Land & People
Japan is an island nation stretching almost 2,000 miles from the large island of Hokkaido in the cold north to the Ryukyu Islands in the warm south. The standard of living in Japan is fairly high, and the culture is becoming increasingly western.
Japan's religious life is a combination of Shinto, Buddhism, and ancestor worship. Shinto has been called the religion of eight million gods. The chief deity is the sun goddess, from whom the Imperial family of Japan claims descent. The Buddhism of Japan is a made-in-Japan religion, as it has undergone considerable change since it first arrived and is quite unlike the Buddhism of China or India.
Year Entered by BMM1949
Baptist Mid-Missions entered Japan in 1949, and in 1953 moved its center of work to Fukushima Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo. Gradually the ministry of Baptist Mid-Missions was expanded, and missionaries opened up new areas. Ministries were started in the suburbs of Tokyo and in Okinawa. More recently new works have been started in Chiba and Saitama prefectures. A vibrant camping ministry has also been established. Grace Baptist Bible School is a full-time Bible school, offering three-year and four-year courses for Bible, theology, and missions. A Japanese mission agency, working in cooperation with Baptist Mid-Missions, has been formed and has sent missionaries to Bangladesh and rural Japan.
Most of the cities have some Christian outreach, but in the rural areas the picture is quite different. Hundreds of villages and towns have no gospel witness whatsoever. We need teams of missionaries who can move out from the large cities to distribute literature, hold impromptu Bible classes and personal evangelism, etc. in the many rural communities. The ultimate goal of BMM Japan is to establish local churches.
Church planters are needed to reach out to the Japanese people in greater Tokyo and in rural areas. Campus workers and Bible school teachers could also play a key role in the growing church in Japan. Great needs exist for biblical counseling (discipleship and soul-care), IT specialists, and video creators to present the gospel in a modern way. There are also opportunities for outreach to American military personnel stationed in Okinawa.
Learn more about Japan here.