By Rev. Iwao Satoh, Japan Presbytery
What is the character and identity of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church today? Rev. George Estes introduced me to the word glocal (global+local) during the first Global Ministries Retreat held in Memphis in 2008, and I think that that would be the word that describes the reality of our church today. We now have Cumberland Presbyterian churches in at least 10 countries. All these churches strive to reach out to the communities in which they are located, yet as a denomination, we are also connected deeply with churches in other communities, regardless of where we live.
Let me illustrate the idea by using the spider. Spiders constantly rebuild their webs. They secure the webs by adding more strands and connectioning to the branches of trees (or the walls of our homes). Similarly, our church can spread globally as we connect to the local communities in each country where we have a presence. When a single strand (i.e., a connection with a local church) is cut off, the whole web (the church at large) becomes damaged and loses its balance. So, we should be a global church, yet must remain connected to each local community like a web. The choice should not be between one or the other—rather, we must be both simultaneously. We cannot be a global church if we lose our commitment to a local church. Because we may sometimes tend to focus only on our local community or our own country unknowingly, we must be more deliberate about developing relationships that honor the differences between cultures. This is how we can spin a global web. This is how we strengthen a global denomination.
The United States used to be the country that sent missionaries throughout the rest of the world, and actually, Asian churches still need more missionaries from the Cumberland Presbyterian churches in the U.S. today. However, missions need not be a one-way relationship any more. Today, we are building the two-way relationship fruitfully. Japan Presbytery has invited Ms. RheAnn White to serve as an English teacher for the local churches in Japan, and I trust that she will soon be accustomed to life in Tokyo and enjoy the fellowship here. But as an example of a two-way relationship, I am moving to the U.S. very soon to start a Japanese Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Kentucky! There is already a group of Japanese people awaiting my arrival. One hundred and fifty years ago, the Hail brothers became the first missionaries sent by the women’s board of our church. I personally would like to exemplify their missionary spirit in traveling to the U.S. to minister to the Japanese congregation there.
And this is not someone else’s story. It is our story! We are spinning a global web. Every web begins with a single strand. We might be able to write an e-mail to a sister in Venezuela, use Facebook to connect to a brother in Brazil. We could save coins for the children in Colombia and Philippines. We might begin learning some simple Spanish, Chinese, Korean or Japanese words and phrases and then send brief notes to Christians who speak those languages. Even though they don’t understand English, they are still a part of us. Let us demonstrate our global nature in a tangible way!
May the Holy Spirit breathe new life into us wherever we live!
