For a Thousand Tongues to Sing
October 4, 2008
Recently we headed downtown to Sendai’s annual Jozenji Street Jazz Festival, which hosting over 600 bands from Japan and overseas, boasts of being “the biggest” music festival in Japan. Before it started raining, we were able to buy a light lunch from one of the many street vendors and talk with some folks around us. We enjoyed listening to a variety of music as we walked Jozenji’s picturesque Zelkova tree-lined street and pic-nicked at a nearby park. Besides jazz music, the festival also featured the sounds of “Big Band” and ’50′s & ’60′s American Rock.
One group that drew a particularly large crowd performed only Beatles’ tunes. We learned later that some groups along the route were playing only ”gospel” music. Gospel music has become a bit of a hit among Japanese these days. It doesn’t seem to matter that they don’t really know what is being sung. They just like the sound/mood of the music. Some Japanese even pay money to take lessons on ”how to sing gospel”. Please pray that the lost Japanese of Sendai will come to understand the true meaning of the word “gospel”. As it is written in Romans, the gospel of Christ “is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.” And “in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.”
As we serve in Sendai and ask volunteers to come join us for prayerwalking and literature distribution at the 2010 Jazz Festival we take the words of Charles Wesley’s hymn as our prayer:
“O for a thousand tongues to sing, My great Redeemer’s praise, The glories of my God and King, The triumphs of His grace.”
“My gracious Master and my God, Assist me to proclaim, To spread thro’ all the earth abroad
The honors of Thy name.”
(For more info on serving on a short-term volunteer team at the 2010 Jazz Fest, please write to us at Kevin@outreachjapan.org or donna@outreachjapan.org. )
by Donna Qualls
