A Contextual Analysis of Onnuri Church’s “Love Sonata”

“Cultural Evangelism Gatherings” in Japan

Abstract

Since its beginning in 2007 through 2019, Onnuri Church’s Love Sonata musical outreach extravaganza has been held thirty times in cities all across Japan (and four elsewhere in Asia). Capitalizing on the wildly popular 2002 “Winter Sonata” Korean TV drama (“Fuyu Sonata” in Japan), Pastor Ha Yong-Jo instigated a “cultural evangelism gathering” involving Christian Korean musicians performing and himself preaching an evangelistic message. Hundreds of Onnuri Church volunteers have paid their own way to go and pray, make gift boxes, greet newcomers, and otherwise support each Love Sonata event.

As a Korean outreach to Japan, Love Sonata provides an illuminating case study of cross-cultural missions in challenging circumstances. Korea and Japan are close in many ways, yet in other ways they are very far apart. Studying various aspects of the interpersonal interactions involved in the Love Sonata enterprise sheds instructive light on how mission service is embedded in actual history, often involving significant cultural barriers.

Supported by qualitative research from interviews with both Japanese and Korean participants, plus drawing on the author’s thirteen-year Japan-based experience and five-year Korea-based experience, this study offers a multifaceted analysis of Love Sonata in order not to evaluate or make recommendations but to understand its overall contextual characteristics.