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Pray for Ibaraki

Here are some daily prayer requests for Ibaraki prefecture. Ibaraki prefecture is in Kanto area, which includes Tokyo (Marked below in green). The northern part of Ibaraki is mountainous while the south is quite flat. Ibaraki has a strong agricultural industry and the least number of people claiming to have religious beliefs.

<Ibaraki>

Towns/villages with no churches: 33

Churches/person: 1:17,808

Average church attendance: 28

August 30: Pray that the people of Ibaraki will come to know that there is no security except in Jesus and that their temoral and eternal hope lies in Him (Matthew 8:20).

August 31: Four radio programs on Ibaraki Radio are sharing the gospel, and in Tsuchiura and Tsukuba churches are cooperation in providing cable TV programs for evangelism.

September 1: Ibaraki Christian Gakuen with 2,760 students—pray that this school will remain faithful to the gospel. Pray that the Hakujuji Nursing School will send many faithful Christian nurses to hospitals around Japan. Hakujuji General Hospital is one of the few Christian medical facilities.

September 2: Pray for the many who have no faith. Kashima and Inari Shrines are two well-known Shinto worship locations.

September 3: Facilities for the elderly: Tsukuba King’s Garden with 50 beds, Hakujuji Home and Aiyuen with their long history of service, and others.

September 4: Ami is the largest unchurches town in the prefecture with 46,873 people. The other five larger unchurched towns, Chiyoda, Ina, Makabe, Ishiege, and Yachiyo have a combined population of over 120,000.

*All information and prayer requests taken from “Operation Japan -Prayer Guide- Third Edition” -Japan Evangelical Missionary Association, 2005. To purchase a copy of “Operation Japan” book or the Interactive CD version, go to: http://www.jema.org/joomla15/index.php?option=com_banners&task=click&bid=10.

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How the world came to be –According to Japanese mythology-

Japanese mythology is like Greek mythology in many ways. It has many interesting stories about many different gods, but these stories often have a couple of different versions because of the diversity in its original texts and also because they are mixed together with various folk legends, myths, etc. The sources of the Japanese mythology are the two books written in the early AD700s called ‘Nihon shoki’ and ‘Kojiki’. Those books were written as “history” of Japan, possibly by the order of the Emperor who was gaining power and wanted something to justify his reign by deifying himself as the books identify him as the direct descendant of the gods. Here is a short summary of how the world came to be according to Japanese mythology:

The tale of the very beginning, or how the world came to be, is somewhat ambiguous in Japanese mythology. According to Nihon Shoki, the world was a chaos at first. Then the pure and impure were separated and became the heaven and the earth. And out came the gods that looked like humans. The ones that were born first were neither male nor female, and then four pairs of male and female gods were born. And the last one of these pairs, Izanagi (male) and Izanami (female), got married and started giving births to the islands of Japan and other gods. Interestingly enough, the text does not give any explanation as to how these initial gods came to be, and the other mythological text, Kojiki, has no mention of the very beginning of the world.

Here’s a little more about what happened after that.

When Izanami gave birth to a god of fire, she was burnt which caused her death. Izanagi, missing his wife so much, travels to the land of the dead, where he finds his beloved wife rotten and ugly. He screams in shock and runs away from his furious wife who chases after him. She is furious because he saw her in such a hideous state in spite of her warning not to look at her. After a long chase, Izanagi finally manages to block his wife’s pursuit by placing a huge rock in front of the pathway to the land of the dead. She curses him and says “I will kill one thousand men a day from now on” (The rock was so heavy that it called for a thousand people to be removed.) To that Izanagi replies: “Then I will make sure I get 1,500 people to be born every day.” It is explained that this incident is the reason why there are births and deaths.

After the terrible trip to the land of the dead and back, Izanagi decides to purify himself. As he took off his clothes and dunked himself in a river, many gods were born. He went on to wash his left eye and the sun goddess (Amaterasu O’omikami) was born. When he washed his right eye, the god of the moon (Tsukuyomi no mikoto), his nose, the god of the ocean (Susano’o no mikoto). Those three gods were appointed to rule over the world.

This is only some of it. Pretty interesting stuff. I (Tomo) grew up in Japan but didn’t know these stories in detail until I did research to write this article. Most Japanese people probably don’t know much about the mythology either, but it’s interesting to know them because the basic world view is still at the root of their culture and mindset.

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What’s a Church?

Lord willing Tomo and I will be moving to Japan next Summer to begin planting churches. Consequently I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what a church actually is, how it should function, what it is supposed to be doing. A blog post is not going to do a topic of this scope justice but maybe I can get one point out and spark a little dialog.

The church has been given the tremendous task of taking the gospel to all nations and making disciples, yet in many instances it is less effective than it could or should be in accomplishing this goal because the members of the church do not realize that they are the church and if they do not work together to accomplish this task then the church will never be able to accomplish it either.

This is my opinion. It seems to match what I have observed. To most Christians a Church is a place that they go to, or an entity they belong to, like a club.  Often Churches appear divided into two groups: attenders and leaders. The attenders are interested in finding fulfillment, fellowship and spiritual nourishment. They seem to assume that the leaders will do the work of fulfilling the great commission, or that they and other individuals will do it on their own. Meanwhile The leaders often seem to be most interested in attracting more attenders, and therefore cater to their needs and desires. If this all that a church does, then the church is never going to be very effective in fulfilling the mission Christ gave it to do.

