“I read in a book that a man called Christ went about doing good. It is very disconcerting to me that I am so easily satisfied with just going about.” Those are the word of Toyohiko Kagawa, (1888-1960), a Japanese Christian reformer, activist, and pacifist. I didn’t know anything about him until I was around 15 or 16 and was teaching Sunday School where one of the appointed lessons was about Kagawa. The story I remembered most was how on Christmas Eve, 1909, he moved from his comfortable rooms in the seminary to live in the slums of Kobe. He reasoned that the people in the slums would never listen to or believe Christian preaching unless the preacher lived among them.

His work would take him outside that slum as he advocated for the poor, for women, for peace. He wasn’t always received well. His was imprisoned several times. Only after World War II did he received acceptance. In 1946 he appeared before Emperor Hirohito at the Imperial palace. There he said, “A ruler’s sovereignty, Your Majesty, is in the hearts of the people. Only by service to others can a man, or nation, be godlike.”

Does anybody today believe that service is the only way a person or a nation can be elevated? A member of one of my churches told me that the most important thing to him about church was that it provided opportunities to serve. Service is one of the four things that bring people to churches along with needs for spirituality, care, and community.

Read Colossians 3:17 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne