March 9, 2004

Nothing compares to the rush. No other pursuit could be so exhilarating and meaningful, so loaded with the paradoxical sensation of being entirely alive yet also careening out of control on the edge of death. For those who taste its deliciously deadly nectar, there is usually no turning back.

What, precisely, is a good church? How would you know one when you see it? A popular answer these days is that a good church is a “purpose-driven” church.

The phrase and the concept come from Rick Warren, founding pastor of Saddleback Community Church in Lake Forest, California, one of the largest and fastest-growing churches in American history. It has almost 10,000 “core members” and over 50,000 people on its rolls.

At an Alpha training conference in Detroit, a dozen people came forward to testify to the power of the Alpha program. One couple had been close to divorce when they encountered Alpha. The course inspired them to salvage their marriage and become active in a church. A young man said he had tried various spiritual paths, including “the cult route,” until through Alpha he found Christian friends and a direction that “fits.” An Alpha leader in his 40s talked about episodes of violence, about failed marriages and about the years of estrangement from his family.

Though only the second feature by the Australian director Sue Brooks (and the first to open in this country), Japanese Story is an almost perfectly calibrated small work, like a finely shaped short story. About the serendipity of crossing paths with a stranger, it’s a sort of companion piece to Lost in Translation, but with an entirely different tone.