Groundbreaking for Japanese church Saturday in Arlington Heights

Nearly five years after purchasing a two-acre parcel of land near Mitsuwa Marketplace in Arlington Heights, members of a Japanese congregation finally will break ground at 10 a.m. Saturday on their long-awaited church.

The Rev. Yugo Kobari, pastor of the Chicago Japanese Mission Church, confirmed that the downturn in the economy and lack of funding had held up their plans, and that they have scaled back their drawings.

They initially received approval in 2006 from the Arlington Heights design commission for a 23,200 square foot church. But they now have the funds and manpower to build a smaller version, a 4,500-square-foot worship space, located at 24 Seegers Road.

"We have a limited budget and a limited number of people," Kobari said. "But we talked to our members and prayed over it, and decided to go ahead."

The congregation is part of the Southern Baptist denomination, and one of more than 200 churches in the Chicago Metropolitan Baptist Association.

"It's our first mission church among this people group," says Keith Draper, executive director of the Metropolitan Baptist Association in Chicago. "There are only five Japanese congregations - among all Christian denominations - in the city and suburbs."

Draper describes the Baptist denomination as second only to Catholicism in terms of diversity. Its members speak 22 languages among its Chicago area churches.

"To see a group of believers like this, who want to connect with other Christian churches is great," Draper added. "We feel that in reaching out to them, we are helping to build a broader sense of community."

Ten years ago, Kobari and the Baptist association completed a demographic study that determined Arlington Heights was their ideal location.

"Being located near Mitsuwa will help us, we think," Kobari adds. "There are people who come there every weekend from throughout the Midwest, and spend the night. Those are the people we're hoping to attract. We're hoping to give them a place to worship on Sunday morning."

The mission church formed in 2000, in part to serve the growing number of Japanese living in the Northwest suburbs. Since their inception, they have held services at the Korean Baptist Church in Schaumburg.

Shortly after purchasing the land, located just east of Johnnie's Beef on Arlington Heights Road, the church congregation received the help of a Southern Baptist disaster relief team, who helped them clear nearly an acre of brush on the parcel in one day.

Members from that same relief organization are planning to return to Arlington Heights for one week in June to build the church, Kobari says.

"We'll have a general contractor," he says, "but the rest will be mainly volunteers."