A Place of Belonging

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n international church-planting team working with the Japan Union Conference recently opened Yanagi Square, an urban center of influence (UCI) in downtown Tokyo, Japan. Before purchasing the property, the missionary team settled into the community and crafted ministry plans that were in harmony with Japanese culture and would meet the community’s most pressing needs.

The team chose the name Yanagi, Japanese for willow trees, the type of tree lining the avenue where the UCI is located. They adopted the Japanese concept of ibasho, a place of belonging, as the philosophy behind this UCI. They chose one of the team’s Japanese families, rather than one of the international families, to live in the apartment above the UCI because they felt this family would fit in better. All this was done to become part of the local community and culture, to meet their neighbors’ needs, and to win their hearts to God, just like Jesus did.

This UCI is part of Mission Unusual—Tokyo! (MUT), a church-planting program run by the Japan Union Conference. MUT focuses on forming relationships with people and helping them become disciples of Jesus. The initial goal of the MUT program is to form 30 new groups of Adventist believers, and the UCI is an integral part of the plan.

As soon as the MUT mission team assembled in December 2020, they started looking for a suitable place for a UCI in downtown Tokyo, but everything was too expensive. They had no money except a grant that only could be used for operational purposes. “We were just praying because we knew from a human perspective, it was impossible,” said MUT program director Yure Gramacho.

They applied to the Winifred Stevens Foundation, a private foundation, and received a generous grant. But they were sure it still wasn’t enough.

“We said, ‘OK, let’s just rely totally on God,’” Gramacho said. “And when we started to pray more intensely, out of the blue, this place just appeared.”

It was exactly what they were looking for. “It’s in a mixed-use area, residential and commercial together, and the property is on the ground floor, which is ideal for wheelchair accessibility, elderly people, and mothers with strollers,” Gramacho explained.

Amazingly, the grant money was more than they needed to purchase the property. A month later, they heard that an apartment was for sale right above the UCI, where the UCI coordinator could live and connect with the residents of the building.

“This connection with the community is really important in Japan,” Gramacho said. “The idea of ibasho is not that we are going to the community to help them out but that we are from this community, and we are serving with our community. It is a totally incarnational ministry.”

The price of the apartment was the exact amount the team had remaining from the grant. They saw this as a clear sign of God’s approval and purchased it.

On October 28, 2023, after remodeling the apartment and the UCI, the missionary team met in the apartment for a house church worship. They then prayed over the UCI, the residents of the building, and the neighborhood in preparation for opening the UCI to the community. Then, they invited all the residents in the building to a preopening event on November 3 and 5. Would these families, who are part of a culture where Christians are in the minority and people tend to be suspicious of religion, receive Yanagi Square as part of their community?

On Friday, November 3, 3 of the 16 families in the building attended. On Sunday, 10 more families came, bringing flowers, cards, and sweets, the traditional gifts for a new business. Some gave money to support this new ibasho that was becoming part of their community.

After the preopening event, the building association leader asked Nozomu Obara, MUT’s associate director who had just moved into the second-floor apartment, whether they could use the place for the year-end celebration for the building residents. “The fact that she has already requested to use this place made it a moment of celebration for us,” Gramacho said. “These responses from our first official interaction with the community are a strong sign that we are building trust.”

Please pray for the Yanagi Square UCI team as they move toward their goals of creating workshops, social activities, and clubs to address local social challenges; plan times for worship and Bible studies; and seek ways to become self-sustaining and a continual part of the community.

The MUT mission team hopes this story will inspire your church to use its facilities to serve your community. Become the place of belonging for everyone in your area!