Sponsored by Tenrikyo Church Headquarters, Oyasama 130th Anniversary Yoboku Gatherings will be held between March and June 2014 both across Japan and overseas. The gatherings aim to encourage all Yoboku and followers to pledge to further promote the salvation activities that they resolved to carry out in their local communities.
Receiving instructors from Church Headquarters, the gatherings will consist of lectures and video presentations. The program will last about two and a half hours. Church Headquarters Office of Yoboku Gatherings is now making necessary arrangements for deciding the dates and other details in conjunction with people involved in preparing for the gatherings in each diocese. Invitations, attendance cards, and diocese-specific lists of event venues will begin to be sent out to directly supervised churches in late October and will subsequently be distributed to Yoboku and followers. Event flyers will also be sent out to dioceses from November 25.
Rev. Zensuke Nakata, head of Church Headquarters Office of Yoboku Gatherings, says: “The activities leading up to the 130th Anniversary of Oyasama have already started. Toward Yoboku Gatherings, I want all churches to actively reach out to people who did not attend ‘Visits to All Churches’ as well as those who did, so that no one will be left behind in our movement towards the anniversary. By doing so, we should make sincere efforts to guide and help each and every Yoboku and all followers to accomplish their goals and achieve further spiritual growth. We members of the Office of Yoboku Gatherings have been working to enhance the content of the program so that these gatherings will inspire people to work on the pre-anniversary activities in ever higher spirits. I hope that Yoboku and followers will make use of their mutual ties—which have been strengthened via the campaign to hand-deliver the Tenri Jiho newspaper—in various situations to encourage others to participate in the gatherings.”
The following poster promoting Yoboku Gatherings was designed by Church Headquarters Office of Yoboku Gatherings and will be distributed to all Tenrikyo churches through each diocese:
Please contact the Overseas Department’s relevant sections for details of overseas Yoboku Gatherings.