By Grace Thornton
The Alabama Baptist
For many pastors, when it comes to preaching through a translator on a missions trip, most of the preparation happens in the moment — it’s just a lot of self-reminders to slow down and take breaks.
But for Roger Willmore, it’s a much more intense situation.
“In Japan, they are very meticulous about the translation,” said Willmore, director of missions for Calhoun Baptist Association.
And because of their attention to detail, he’s getting ready to turn in the full text of sermons he will be preaching there at Keswick Conventions for the entire month of February.
The translators need a month to prepare the Japanese versions, Willmore said. And once he’s in Japan, he will spend at least an hour per sermon with his translator preparing for the speech itself.
“The Japanese take correctness and accuracy and relevance very, very seriously,” he said. “The translators work very hard to know the correct translation, the tone and the aim.”
Japan has had a special place in his heart ever since he preached his first Keswick Convention there 10 years ago.
Keswick meetings, which started nearly 143 years ago in England, are revival-style meetings that follow a certain format and emphasize key points of the faith, points like the assurance of cleansing from sin and the power of the Holy Spirit.
The convention’s ultimate purpose is the total dedication of life to God, Willmore said.
Respect for age
He was introduced to the Japanese Keswick leaders by the late Stephen Olford, who trained pastors in expositional preaching.
When the Japanese Keswick leaders first saw Willmore in 2008, they started chattering among themselves.
“I asked my translator what they were talking about and he said they were talking about how young I was. They thought I was too young to preach there,” Willmore said. “I was 55.”
It’s a culture that has a great respect for age, he said.
“My acceptance and credibility there was almost solely because of Stephen Olford’s recommendation,” Willmore said. “He was so beloved and respected.”
And in the years since, the people of Japan have captured Willmore’s heart, he said. The upcoming February experience will be his 10th trip to Japan.
While there, he will speak at Keswick Conventions in Okinawa, Toukoku, Osaka, Tokyo and Kobe, the place where missionary Lottie Moon died as her ship headed back from China to the United States.
Significant event
“The Keswick Conventions have been in Japan for more than 50 years and are a significant annual event ministry in the country,” Willmore said.
Selected sermons from all of the speakers are edited and compiled into a book of sermons called “The Keswick Week,” he said. Those books are then widely distributed and the video sermons are aired on television.
“The desire of the Keswick leaders is to saturate the country with the biblical messages given at the Keswick Conventions,” Willmore said. “One Keswick Convention has a significant ripple effect.”
He saw the need for that ripple effect the first time he stood in the middle of Tokyo’s 37 million people and felt the crush of a heartbreaking reality.
“Only eight-tenths of 1 percent of their population is evangelical Christian,” he said. “When I see the masses, the question comes to mind — where are they going? The reality is that nearly all of them are slipping into a Christless eternity.”
That stuck with Willmore.
“I have a genuine burden for them,” he said. “And because of that, I keep going back.”
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