Ten years ago, at which point we had been living in Japan for seven months, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake shook the country for six minutes, and in horror we watched the coverage of the subsequent tsunami that swept in to devastate a total area of 217 square miles. Over 20,000 people were lost that day. In a country that is less than 1% Christian, the implication of that statistic is heart-wrenching, and I felt it in my soul. I couldn’t stop wondering if the next time each of those 20,000 people come to consciousness, they’ll wonder who this Person is in front of them, and why they don’t know Him. I…
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Japan Missions Profile
Being as far as it is away from the U.S., many people don’t know much about Japan, especially in terms of the state of the church there. Because of that, it may be difficult to understand why this mission field is so important to my family, as well as some of the challenges that exist on the field. Rather than write a lengthy blog post about every point, I thought it might be easier to make a simple infographic to provide a profile of the mission field in Japan. Scroll down to the bottom to see a few points of interest explained in further detail. As you can see, the…
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Alarming Statistics And How To Respond
It is no secret that Japan’s population has begun to decline. While the government makes serious efforts to encourage childbirth, the reality of a declining population continues to set in. I saw a map on Twitter today laying out this point in full color: #Japan population change map 2015-2018 Blue = decline Red = growth Growth hot spots in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka pic.twitter.com/0Ei32aW11l — shootjapan (@ShootOsaka) April 13, 2019 As I reflected on this map, it got me to thinking about the percentage of Christians in Japan. The Christian population could technically rise in the coming years: assuming stable numbers among Christianity, a declining population would mean a…
