Church in Rural Japan

Kizukuri United Church & Preschool

2009-01-22T11:19:00.002+09:00

The Church Building: The church was started just after World War II, and the building presumably dates back just as far. Upon entering the church, the impression is that little work has been done to update it during those years and that one is entering a museum. The pastor provided a memorial book that was published for the church's anniversary, which provides photographs back to the late 1950's – the differences between the building then and now are not hugely apparent. The sanctuary holds a number of wooden pews and the podium, and the pastor's desk is set at the back, near the entrance. There is also a small kitchen just off the entry as well that would be adeqautetp provide tea and light refreshments.

The Preschool: More attention has been paid to the Preschool building in recent years; it's far more modern and colourful than the church. The Preschool has long been a part of the church's ministry and continues to care for about 100 children up to the age of five years, although numbers are steadily decreasing. A question mark stands over the future of the Preschool, as other local preschools have already closed down. As a ministry, the Preschool provides a useful service to the town, and the pastor leads short (five minute) worship sessions with the children each day.

Discussion with the Leader: The new pastor has only been at the church for a couple of years, in which time the church saw its first baptism in twenty years. He seeks to break down some of the formalities of the church (such as its territoriality) which he feels can be a barrier to new people. His aim is to build a stronger presence in the community, both through the school and in smaller ways – such as walking to work so he can greet people each morning.

Final Impressions: There is a strong sensation that this is a Preschool with a church attached, rather than the other way around. If the Preschool were not here, it seems doubtful that the church would survive; aside from the Preschool work there seem to be no other ministries running. There is a great deal of potential here, however, with the work of the Preschool providing a good start. If more activity is put into ministry then the impact should be significant.

Visiting Churches in Rural Japan

2009-01-22T10:59:00.002+09:00

Just for the record I prefer to call rural Japan as nonurban Japan because of the great confusion over what is rural in the Japanese context.
Last week I visitied 15 churches in the Tsugaru. The churches were quite a contrast. There were a few of the very old variety dating back to the 1870's. One had been started as recently as 15 years ago. After looking at the premises we interviewed the pastor and took pictures.
I suppose the general consensus was that the church is aging resulting in lack of people to volunteer, decresing amount of donated money, and not much energy for passing the baton to the next generation. The clarity as to the actual situation was great- understanding the problem is half the battle. However, we found very few who had any ideas about what to do about it, few visions and dreams being talked/prayed about. Still over the next little while I intend to blog about the churches and try to be vaguely accurate about the churches. For a more clear opinion you will have to contact me.

A Big Advantage

2009-01-13T15:34:00.002+09:00

This post may be a little on the lite hearted side of things but I want to write about one advantage of serving in a non-urban setting.
The skiing is fabulous. Not that I ski nor do I snowboard but I know many who do. In a travel time of a mere 40 minutes we can be at one of 4 fantastic ski slopes- take your pick of alpine, 5km run with gondolas, and half pipe course, fresh powder snow that lasts til May, or just a nice beginner- family oriented slope.
Nice to go on an outing with newly made friends or in my case- talk with parents or others not on the slope.

Rural Japan- what is it?

2008-10-25T19:37:00.002+09:00

I recently did a report at a pastors meeting. It was an attempt to define Rural Japan, which is quite a job. Rural anywhere is usually best defined as non-urban.
I came to the conclusion that all areas in the districts- gun here in Japan, are rural plus the areas that are on the outskirts of cities. I estimate that pop to be 30-40 million people on the cautious side. Is there any developed and free nation that has that meny people with virtually no knowledge of their spiritual needs. I am gradually building up a little bit of info from the 3 remote prefectures of the area considered Nort East Japan.
Keep tuned- hope to have more in a few weeks.

A Survey

2008-09-29T21:42:00.002+09:00

Well after a few months of being busy at rural church planting, its time to get back to thinking of the bigger scale of things. I am beginning a survey of the churches in Northern Honshu. That compises 3 prefectures with about mmmmm I think 4.2 million people. There are about 170 protestant churches. Hopefully they will all send in the postcard. I plan to visit each church and meet the pastor and take pictures as well. Wonder how long that will take!!!! :-)

Not much time for research

2008-04-07T20:52:00.003+09:00

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.

Why a blog about the church in rural Japan

2008-02-09T06:45:00.000+09:00

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.