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Philippine natives Ken and Bola Taylor are ex-South Asian nightclub entertainers who became Christians in 1984. Ken was a musical director and arranger, and Bola, a jazz-pop singer and physical therapist, when they moved with CBInternational to Japan to plant churches with a focus on music and the arts. Ken Taylor talked about how he’s helped harness the black gospel boom for reaching Japan’s 99 percent non-Christian population.

Q: How did you come to lead black gospel choirs of Japanese singers? When I first came here seven years ago, black gospel music was booming. A non-Christian Japanese friend invited me to a black gospel choir concert. I was overwhelmed and impressed by a choir of 200: all Japanese, mostly non-Christian, singing black gospel songs. Non-Christians flocked to hear a concert about the gospel. They like the tempo, the upbeat, freeing style of music. It’s a fad; however, I believe this is a movement of the Holy Spirit. People come week after week and pay from 1000 to 2500 yen [about $9-$22 USD] for a two-hour session, sing about God and learn directly from the Bible, then bring their friends to the concerts.

Q: How many Japanese are listening to or singing black gospel? There are no hard numbers. Most point to their interest from the movie “Sister Act.” Anytime there’s something new in Japan, they go looking for it. There are hundreds of choirs of 20 to 40 members throughout Japan. Almost every major event now tries to recruit a gospel choir. Unfortunately, many of the gospel choirs have non-Christian directors. Around 300 attended a recent concert of a choir of 200. Missionaries are always looking for networks or gateways to non-Christian events. We seem to have found it in black gospel choirs. You do a gospel workshop, then you give a gospel concert. Non-Christian choir members bring their non-Christian friends. You share the gospel with them.

Q: How many are involved in your choirs? Where are they located? I lead choirs in Toda, Kawasaki, Ushiku and Kita Senju. Most are tied in with a church or church plant. I have a network of Christian choir directors whom I’ve trained, plus others. We have a big concert, and we can get together. About 150 are in my four choirs. With the other directors there are around 300 with this network.

Q: How do choirs fit into your ministry philosophy? Black gospel music is only 30 percent of my work. I always attempt to create community among the members and challenge the few Christians in the choir to develop relationships with their non-Christian fellow singers. I try to make sure that the church will partner with me in running a choir, which means that they’ll do up to 90 percent of the coordination. They’ll take care of spiritual and logistical aspects of the choir. Then I come in as the “hired gun” to do the music. All my choirs are twice a month. It’s a good pace, people get excited, it’s not tiring and people don’t get burned out.

The Ushiku choir is a good example of this model at work. They’ve had conversions in workshops. In one case, a husband and wife joined the choir. She became a Christian through the choir. After that, they had to decide whether she would go to church on Sunday or join the choir. She chose church, while her husband, still not a Christian, would go to the choir.

Q: How do you use choirs in church planting? There are two ways. One is for the church members to be part of the choirs and to make relationships so [choir members] can then move into church body life. There’s also talk of developing new styles of congregations that use this genre whether in a Saturday evening, where they’ll feel more comfortable, versus the traditional Sunday style of worship.

Q: You advocate planting churches that could easily integrate choir members. Yes, though from a strategic and philosophic ministry point of view. I think building a church based on genre alone is dangerous. If black gospel music suddenly loses its appeal and you have a church that’s founded on it, it loses touch with society.

Q: So black gospel music is a strategic opportunity. Exactly. If suddenly country music was the big hit, you’d open cafes and play country music. The rub here is two things with the Japanese Christian church. First, black gospel music, compared to the traditional Japanese church, is totally different in genre.

Second, the struggle is really on the spiritual level for the Christian. How can non-Christians sing black gospel songs or songs about God with joy and meaning when they’re not believers? That to me was an issue, and it kind of irked my heart. When many Japanese Christians see this, they think they are worshiping God. The reality is they are not worshiping God but being drawn to God through the songs. In worship services I don’t use any choirs that are primarily non-Christian because that would not be appropriate.

As I looked through the Old Testament, God used Gentile kings and nations to bring Israel back to his fold. God is making himself known in Japan through black gospel music. Even though this is a purely American genre, it is unmistakably an indigenous movement unique in Japan. I am just one small part of this big boom that God is using in Japan. What I am trying to do is from a church planter’s point of view, which happens to be a musician/artist akin to black gospel directing. I’m trying to find ways churches can use gospel music as a strategic and legitimate venue for outreach. Used by Permission from “Japan Harvest”