The Big Picture

A quick look over our Why Japan page makes it clear that Japan is in fact one of the least reached people groups in the world. With less than 1% of Japanese people claiming to be Evangelical Christians, an aging leadership, shrinking church, and deep-rooted opposition to organized religion, Japan needs outside workers to join them in fulfilling the Great Commission. With that being said, we moved in 2020 to Japan in order to partner with the Japanese church in reaching their own people with the Gospel.

Our vision is for a network of Gospel-centered churches, spread out across Tokyo, partnering together to reach all of Japan with the Gospel. We believe this begins with investing in the local church we are a part of, Dendoukan Christian Church, located in downtown Tokyo. It’s wonderful seeing how God has been growing this church, and we’re excited to be part of the work God is doing.

Praise God that Dendoukan is not the only church living out the Gospel in Tokyo, or Japan for that matter. We’re also committed to building connections with other churches and Christian workers around the city to encourage one another, and to strive together towards reaching not just the city, but all of Japan, and then the world with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Language Acquisition and Acculturation

In order to be effective ministers of the Gospel in Japan, we need to both speak their language and understand their culture. We often think of  a people group being located in a remote region or being under persecution from the government as obstacles to them hearing the Gospel, but language barriers can be another great obstacle as well. There are very few Christian resources in the Japanese language, and there’s a great need for sound, healthy teaching amongst the Japanese people. For this reason, we’re dedicating the first term of our time on the field in Tokyo to learning to speak, read and write the Japanese language.  Our goal is to be able to build deep, meaningful relationships with believers in the church where we can bear each others burdens, encourage each other, and help others grow in their walk with the Lord. We also need to be able to clearly communicate the Gospel to non-Christian Japanese people in their own language. Although Paul currently preaches and teaches through a translator, we hope that he will one day be able to do this natively, in Japanese.

Ongoing Ministry

As mentioned before, our primary focus is on partnering with Dendoukan Christian Church in Tokyo. In essence, we plan to use the gifts God has given us to contribute to the work that He is doing in this church, and to adapt as needed according to the direction and needs that arise. Our primary focus is on teaching, discipleship and evangelism, and we are working alongside of the leaders of Dendoukan to help the church grow in these things.

We are passionate about helping facilitate Gospel community, encouraging and equipping believers to live out their faith, and reaching the lost through intentional relationships and the proclamation of the Gospel. We’re thankful for the many opportunities God continues to give us to serve Him in these ways.

Another avenue of our ministry is in the area of video production. Prior to moving to Tokyo, we had a video and photography business where we produced videos for small businesses, as well as creating content for various ministries. We’re thankful that we’ve been able to continue to use these gifts and resources in partnership with Japanese churches. One of our current projects is creating music videos for kids in Japanese based on the New City Catechism. You can see those videos here: https://www.youtube.com/@unison3361/videos