I would love to get more info gathered about the rural church but have been busy designing the launch of a new chapel. But I want to increasingly add to the info so here goes about this area of Japan.
First of all I am writing from a place in the middle of the Tsugaru Peninsula.
If the link works on google maps http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=106546625757284734025.0004494b6d33b50040b77&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=40.7873,140.447159&spn=0.214712,0.355682&z=11&iwloc=0004494b70cfe15c651fb, have a look.
There are about 500,000 people who live in this peninsula.
Currently there are 25 churches listed in the Christian Handbook. I say currently because it looks like 4 will probably close over the next few years unless there is a revival. In those 25 churches there are about 930 members. As far as I can tell there are about 500 people who actually meet for worship on a regular basis.
So on average there are 1 in 1000 people who count Jesus worthy enough to worship as Lord and God. That is .1% who are in some way seeking to be like Jesus.
However those figures are for the whole Tsugaru. In some ways, by national standards the whole of the Tsugaru is rural but people around here consider the main cities of Kuroishi, Goshogawara and Hirosaki as non-rural. So if we subtract the nonrural stats, there are only 100 people meeting in 8 churches. There are about 200,000 people living in this area bringing the average down to .05%.
If I can take it one step further- the churches we are planting account for half that number so we could say there are only 50 people meeting in 6 locations, with a surrounding population of 170,000 people which brings the average down to .03% Christian.
Look it up- that is eqivalent to a Islamic nation where there are not the religious freedoms we have here.
Jesus have mercy on rural Japan and call people for your name sake.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Why a blog about the church in rural Japan
Being the first blog post, I felt the need to give some background as to why we started this blog.
Many people are aware of the urban sprawl in Japan withut being aware that there is a rural population. Japan is divided into 47 prefectures with a total population of 126.5 million people. Each prefecture is divided into cities with 99.5 million people and districts with 27 million people. The cities have an urban 82% and a non-urban 18% division. Therefore the total of the non-urban and the district populations end up with a whopping 40 million people- one third of the population.
Why do we find this challenging? The reason is that most rural areas have no church that preaches Jesus. On top of this, most established churches in the cites and most mission organizations do not have the rural population on their radar.
So by informing peple of need, we are hoping that many will commit to prayer, and that of those some will get involved in short term or career mission so that people will meet Jesus and churches will be established.
We have been involved in church planting in rural Japan for 20 years. It has been the most challenging and thrilling thing we could have ever committed our lives to. For more info check out our website.
Many people are aware of the urban sprawl in Japan withut being aware that there is a rural population. Japan is divided into 47 prefectures with a total population of 126.5 million people. Each prefecture is divided into cities with 99.5 million people and districts with 27 million people. The cities have an urban 82% and a non-urban 18% division. Therefore the total of the non-urban and the district populations end up with a whopping 40 million people- one third of the population.
Why do we find this challenging? The reason is that most rural areas have no church that preaches Jesus. On top of this, most established churches in the cites and most mission organizations do not have the rural population on their radar.
So by informing peple of need, we are hoping that many will commit to prayer, and that of those some will get involved in short term or career mission so that people will meet Jesus and churches will be established.
We have been involved in church planting in rural Japan for 20 years. It has been the most challenging and thrilling thing we could have ever committed our lives to. For more info check out our website.
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