Liturgy in Tokyo, Traveling Reflections, and a Typology Conference in Brazil

My 17 days of travel through Asia are coming to an end, but the reflections will continue.

Traveling Reflections

These summaries are small offerings to the reader who has been following my work over the last few years. They are also a simple way to provide real-time journal entries to the many who have prayed and supported my efforts. By the end of this year, if I count all my travels, it will exceed 2024. For those who saw my comings and goings in 2024, it’s hard to conceive of another year where the mileage exceeded. But I am here to witness that it did. I am writing this draft from Japan Airlines somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. The screen in front of me says 2,113 miles to Dallas. The 11-hour flight is down to the final four. I may need to write some tips on how to be productive and how to avoid slowly dying of tedium.

But my survival is not the reason I am writing this Substack. I am trying to relive with you what I experienced in these last few days in Tokyo. As I mentioned, my time in Kyoto with the family was sublime. We truly enjoyed the uniqueness of Japan’s historical sites.

In every trip, but especially one of this magnitude, I always remind myself of the concerted effort that it takes for my congregation, Session, children, and many others to deal with my absence. I am sure that the work will continue just fine without me, but I am also deeply aware that ministry is about both proclamation and presence. The visibility of the minister also shapes the flock’s awareness and sense of space and the sacred.

My wife found a baby to hold.

.When I first took the call as Presiding Minister of Council, I knew that this would require a certain patience from the saints. After all, pastoral theology is, preferably, longevity in one place. And to be honest, “I’ve been everywhere, man!”

People need consistency of both presence and proclamation to feel the safety of shepherding care. However, while I love my congregation, I know that my calling for this season is to share the fruitfulness of the CREC in various settings around the world. And thanks be to God, as I fly back from this six-week marathon, I am grateful that all my prayers were answered. Among them was the prayer for stamina and clarity of mind. After traveling to three states and three countries in the last six weeks, I can confidently say that the prayers and vitamins were effective. I return weary, but physically intact.

Liturgy and the Long Game

One of the primary reasons for spending time in the Philippines and Japan was to gauge the liturgical heart of the CREC in Asia. There is much to say about the differences among Asian countries. Still, one thing they have in common is a considerable ignorance of Westernized values and concepts, including the Western tradition of worship. Pastor Ben Zedek has been my traveling partner through our speaking engagements in the Philippines, and now it was great to have him guide me in his hometown of Tokyo. It was also an absolute joy to see an old friend, Ralph Smith. Ralph is the founding pastor of Mitaka Evangelical Church. He has written extensively on eschatology, Shakespeare, symbolism, VanTilianism, and a host of other topics. He’s a walking encyclopedia whose theological faithfulness, spanning almost half a century in Japan, continues to bear fruit in his own teaching ministry, and now through his son, Rev. Ben Zedek.

Let me recommend Ralph’s helpful work on Deuteronomy, which I used in my research for my book, The Trinitarian Father:

Pastor Ben Zedek reserved the entire Saturday for me to lecture on the nature of the CREC as a denomination through the lens of an ecclesiocentric perspective. This entailed a walk-through covenant renewal (as I had done in the Philippines), but a much more concentrated effort in expanding the role of liturgy in the CREC. It was clear that many from the congregation, having not had experience visiting the U.S. to see the liturgy of CREC congregations in action, had significant questions about the applicability and viability of such a process in the Japanese context.

Ken Shiomitsu is a new Elder at Mitaka. He was sharp and efficient in translation. It was a delight to spend time with him during and after the conference.

The Saturday lectures began with a Q&A session regarding my role as Presiding Minister (PMOC), as well as the nature of the CREC and its relationship, both organically and organizationally, within and outside the United States. I can now say that I have visited dozens of CREC congregations in the U.S. and churches on four continents. There is no sense that our churches are lost in translation. It appears that what is practiced in Pensacola, Florida, is effectively translated to a different context. The culture, theology, and liturgy suit well in all these places. As you can imagine, this leads me to enormous joy to see the consistency played out in wildly different environments.

Both morning and afternoon sessions provided me with an opportunity to delve deeper into the aspects that make the CREC so unique in its expression. This allowed me to discuss the ecclesio-centered vision that binds culture, theology, and liturgy together. I contend that a low view of the Church dismantles the very fabric of what we are trying to accomplish. For the antagonists who see my ecclesio-emphases as a threat to their political concerns, I can only say that politics apart from ecclesial polity is the equivalent of a Mitt Romney campaign: blend and centrist. Since translation was involved, my lectures were shorter, which meant I needed to make my points concise and avoid becoming too sermonic on any one point.

A delight to have a local Anglican minister translate as well.

We concluded the afternoon with a lengthy Q&A session, during which we addressed the role of children in worship, the Church’s role in society, the influence of James B. Jordan and Douglas Wilson in shaping the CREC, the place of feasting in the life of the Church, as well as the postmillennial hope in Japan. The questions were stirring, and I am thankful for the four translators who conveyed my words so carefully, and I trust, accurately.

After a long day, we joined some of the young folks from the church and a few officers for further conversation amid a sushi extravaganza and a local Tokyo brewery. It was a more casual Q&A with some of the younger crew asking poignant questions. It gave me tremendous hope for the future of the CREC in Japan. It’s not that they are simply the future of the CREC, but that the future is calling them now to serve and offer themselves as living sacrifices in their local body. They are indeed rising to the occasion.

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Nuntium

Though this has been a lengthy season of international travel, I look forward to speaking at a conference in Porto Alegre with my old friend, Peter Leithart. I will have a couple of months to recover before venturing on another long flight. We will be delivering lectures on typology in Brazil in early September. Here’s my plug in Portuguese:

Christ is Risen, indeed!

Uriesou T. Brito

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