When I look at the local church I see the front lines of God’s army. (I know it’s not politically correct to mix war metaphors and religion these days, but let me be clear that this is indeed a metaphor, I’m not talking about jihad.) The leadership should prayerfully set the church on an active mission to spread the gospel and make disciples. The members should latch hold of that vision and every single one of them should find a way to serve and help fulfill the mission. Rather than being a place people are duty bound to attend on Sunday mornings, the church should be the focal point of ministry and service to Christ. It should be a place where we worship, mature, tithe, serve, teach, plan, meet, fellowship and work together all to the glory of Christ, in the hope that Christ will bless our efforts and through them call people everywhere to salvation and cause them to grow and mature to complete and perfect sanctification.

Committing ourselves to serving under, over and alongside a group of people requires a certain amount of vulnerability and emotional risk. It requires a huge portion of our time and our lives. But as I read through the New Testament, it seems this is exactly the way the church functioned and is supposed to function today. When it did, God blessed it and the gospel spread like a wild fire throughout the known world.

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Why Japan?

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

Romans 10:14-15

I have often explained to people why I decided  to get involved in missions to Japan. The simple answer is that there were many factors involved which, taken together, led me to believe that that was what God wanted me to do. However in this post it’s not necessarily my intention to go over those factors which led me to Japan, but rather to present some information that may lead you to be involved in the work God is doing in Japan.

Japan is an island nation, comprised of four main islands, and thousands of smaller ones. It has a throughly unique culture which means that the Japanese mindset is very difficult for westerners to grasp. Geographically the majority of Japan is covered by mountains and forests. It has a land mass roughly equal to that of California, and a population over 1/3 that of the entire United States. This explains the stark contrast between serene natural beauty and crowded, sprawling cities. Economically and politically Japan is among the most successful countries in the world.

From a spiritual perspective however, things are not so bright. Out of a population of 127 million, less than half of one percent follow Christ. The other 99.5% are trapped in materialism, Buddhism, Shintoism and ancestor worship. The suicide rate is more than double that of the United States. Though most have heard the name Jesus, the vast majority have never heard the gospel, or even know a Christian who could tell them.

The Church in Japan is small. Average attendance is less than 40 people per a congregation, and there are more than 1,600 cities towns and villages which do not have a single Church within their borders. It has been said that in order for a group to influence the population as a whole, the group must comprise at least 2% of that population. Currently the Church in Japan falls far short of that. For the last 150 years Protestant missions have been working in Japan, and yet the Church in Japan is still not large enough to evangelize the rest of the country on its own. There are few Christians that can afford to go into full time ministry, because of the high cost of living and small Christian population to support such efforts. There is a continuing need for missionaries in Japan.

Seeing this need first hand was what kept forcing me to consider whether God could use me in Japan, and if that was the direction He was calling me. I was made aware of the need, and God began to show me that He had given me the opportunity to be a part of meeting that need; that He could use me to do so. We’d like to present that need to you, and give you an opportunity to help meet the spiritual needs of the Japanese, by partnering with us to take the hope of salvation to Japan.

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Why Missions?

For so the Lord has commanded us, saying,
“‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles,
that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'”

Acts 13:47

You might have noticed that this verse appears frequently on our support raising material. You’ll find it on our prayer cards, brochures, even in the banner of this website. We put it there to remind us why we are doing this, and to remind others why they should be doing the same.

Missions is simply the practical act of bringing God’s salvation, through the preaching of the gospel, to the ends of the earth. If you are a Christian here in America you can trace your salvation through the work of missions all the way back to Christ, who not only died to pay the price for your sins but also initiated the the method by which you, two thousand years later, would hear about it, repent, believe and be saved. Were it not for Christ’s command to take the gospel to all nations, salvation would have never reached you.

Participation in missions is not an optional thing for Christians. One cannot be said to be a follower of Christ unless they obey what Christ commands. Missions is not something that we do when we have the time, or the money, or the desire to become involved in. It is something that we must insert into our budgets, our schedules and our hearts, even if that means sacrificing other things to do it. We as Christians must cultivate a war time mentality of sacrificing and suffering want in order to fulfill the mission which Christ has given to us.

There are millions here in America who need to hear the gospel. Even though the Gospel has reached America, and most here have heard it before, many will need to hear it a second, third, fourth or fifth time before their eyes are opened and they see the truth of it. But outside of America there are millions who have yet to hear it even once. The Gospel has not yet reached all the world. Christ’s mission to the church, though 2,000 years in progress, is not yet accomplished.

That is why Tomo and I are going to Japan. We desire to obediently participate in the mission Christ gave to the church, by going to Japan to work with other Christians in proclaiming the gospel and starting new churches, in the hope of seeing God call many Japanese to salvation. I would like to invite you to prayerfully consider sharing in this exact same mission, by partnering with us financially and prayerfully, to send us to Japan.  This is just one way out of millions that you can be involved in missions, but if it is the way God is calling you to be involved, click here to let us know.