About me | About Japan | Keep in touch!
About the need
Japan may be a properous, globalised country - but its Church is struggling. At less than half a percent of the population - and shrinking - it is not very well equipped to deal with the many social problems Japan is facing. The videos and material to the right highlight some of the needs in Japan, and what the church is doing to meet them.
About my plans
I tend to be quite a dabbler - not having one driving vision, but pitching in with ideas wherever I see a need. I'm also fully expecting to partner with churches and work alongside them in whatever way they would want to develop. That said, in addition to church planting and evangelism, there's a few things that have caught my eye... If you want to ask me about some of these, or just have a chinwag, please feel free to get in touch!
Leadership development
I've identified three areas which are major obstacles to the church in Japan:
- A lack of mature Christian leaders. (See this article)
- A complete lack of Christian role models in society at large.
- A lack of Japanese men in the church.
I believe that leadership development training can help with all of these areas: working with Christian students can help bring them through to becoming mature leaders in their churches; giving Japanese Christians the tools they need to become leaders in their society; introducing Japanese businessmen to the leadership practices of the greatest leader of men ever!
This will be a major work, and will include developing a model of leadership that is both Biblical and authentically Japanese. I have begun some initial research into this area, but expect to go forward with both a provisional leadership development programme and further study.
Father School / VIP Club
Linked to these ideas and Mitsuo Fukuda's work, there's a place for combining leadership development with accountability, coaching, and marital counselling and training, as well as outreach to businessmen.
Some of these needs are being met by parachurch activities like the VIP Club and Father's School - good things to get involved in.
New expressions of church
If the church in Japan is to reach men and the younger generation, then it needs to go out and find them and speak their language. I'm interested in experimenting with ways of doing church that perhaps haven't been tried before, aiming at men and young people.
Internet suicide ministry
Suicide is a growing cause of death in Japan, and one particularly troubling development is the growth of Internet suicide pacts. Organisations like Inochi no Denwa are providing counselling and support by phone, but I don't know of anyone getting out onto the online arena. There's quite a few groups interested in suicide counselling, so there would be a co-ordination role here too.
