Church ni ikimashata
Hachiko Statue outside Shibuya StationFor those of you who have never had the opportunity to attend church in a foreign country, I strongly implore you to make an effort to do so. There is something uniquely powerful about worshipping God with people from come from another culture and speak a different language. I can't describe what precisely it is but it tweaks some thing in your heart in a wonderful way.
After church I was chatting with a Chinese guy from Canada and since we both had to go through Shibuya on the way home we decided to hang out a bit and have dinner there.
I should probably have covered this earlier but Shibuya is like Tokyo's Times Square. A couple of the major train lines originate or run through Shibuya and it is very accessable from pretty much anywhere in the city. It is a terrifically busy area filled with big stores, high-tech arcades and fancy restraunts. Every night hordes of people come to shop, hang out, enjoy the clubs and a myriad of other things to do. Fortunately, for penniless college students such as myself, it also has inexpensive establishments. According to my room mate and some people at church there's some good 100 yen shops and a Don Quixote in Shibuya. These are the best places to get good stuff for really cheap. Shibuya also hosts a plethora of small eateries as well. There are ramen and soba shops, McDonalds and Starbucks and all kinds of other places that serve food that I can afford.
We ate at a small domburi shop. It was in the bottom floor of a building and opened onto one of the side streets. Inside it was a longish narrow room with a counter and stools kind of like the old-style diners in movies. When we walked in the poured us iced tea. After we consulted the menu briefly we decided what we wanted and indicated our choices to the waitress. After a couple minutes wait our food was delivered to us.Domburi is a very simple meal. It consists of a bowl of rice with some sort of meat, egg, seafood etc. sauce and often some sort of vegetables over rice. I had a variety with chicken and onions. It was tasty and affordable. I'll probably go back.
After dinner we wandered around Shibuya for a little while looking at the brightly lit stores. It started to drizzle so we headed back to the station parted ways and went to our respective homes.
5 Comments:
I agree with the whole foreign church thing. Going to mexico and attending church there is just amazing!
Yes, learning a new language takes work and devotion. :)
I like your pictures.
I haven't had an opportunity to go to a different counry yet. My dad has been to Nicaragua and Africa. He said that one time during worship in a church in Nicaragua, while he was looking at least 2 feet over all the brown skinned people and hardly understanding a word that they were singing, one of his team mates turned to him and said, "these are your brothers and sisters who will be in heaven with you." We thought that was really cool. :) Sometimes I forget that people from ALL nations will be there with me.
Yeah, I have done something that sort of relates. On a missions trip in Denver, I went to an all black church. Everyone except my friends and I....:) To preface this, where I live, there are basically no black people (It is sad.). That is probably because this was literally a huge place for the KKK a few decades ago. Anyway, back on subject. It was an amazing place. Everyone was so excited and energetic. They were READY to worship God. And I must say, they really knew how to worship God. :) Dancing and all that....It was a blast!
Not to be totally contradictory or anything, but that church seems very seeker friendly, contemporary, and exactly the sort of thing you were questioning about your old church a few months back.
What is your personal statement of faith? Where do you stand on the seeker friendly movement? What do you think about speaking in tongues? Look through the gospel and read about how Jesus brought people to the Lord. Did he make "being a Christian" sound all fun and great? Because it's not supposed to be.
Hope I didn't offend anyone, but wanted to get that out. :)
Brings back memories! I lived in Zushi, Japan for four years.
I know Donburi well! :-)
I also spoke enough Japanese to get by. Long ago and far away.
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