First Dream Meeting

The New Hope Church School team held its first dream meeting today. About twenty people came. We opened with worship. Guy, Shoji, and I shared our vision for the project, and Shoji also presented what we've done so far and proposed beginning with the Narimasu site. I'll post my vision notes below and summarize the rest here.

Guy talked about the school being a bridge between the church and the community and detailed ways in which the school building could be used as a community outreach center. He focused on ways in which each New Hope member can use his or her gifts and on how we will be able to reach different groups in the community: children of all ages, mothers, fathers, and university students.

Shoji talked more about the big picture. He talked about how this has been a dream of New Hope Tokyo since the beginning. How he sees the church school project as an expression of our first core value (that Christians and non-Christians are equally loved by God and that we are committed to evangelism and discipleship). He said that the project will not end with the establishment of the first preschool, but that in the first five years we would like to start five or ten preschools in various local communities around Tokyo. Then an elementary school, junior high, high school and Bible college.

My perspective was that of the Sunday School director. Here are my notes:

Vision for New Hope School

Why New Hope School? Because Jesus loves children and wants to be with them every day, not just Sunday. Much of the ministry to which we are called cannot be accomplished in one hour a week. Jesus didn’t have a weekly one-hour meeting with his disciples; he spent time with them every day. Some children learn best in ways other than the worship/story/craft approach that we use in Sunday School. By integrating biblical principles throughout the curriculum, we can reach children whose learning styles are different and create natural opportunities not only to learn, but also to apply what has been learned.

In addition to serving our own children better, we will be able to reach children who would not otherwise hear the gospel. Many families would never come to a worship service, but part of being a church without walls is to step outside of the sanctuary and reach people where they are. Our school will not be a place to hide and protect our children from the world, but one more way of reaching out to the world.

Parents of young children are in a unique place of openness to the gospel. They feel a huge weight of responsibility, and though we are not perfect at raising and educating children, we can do our best and point them to the perfect God who will give them the wisdom and strength they need.

We had good feedback. People asked questions about student recruitment, whether we have teachers lined up, and our timeline for an elementary school. The next step is to put teams together to tackle specific issues like office work, curriculum development, recruiting, a building-use plan, and many more. We closed with prayer, and refreshments.

実感してきました！ It's beginning to feel real!