by Liz Hogarth
Former Sydneysider the Rev Atsushi Shibaoka recently returned to the city he left 30 years ago to take up a new post as Senior Associate Minister at St James’ Church, King Street.
“There was no writing in the sky,” said Mr Shibaoka of the reason why he made the move to one of Sydney’s most high profile churches from the Church of the Holy Trinity, Hampton in the diocese of Melbourne. “Just a growing conviction that this is something I must do.”
One of his first tasks is to develop educational and cross-cultural ministries in the city. However, Mr Shibaoka, 50, born in the north of Japan, and a fluent Japanese speaker, does not have a specific brief to reach out to his compatriots. “Interestingly, I don’t have a particular interest in the ethnic Japanese community as such,” he said. “I think there are people who are much better equipped to minister in the Japanese community than I would be. I have been here since 1967 so that’s a long time.”
But he does maintain strong links with other Japanese speaking Australians and would like to establish more. “I am really keen personally, rather than ministry wise, to make connections with other Asians, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, particularly second and third generation migrants. They are people that many ethnic churches find it very hard to minister to. I am certainly interested in the issue, but to what extent it will translate into anything other than my personal interest I am not sure.”
His job description is rather fluid, but has a strong emphasis on being part of a team, with some specific responsibilities in the area of providing good information about the Christian faith, and in the area of formation, which broadly covers the information Christians process and how that forms their world view.
His journey to St James’, the oldest ecclesiastical structure in the city of Sydney, is an interesting one. In the early part of his life he struggled to settle into Australian life with limited English and no belief in God. “Most Japanese are non-religious,” he said. “I was no different.”
However, whilse studying science at the University of Sydney he was approached by a number of Christians. “Some were more aggressive than others,” he commented. “But they encouraged me to read the gospels. So I read them and knew they were absolutely true.” He attended an Anglican church partly because so much of the service is written down and was therefore easier for a young man still grappling with English to comprehend. His call to ordination came in 1977 and followed studies at Ridley College in Melbourne.
But, back to the present, and he is amused by one particular irony related to his return. His current home in Roseville, on the North Shore, where he lives with his family, wife Trish and three children Ian, Naomi and Mary, is only 600 metres from the one he first lived in with his parents over 30 years ago.
