Evergreen ordains a male pastor!

[Haruo]

Last Sunday afternoon, the Evergreen Association of American Baptist Churches ordained Yukio ("Yuki") Sakiyama to the gospel ministry. Yuki has served as pastor of the Nichigo (Japanese-language) congregation within Seattle's Japanese Baptist Church for about four years now. He is completing his MDiv at Seattle University's School of Theology and Ministry, and is now at the point where he has met the denominational and regional standards for ordination. The Ordination Service was a wonderful experience, but the flash on my camera wasn't up to the task of illuminating the sanctuary, so my better photos of the event focus mainly on the food. You can see them on my cobbled-together-after-midnight-last-night photo page .

The last photo on the page shows the Sakiyama surrounded by, left to right, Marcia Patton (Evergreen Regional Executive Minister), Rev. Archie Pinckney (formerly Youth Director at JBC), Dr. Akira Ishimaru (JBC member), Dr. Yoshitada ("Yosh") Nakagawa (JBC member and former ABCUSA Vice-President), Rev. Peter Koshi (former pastor of JBC—called almost 50 years ago!), and JBC Senior Pastor Dr. Paul D. Aita (pastor of the Eigo congregation and formerly Regional Executive of ABCNW).

The Ordination Service was also a service of Baptism, with the immersion of Mrs. Yuri Matsuzawa, a member of the Nichigo congregation. Yuki did a masterful job of leaving his own ordination partway through to change his clothes and perform his first-ever baptism and change his clothes again and make it back to the dais in time for the benediction!

The preacher was one of Yuki's professors from Seattle U, Dr. Glaucia V. Wilkey, a Brazilian and a Presbyterian, who got a rise out of the congregation when she said she was glad some of her other students, Yuki's peers, were in attendance so they could see how baptism was meant to be done — by immersion!

The closest thing to a glitch was in the congregational hymn. It was "I Love to Tell the Story", a very good and appropriate choice I think. Problem was, the Eigo hymnal has four verses and the Nichigo only three, so when the third verse ended we who were singing in Japanese were surprised to find our neighbors still belting it out. I'm not sure if the English-singers were even aware of the problem, but I found it quite confusing and embarrassing for a couple of seconds.

I should have brought about twice as much sushi! It went fast, I didn't even get a piece. But of course I made up for it on the other dishes, and when all was said and done and eaten, they filled twelve baskets with the fragments...

Haruo

[Haruo]

Oh, about the thread title, this was the third Evergreen Association ordination I'd been to, and the first where the ordinand was male. So you see, we're not as radical as they say we are. We even let men be pastors.

Haruo

[Haruo]