Roughly two-thirds of the Japanese population consider themselves Buddhists, and religious freedom is valued. However, Jesus followers in the country still face many challenges, including division between church denominations.
OM worker Kenji (Japan) says, “Japanese churches are in big trouble, and for the few numbers of churches that we have in Japan, we have 185 denominations. It is an unhealthy number of denominations.
“So we really need to bring down the walls of denominational barriers for Christians to work together. That starts with talking, meeting and praying, and seeing where the Lord is going to lead.”
Visualising the challenge
In Mie Prefecture, in the southern part of Japan’s main island, the OM team visualises the challenge facing churches with a coloured map.
Kenji (Japan) explains, “I created this map for giving updated information about all the churches, where they are located, and specifically highlighting areas in reds and purples.
“Red is an area that has no church. Either it has never had a church in its town history or all the churches have closed down because Japan is in a trend of churches diminishing. Beside the red there is purple, which is an area where a church is in danger; unless there is some outside intervention or external help, all of these areas will soon become red.
“Looking at the map, you can see almost 50 per cent of Mie is red or purple. So that's pretty significant. This province is kind of like an overlooked area. OM is the only interdenominational mission that exists in this province of 1.8 million people. And the number of Christians here is about 1,000.”
An aging church population
In 2023, the OM team conducted a survey of 52 churches across different denominations in Mie, gathering information on young people who regularly attend church service. In 38 churches, there were no young people under the age of 30, and across all the churches, there were only 71 students in grades one to six of primary school who attended Christian services.
Compared to a government census of how many primary school children are in the province, this number is less than 0.1 per cent — less than one out of a thousand students goes to church.
“I go to so many different churches in Mie,” Kenji says. “When we walk into a church in Mie, we assume to see only senior citizens, 65 and above, up to 90 years old." Churchgoers who are not senior citizens are often people with a disability, shares Kenji, adding that many churches in Mie are less than 10 people.
“So, it is very hard to engage a church that is actually catering for the real needs of younger people. But, by God's grace, I had a connection with people in the northern area, central and southern. I wanted to connect them to each other, so two years ago, I started the Mie Mission Network.
“Out of that, in 2023, two of our committee members started a monthly gathering of pastors, evangelical, charismatic, mainland churches, united churches... They come together every month to pray for each other because the pastors need encouragement.”
Working together
A few years ago, Japanese churches conducted a survey. They named the result the "Year 2030 Problem” as by the year 2030, the number of Japanese churches will have halved.
In response, churches have begun to work together. In Mie, for the past two years, there has been a prayer event in front of the prefectural municipal building to pray for the government, the province and the churches.
Kenji says the event has led to further cooperation. “We were getting more and more churches joining this event. Out of that, a group of pastors got together to create an instant messaging group that any Christian can join to announce any church event that they have, prayer requests that they want to share, if there is some evangelism opportunity that people can get involved in like OM does, and reports that give praise and give the glory to God, we can post it there to encouraging the heart of the believer. So many Christians are not only discouraged, they become skeptical and they don't want to go to church anymore. But we want Christians in Mie to be vibrant and happy to be a Christian.”
In October 2024, Mie hosted Japan's National Evangelical Missions Conference — the first time any such event has been held in the prefecture. Shortly after, a committee of organisations which practise disciple-making movements, church planting, church multiplication and similar activities across the country met to encourage each other with what they are doing and to pray for God’s guidance for their future endeavours.
“Sometimes we go and we try and do alone, but the African proverb says: ‘if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go as a group’,” Kenji says. “And that is why we want to bring the churches together and pray together. The field is too big for OM alone."
Pray for the church leaders who attended Japan's National Evangelical Missions Conference in October. Pray for them to feel invigorated by meeting with other leaders and encouraged to work together in the future.
Pray that churches will see past denominational differences and work together to share God’s love throughout Japan.
Thank God for the religious freedom in Japan, which allows Christians to share their faith without fear. Pray that they would have the right words and that those they speak to would be open to hear about Jesus.