Japan
2003
During our mission in Tokyo we stayed at the New Otani Hotel in Tokyo. Japan is a nation of 128 million people with about .5% of them belonging to any Christian Denomination most of which are Catholic. In all of Japan there are only 300 Baptist churches and 30 missions with a total membership of less than 25,000 people.
Our team consisted of six members who were selected by the steering committee to work with the Hasune Baptist Church of Tokyo. The pastor was Rev. Yasutoshi Takagi and he had been with the church about 11 years.
Pastor Yasutoshi Takagi
The church had a membership of around 300 with an attendance of 250 to 300 and was listed as one of the top 3 churches in Tokyo . The church has a great ministry to a major hospital in Tokyo and was located about 3 blocks away. We had two services at the hospital, four Sunday services, and a service on Wednesday. We were able to win people on the street, in church services, at the hospital, on the subway and in restaurants. Yet, our pastor would not let us give an invitation until the closing Sunday.
Ryan Alsop, Evelyn, and 2 of our interpreters stood at the entrance to the largest Shinto Shrine in Japan which is located on the Emperor’s palace grounds. He and several of our team and the Japanese Christians bowed their heads and prayed that God would open the eyes of the people to the fact that only Jesus Christ is Lord.
Many of the Japanese pastors are really afraid of the American approach to soul-winning. But as we won people during the week the pastor would bring others to us and ask us to pray for them as they invited Jesus into their hearts and lives. Then before the last service on Sunday the pastor asked Eugene if he would let him give the invitation after Eugene delivered his message. More than 15 people raised their hands to surrender their hearts and lives to Jesus. Sometime during the week the Lord convicted him and by Sunday he was eager to give the invitation.
We need to pray that the Japanese pastors will manifest boldness as they witness to the masses. They told us that their people are very shy and will not openly commit themselves to Jesus Christ. But we saw them do it over and over again and we believe that only boldness for Christ will reach the Japanese people.
We only had around 40 professions of faith which is the smallest number for any crusade World Wide Ministries had led. It is very hard to over come hundreds of years of Buddhism and Shintoism. In order to become a Christian they have to be willing to give up all of these foreign gods, deny their ancestors and follow Jesus Christ as their only Lord and Savior. Many times as evangelists we try to measure the success of our trip by numbers. But God’s will does not always include large numbers. God’s will for a trip may only be for one person’s life to be changed.
Without your prayers, support and finances none of this
would be possible. God bless you and keep on praying for
us.
