I had the privilege of leading our Faith Community Church’s first Worship Team mission trip to Japan in December 2024. Over the next few posts, I share on what took place during the trip and some of my learnings.
“Worship ministry mission trips hit different,” so said one of our team members after a time of worship and prayer in the Fukuoka Mission House.
I have long wrestled with how worship and missions intersect.
John Piper’s seminal work, Let the Nations Be Glad, at least gives us the theological basis:
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.
Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice, let the many coastlands be glad!” (Ps 97:1). “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Ps 67:3-4).
But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out “let the nations be glad!” if they cannot say from the heart “I rejoice in the Lord … I will be glad and exult in you, I will sing praise to your name, O Most High ” (Pss 104:34; 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.
I think I caught a glimpse of the pragmatic role that worship plays in missions during our Worship Team mission trip to Fukuoka in December 2024.
Preparation
Faith Community Church’s (FCC) missionary to Fukuoka, Sam Chew, reminded me that we had begun talking about sending a worship team on missions there even before she had left for Japan.
I began talking to our worship ministry more seriously about taking a team in around December 2023. I remember the sense of anxiety of “putting myself out there”; that no one would respond to the call; and that the trip would have ended even before it started.
However, God provided the necessary manpower. In retrospect, I could not have asked for a better team.
In the end, those who agreed to come were: Allan, Charis, Joe, Welina, Kaylee, Jackie, Lester Sim (to whom we were later to refer as Chisai Lester or “small Lester”), Ling, Kevin and Maycie. Charis, Joe, Chisai Lester and I were worship leaders at FCC; Allan was also a worship leader in his own right and a missions coordinator to Cambodia. Welina and Ling saw themselves as supportive spouses and Maycie had been “worship adjacent” for some time, having a keen interest in worship ministry even though she didn’t serve in it. Kevin prepared with us in anticipation of his own call to the field to Kagoshima (a city four-hours’ drive due south of Fukuoka) in September 2024.
I was at first hesitant about Kaylee’s involvement, since she was only 2 years old. My initial thoughts were that the mission field was spiritually dangerous ground and was no place for a child. Balanced against that was the fact that I really wanted Joe to come along and he had prayed about it, feeling led that this would be something his entire family would embark upon (I had to learn how to trust the Holy Spirit’s leading in others!).
Even then, Kaylee surprised us. She was precocious and bold. During our ministry to seniors, she approached people to shake hands and danced in front of the crowd when we sang carols. She often drew a crowd as we were busking as she danced in the middle of the crowded shopping areas. She was the epitome of kawaii and readily broke the ice for us to approach people in conversation.
God had provided the right team members despite my fear and anxiety!
God provided financially, too. For years, since becoming a business owner, I have always had to pay more tax than I would budget for. In May 2024, as Ling and I were about to buy our plane tickets to Japan, I was surprised to learn that this year, I would be getting a tax refund! The amount of the refund more than covered our airfares.
Chisai Lester also testified that one day he was handed an envelope by a stranger with an amount of cash that more than covered his airfares. God’s miraculous provision assured the team that He was in control of the entire mission trip.
Prayer and Worship
The trip was planned for 5 to 15 December 2024. The official program was quite lengthy, but Sam was firm that she needed two weekends. I was thankfully able to negotiate a day off for the team in the middle.
The logistics of such a long trip was quite daunting, but one of the things that I felt we had to do was to saturate our preparation with worship and prayer.
In the early days of our preparation, I shared with our team from John 6.
In John 6, Jesus is confronted with having to feed the 5,000. He asked Philip, “where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” (v5). Philip was actually from that area (Bethsaida) and knew where to get the food. However, his response was that “it would take more than a year’s wages to feed everyone” (v7).
Jesus, however, already knew what he already had in mind (v6). This assured us that despite the bigness of the task, God already knew how he would achieve his purpose and plans!
Unlike Philip, Andrew’s response in v 8 was to present a boy with five loaves and two fish, but before saying “how far will they go among so many?” In other words, “here is a possible solution, but I’m not sure it’s going to work.”
His response was a mixture of faith and doubt.
For many of us, we didn’t really know how God would work through us on this trip, but I encouraged the team to simply be prepared to present ourselves – to offer up our five loaves and two fish. We might be doubtful, but it would be enough for us to say we will go anyway.
As we worshipped and prayed over the next few months, the Lord began to speak to us more about what we were to do and the spiritual state of Japan.
During our early preparations, some of the “strongholds” we sensed (and which Sam confirmed) included depression; loneliness; relationship breakdown between parents and children; addictions; repression; hopelessness; and a life behind masks.
One day, I was reading Lonely Planet: Japan (March 2024) just to get an idea of Japan’s culture and sights. Towards the end of the volume, there was an article entitled “Land of the Setting Sun”, which was about Japan’s ageing population; its risk of becoming an urban wasteland; and the fragmentation of family. Interestingly, the next article was entitled “The Art of Revival”, about how an arts culture was revitalising a dying town.
Malachi 4:2 came to mind: “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays.” In vv 5-6, the prophet says that “I will send the prophet Elijah … He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents.”
This became a “promise passage”: that despite the “headlines”, we believe that the Son of Righteousness will arise with healing in His “wings” (or his “hem” or “tassles”, being the edge of the traditional prayer cloth). In the encounter of the Woman with the Issue of Blood, she touches the “wings” of Jesus’ garment and was healed. Likewise, we believe that healing would come to Japan if the people would encounter Jesus.
Isaiah 6 describes the people refusing to listen to the prophet “until the cities lie in ruin and without inhabitant.” In verse 13, however, God says that “but as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, the holy seed will be the stump in the land”.
Long ago, Francis Xavier had brought the gospel to Japan until the Samurai, feeling the gospel’s threat to their power, persecuted missionaries and followers of Christ, leaving only a faithful remnant. Today, the Christian population in Japan is less than 1%.
The seed of God’s word which has remained will once again germinate, but not before desolation has occurred. We prayed that this would indeed be a time for revival – that God would once again restore spiritual life to the land.
On the eve of the team’s leaving from Perth, one of my intercessors, Dr Dan Mo, released the following word to us which clearly tempered our posture and expectations:
I pray that as you lead the team, the pressure of performance will be lifted off you. That the fragrance of Jesus from your time with Him will touch the hearts of people and help them encounter Him.
May worship be your source of living water. Don’t look for fruits. Just check within yourself:
1) was I worshipping before the moment?
2) was I worshipping in the moment?
3) am I worshipping now? (After the moment)
If the answer to that is yes, don’t intellectually look for fruits, reason possible fruits, comfort yourselves with presumed fruits. But in faith trust there will be fruits. Declare it if you feel led to and don’t waver. Be bold in such faith and the fruits will astound you.
But don’t be pressured to bear fruits. Just worship God and don’t carry anything else.
This word was pivotal because it became clear to us as we were on the trip that Japan was hard ground. Whilst we would faithfully plant the seed of the gospel and to water it, we may never be the ones to do the reaping. And there, we were able to find rest in that understanding.
Sam also issued two warnings: one was that there was a strong spirit of anxiety and that those who could not mentally cope ought to pull out. The second was that we would be attacked in the area of unity and that teams have split in the course of doing missions in Japan.
We doubled down and prayed into these two areas. Despite there being anxiety-inducing moments and the risk of conflict boiling over, I am glad to say that the team remained intact all throughout the trip.
The Worship Revolution 