The Church in Memphis

I am a third generation Japanese descendant from Orange County, California. My father was a Buddhist in name only and my mother was an agnostic. So, my family did not really have any religion. We celebrated Easter and Christmas, because it was the American thing to do. When I was 15 years old, after pondering my mortality, I challenged God to reveal Himself to me in a way that I could not imagine. I reasoned that God would have to be beyond what I could imagine. So, to prove that He really exists, He should bring me to His people right away, because I was not going to waste my time looking into every belief. No answer came right away, so I determined that there was no God and became an atheist.

Five years later, in 1977, while I was in college, a Christian brother invited me to a campus dinner meeting concerning the Bible. Normally, I would not agree to go to any Christian meeting, but because of the prayers of some of the Christian brothers who were concerned for the gospel, and God's sovereignty, I had no choice but to be at that meeting. At the meeting I heard a gospel message from First Thessalonians 5:23, John 4:24, 1 Corinthians 15:45b, and 1 Corinthians 6:17, which indicated that 1) God made man with three parts, including: an outward body to exist in and contact the physical world, an inward soul to know the psychological things, and a spirit, the deepest part of man, to contact and receive the things of God; 2) God is Spirit and the way to contact Him is with our human spirit; 3) that God in Christ became a life-giving Spirit so man could be joined to the Lord and be one spirit with Him by receiving Him. This word caused a light to turn on within me. For the first time I realized that God was in the realm of the Spirit, outside of the physical and psychological realms that I knew and studied, and that I had a spirit to contact and substantiate God. This gospel was something that I could not imagine—that I could substantiate God by receiving Him and become one spirit with Him. At this point a brother encouraged me with Romans 10:13 to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus to receive Him and be saved. Convicted by God’s Word, I had no choice but to call, “Lord Jesus”. This was God's answer to my earlier challenge, the beginning of my new life in Christ, and the end of my old atheistic life. Two weeks later I was baptized out of the kingdom of darkness and into the Kingdom of the Son of His love (Colossians 1:13).

As a new believer in Christ I was helped by the believers in the local church to open to the Lord's shining for dealing with my past unrighteousness; to be spiritually revived every morning through a time with the Lord in His Word; to study the truth in the Bible; to come to Christ through the Bible for life; to witness to people concerning the riches of Christ as the gospel; to know and experience Christ through prayer and fellowship with Him; and to know the Body of Christ through prayer, fellowship, and service in coordination with others according to the Spirit. Through the care and genuine concern of the believers in the local churches I have been nourished, cherished, and encouraged in their homes and in the church meetings to pursue Christ and grow spiritually for His Body.

Now in the 23 years since that campus meeting, I completed an engineering degree, started a career as a project manager in environmental consulting, married a sister in the Lord, and have had two children. But, even the more, I have consistently experienced, enjoyed, and gained Christ in the local churches under the vision of God's eternal plan (Eph. 1:9-10) and purpose that has been clear to me from the entire Bible through the ministry of Witness Lee and Watchman Nee. Through my enjoyment and fellowship with Him, I can also testify that, Christ is causing me to grow, mature, and be built up together with all the believers in Christ as the Church, His Body to be His Bride and our mutual habitation (Eph 2: 20-22) for eternity. Our being built up together as His Bride in a real and practical way will bring back Christ, our Bridegroom. This is God’s marvelous answer to me.



Henry Nakayama

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