Praise Sprouts up from All Nations–Japan

We truly thank our Heavenly Father that we could join the glorious 611’s 20th anniversary as one of her daughter churches.

Our mother church, 611’s path for the last 20 years, has given comfort and inspiration to me. God’s life which flows out through 611 is very creative and unique. That brings me back to the essence of the faith.

Since I visited 611 for the first time in May, 2014, my life and my idea about pastoral care have been transformed tremendously.

7 years ago, I was a full-time businessman, at the same time I was also a pastor of a church. I was getting a bit proud of myself that our church and I were doing well among other local churches. But Pastor Joshua’s diagnosis to us was this: if you keep pastoring like this as a part-time pastor, your church’s future would never be bright.

I was like a man who was boasting about himself to have a good medical checkup result, but the actual result was having a serious sickness in him. “You have a serious sickness.” When I and my wife heard about that, we were totally devastated.

After we had the network conference, my wife and I were keep on discussing our future to be a full-time pastor earnestly. We decided to dedicate ourselves totally and surrender. I resigned from my job and decided to become a full-time pastor. Then I brought my family with me to come to Hong Kong and receive training from 611 church two months after my wife and I had discussed it.

We see 611 church as a church that has transformation, not only for me but for many people. The transformation is like a barren woman starts producing life. We saw only superficial things but were transformed to see the essence of God.

Firstly, I was taught that I myself, as a pastor, really need to get pastoral care from a spiritual mentor when I first connected with 611 church. 611 church is indeed an apostolic church where a desperate pastor can be revived.

When I see a real spiritual father figure in Pastor Joshua, my heart was stirred because I hadn’t had such a spiritual father before! I was miserably dried up as a pastor. I was almost burnt out after many years of getting spiritual nutrition on my own. I did not have a role model as a pastor. I was unaware that my growth of character and spirit had stopped a long time ago already. I thought I had been doing quite well. However, I was revealed by seeing the true pastoring and couple relationship in 611. I was disqualified as a pastor, husband, and father.

After 6 months of training in 611, we restarted our church as Hesed 611 BOL with three fulltime staff. There were almost 50 members from our previous church.

At the start, we were full of expectations and joy. However, soon after we launched, our relationships with previous mother church were broken badly, and many church members left. Moreover, one of our staff was down spiritually, our church was almost torn apart.

We wonder how we could thank 611 enough as we were encouraged by Pastor Joshua, C-mo, Pastor Ruby, and the team from 611. Many times, they visited us all the way from Hong Kong to Sapporo just to encourage us. They visited us just to see if I and my family are happy and doing well. We were just blown away by how much they love us. We were not only encouraged, but also comforted and touched. Once, C-Mo cooked Chinese cuisine at my house in Sapporo. Pastor Joshua did disciple training for us anywhere, anytime as a spiritual father. Pastor Joshua taught us even at the food court of a shopping mall even while eating quick lunch just before heading to the airport. All that Pastor Joshua did for us was just like a father taking care of his children.

I and my wife have been loved very much and received amazing grace. But we had a problem. We have never received before such kind of love from the spiritual authority, and we were spiritual orphans and could not trust them wholeheartedly before.

Nevertheless, Pastor Joshua and C-mo helped us just like the duck “V” flying formation. Because of their continuous encouragements and supports, we could come to this point.

611 church is our real spiritual parents and family for us beyond history, culture and the language barrier. Their footprints are guiding us step by step to the way of Tree of Life. It took us quite a long time, but we have come to this point step by step.

We have been changed, and we have even more desire to be transformed continuously so that we can change many people’s life by our pastoral care by the flow of our mother church.

There are testimonies of life-changing breakthrough in the couple relationship and disciple training in our church. This stream may be small now, but we believe this flow will be stronger and wider until flowing over Sapporo, Hokkaido and Japan!

Mr. Eiji Iwayama
Hesed 611 BOL