By Mitsuo Fukuda,
The family unit is indispensable to the Japanese as a people, especially since family has been its unique source of identity since World War II. In prewar days, people derived their identity from the nation and from their village. Those who contributed to the prosperity of the nation or the village won special recognition. This kind of approval was “something to live for” for the Japanese.
However, after the war, nationalistic tendencies began to decline and the traditional village communities were broken up. For most Japanese, family became the unique source of their identity. The family became indispensable and, increasingly, people began to seek fulfillment in their family settings. In 1998, 40 percent of Japanese answered “Family is Number 1″ to the question “What is most important to you in your life?” In 2003, it went up to 45 percent.
Until the early 1970s, Japanese families had a twofold dream: to own a comfortable home, and to do a better job at raising their children. Once the recession started, many people lost the economic foundation for that dream. In the 1990s, most families gave up chasing after it in the economic sphere, but they still held on to the dream of having quality time with their family members.
If Japanese people really are seeking to have relational intimacy with their family members, they need to give up on trying to be rich. They need a structure to encourage intimacy in their relationships. Passion in marriage is a result of making intimacy a priority for life. Passion is a dividend that comes from making consistent investments in the priorities of a marriage relationship.
One way to do this is by using the “Three Dailies” (as popularized by Douglas Weiss’ book, “Intimacy”). Each couple agrees to perform three simple daily exercises to the best of their abilities as a couple: pray together, clearly express their feelings for one another, and encourage and praise one another. They should attempt to make this a top priority in their schedule.
I have a church planter friend, whose name is Keishi. Keishi was a typical Japanese husband. He often criticized his wife, Kazumi, in a loud voice. He thought that he was fulfilling his role as a husband by working hard outside of his family setting. He never imagined that he needed to change anything in himself, and he felt that his communication with his wife was fine. But one day, Keishi’s friend, who had recently been divorced, visited him and told him, “You are just like I was with my wife.” Keishi was shocked and began to worry about his marriage.
Keishi came to me with his wife to ask for help. My wife and I were doing the “Three Dailies,” so I recommended that Keishi and Kazumi start it. They faithfully incorporated it into their lives. They came to understand each other better.
Keishi said, “Now I can accept my own wounds and weaknesses, and acknowledge her pains and grief. One day God told me, ‘You were created to bear her pain with her.’ This filled my heart with a passion for her.”
Kazumi said, “I was amazed to feel so much emotion in my life, as well as to find many new sides to Keishi. The more I get to know him, the closer I feel to him. It is like falling in love the second time.”
It was difficult to work through at first, but it became easier over time, and now it has become a core value for both of them. They experienced not only a restored relationship as a couple, but also as a family. Their children also found a new sense of peace in their relationship with their parents and with each other. Blessings overflowed from this restored couple to their children.
The “Three Dailies” can be used not only to heal dysfunctional families, but also to bless all the families of the earth through healed families. As John White stated, marriage is the basic discipleship group as well as the first and most foundational expression of the church. Many Christian couples can start the “Three Dailies” and share their story with other couples to facilitate and train them to plant a church in their own home. This kind of healed community would be highly contagious in Japan because it is what the Japanese people have been consistently seeking since the time of World War II. The most powerful evangelistic weapon is a changed family life. Healed couples will multiply by sparking other couples to do the same thing.
There is no need to train teachers or to produce textbooks. When a couple experiences intimacy through doing the “Three Dailies,” it is easy for them to teach a new couple because it is simple, organic and realistic. There is potential to multiply this model rapidly as a grassroots movement. Now is the time to present this “Intimate Family Model” to Japanese society with testimonies from ordinary Christian couples. To implement this new family model in Japanese society, Christians in Japan will need to renounce their ecclesiological dualism and reunite church with family, in order for the home to function as a house of prayer, as a house of study and as a house of assembly where community needs can be served.
This article is copyrighted and not to be distributed in any form. A longer version of this paper will be published by William Carey Library in early 2010 as a chapter for the latest volume in the Buddhist World series, which includes Sharing Jesus in the Buddhist World, Sharing Jesus Holistically with the Buddhist World, Sharing Jesus Effectively in the Buddhist World and Communicating Christ in the Buddhist World (cf. http://missionbooks.org/williamcareylibrary/home.php?cat=38).