Will you help us plant a church in Miyako?
After five years of ministry in Iwate prefecture, God opened the door for us to be involved with a new church plant in Miyako, a coastal town of 50,000 people with an average church attendance of only about 25 people. We are incredibly excited to continue our partnership with Morioka Bible Baptist church and Pastor Kondo, to work together with other missionaries to begin this new work.
History of Baptist Church Planting in Iwate
Iwate saw many foreign missionaries arrive in the aftermath of WWII. God worked mightily to establish churches that continue faithfully ministering to this day, including our partner church, Morioka Bible Baptist Church.
Missionaries began partnering with these newly planted churches in hopes of ushering in a period of church reproduction in the surrounding cities. However, these efforts were met with much difficulty, and slowly the foreign missionaries began to leave the area. The remaining Japanese churches struggled to continue church-planting on their own, but in time most of those efforts closed down.
At the start of the new millennium, church-planting had all but ceased in Iwate. However, the 2011 Tsunami served as a call to action and today a new generation of Christians are taking up the call to carry the Gospel throughout Iwate.
The Plan
While church planting has been historically difficult in Iwate, through the Christian response to the Tsunami, God has radically shifted the dynamics, leading to a level of openness to the Gospel like we’ve never seen. He has also once again brought missionaries into partnership with Japanese churches, equipping them with the necessary resources to begin this new work.
Morioka Bible Baptist Church (MBBC) is serving as the mother church for the new plant. In contrast to previous efforts, they seek to go forward with a team approach to church-planting.
Take a tour of Miyako with us
Methodology and Values
Team Oriented – We want to work together as a team of ministry workers, partnering with lay-people to minister to the needs of the community, reach people with the Gospel, disciple new believers and train church leaders.
Relationship Focused – We want to value personal relationships as an effective means to share the love of God and lead others to Christ, inviting people into our homes and holding informal gatherings.
Empowering lay people – We want to involve and train lay people to be obedient to Christ’s call that all Christians build up the church and bear witness for Him.
Community service – We want to share the love of Christ in a practical way by becoming visible, valuable members of the community in order to bring a good reputation to the name of Christ.
Outreach – We also want to host events specifically to meet new people and proclaim the gospel.
The First Step
Our hope is to continue serving in Miyako until the church is established. Church-plants in other parts of Japan have taken around 10 years or more to reach self-sufficiency. Miyako is challenging because there are so few indigenous believers to partner with. Thus our primary focus early on will be evangelism and discipleship, in the hope that God will establish a core group of believers to serve as the founding members of a new church in Miyako.
Pre-church-planting has already been on going on since the Tsunami in 2011. We hope to build on that and carry on into the second phase of establishing a new church plant.