was glad to provide full support. Therefore, the project and programme carried but never gave the impression of being the missionary’s pet project. We firmly believed this was our project. So we celebrated our gain together and sometimes we failed but shared the burden and pain of failure together. Out of such an effort at collaboration and encouragement have emerged various pioneering works of urban and industrial mission in Japan, such as the Students-in-Industry project; group work among the wives of the Japan Seamen’s Union; the singing movement among working people, with Miss Todis Petersen, graduate of Westminster Choir college, as the instructor; Shikoku Caravan by the students of Christian Women’s Colleges including Kobe College, Seiwa College and Tokyo Women’s College; Promotion of labour education programmes in the Kansai and Hamamatsu; providing the international linkages to Japanese trade union leaders, encouraging the development of Christian group in job- context, such as National Railroad Evangelical Fellowship, fostering the training programme among the theological seminaries which eventually led the formation of the Kansai Industrial Mission, a newly organised effort among three districts of the United Church (Kyodan), namely, Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto together with three schools, Theological School of Kwansai Gakuin, School of Theology, Doshisha University and Seiwa College, to train the Christian leaders in urban and industrial ministries. I do not mean that these works have happened solely by the initiative of Jones. But no one can deny the fact these and other works connected with the urban-industrial mission can not be understood without considering the relevant and constant support of Jones directly and indirectly. He knew how to help people interrelate and form a team to work together. Two concrete examples In order to illustrate the way in which Jones has worked, let me introduce two examples. In the spring of 1956, Dr. Toru Yamazaki, Dean of the School of Theology, Doshisha University, had difficulty persuading two students of the graduating class to come to the pioneering work of industrial mission in Hokkaido, Japan’s northern islands. One of the students said, "I came from Kyushu, the south. I have no intention of working in the northern island." The other said, "I am willing to serve any church. But my background is typically intellectual, middle class. I’d like to know the exact situation in Hokkaido." Both of them demanded specific information. Yet the Dean could not satisfy their needs. So I was asked by Dean Yamazaki to go with him to visit Henry Jones to gain more information since the two places were connected with industrial situations in Kushiro and Muroran. On a cold day in February 1956, I went to Jones’ home with two students. Jones not only received them warmly but provided much factual information in regard to the population, location, economic situation and social expectation of the two places in question. And he challenged the young students by pin-pointing on the map how Hokkaido will develop in the next twenty years by saying, "The church must be the pioneer and we must be there before, not after, the historical development." The two students who were very uncertain about their appointment in the frontier ministry in Hokkaido on the way to the Jones’ home, returned to Kyoto with the encouragement and commitment to accept their assignments in Hokkaido. Both have performed very significant pioneering ministry for more than ten years and have formed solid Christian communities in these two cities. Another concrete example in Jones’ effort to enlighten and encourage missionaries and national leaders to understand and to be involved in urban and industrial mission. He tried every possible way to persuade and encourage people towards their goal. He utilised various forms of literature, publications, movies, dramas, songs, slides posters, lectures and discussions in order to promote urban and industrial mission. The Church Labour Letter was originally begun in January 1954 in Geneva jointly by Henry Jones and John Hamlin in order to stimulate others by the exchange of actual experience. It stated the purpose:
Jones knew this was a pioneering work which meant that no one was sure what should be done. It was a new field in which everyone must learn from each others’ experience. In the same issue he stated, "The greatest mission field in the world today is industrialised or ‘mass’ man, whether in the United States, Russia, China, India or Latin America." Only a few things are clear in this field of work:
Challenge of Industrial Mission in Asia Jones had a conviction that the kind of industrialisation which had just begun would be rapidly accelerated all over Asia. Therefore, he urged the leaders of churches in Asia and mission boards to promote the work. Thus the First Asian Conference on Industrial Evangelism was held in June 2-13, 1958, with Benjamin I. Guansing as a chairman, Dai Kitagawa, lecturer, Henry Jones, organiser and myself as educational director. It was the beginning of what we now call Urban-Rural Mission of Christian Conference of Asia. Here again Jones knew his role of being enabler and supporter rather than main actor or director. Having attained the original purpose, toward the end of the conference, the participants voted that Jones be invited to promote the work in Asia. While appreciating the strong confidence placed on him by fellow Asians, Jones insisted that "You folks should carry the work." At no time in history can we say the day of Mission is over. We are continuously called to participate in His mission which is going on in new ways. Jones reminds us of the frontier character of mission. Whenever we reflect on his life and the service which he performed with his wife, Maurine, we are challenged to be responsible participants in God’s mission in these days.
|