Roberta Stephens

Yokohama The first two American Baptist missionaries Jonathan Goble and Nathan Brown arrived together in Yokohama in 1863. (Goble was originally a sailor on Perry’s ship and the Browns had just returned from a career as missionaries to NE India.) Goble wrote a vernacular translation of the New Testament but it was too rough for the educated Japanese. So Brown, known for his linguistic work translated the New Testament using language not offensive to the educated class. It was in Yokohama that they established the First Baptist Church in Japan. Succeeding churches were planted while girls’ and boys’ schools (Kanto Gakuin and Soshin) became a major force in society at that time. Northern Japan “Visas” were required by the government for a foreigner to leave the main port areas. They were issued for short periods or if an outlying town requested a foreigner to come. When a Greek Orthodox missionary was given permission to take a trip up north, he took a bag of Brown’s Bibles with him to distribute in north Japan. He distributed the Bibles as he went. People in one small town in north east Japan called Hanamaki began to read this unusual book. They were so fascinated with it that they wrote a letter to the then two-person Baptist office in Yokohama, referring to the address given on the flyleaf of the Bible asking for someone to come and teach them about the Bible.

This letter became the invitation that the Baptists needed to get visas to go north to visit and live. Churches were started in the major towns like Morioka and Sendai, and a Christian school, Shokei Girls’ School was begun in 1892. In this way, work was launched in the far north.

Growth The obstacles have been great in the last 130 years. The only large outpouring of the Spirit country-wide, aside from small revivals in Christian schools, came after Japan’s defeat in World War II. However, neither the church in Japan nor the church in America was ready for the Spirit’s moving. Hundreds waited outside of small churches but follow-up was impossible with so few people. Even so, many of the older pastors who still serve now became Christians at that time. The church experienced moderate growth to the mid-sixty’s. Since then there has been a gradual tapering off of interest and attendance.

Japan Baptist Union In the late ’30s the Japanese government required all churches to join together into the United Church of Christ in Japan. It was their means of controlling church activities and pastors. Although on the surface, this seemed by nearly all to be the answer to their dreams of the union of the Body of Christ, for many churches it meant giving up precious traditions and autonomy. After the war, when freedom was regained, in 1957 less than half of the Baptist churches pulled out of the UCC of Japan and became the Japan Baptist Union. American Baptist missionaries stayed with this group. The rest of the Baptist churches chose to remain in the larger group because it provided a certain amount of security-in-numbers. The smaller group felt that autonomy was more important than numbers.

Japan Baptist Union Presently there are about 70 churches. A number of these are called Preaching Places (dendo sho) and are working toward the time where they can support a full-time pastor and be accepted as a full-fledged church. Shichigahama Preaching Place is one of these churches. Presently, in the Japan Baptist Union, more than fifty percent of the one hundred pastors are over fifty years of age. We have very few pastors in their twenties. About 20% of the pastors are women. There has been a new trend recently where a person retires at age 55 or 60 from a secular job and then enters seminary! They may only have 10 or 15 years of ministry time left. (Retirement age for a pastor is about age 70).

This may seem like digression of sorts but actually it is an exciting trend. People who are called of God are not saying, “Oh, I missed my chance.” But they’re following that call. They come to their churches with a huge amount of experience in the world. Pastors who just graduated from seminary have difficulty relating to the adult world of the salary-man or businessman because they haven’t had job experience. But the older seminary graduate can now relate to all of those people. For example, many churches are filled with Christian women whose husband stay at home and waits for his wife to come home from church. The older pastor has tremendous empathy for these individuals.

Needs The church in Japan feels that their biggest needs lie in building up the Sunday school, developing youth groups and ministering to the men of the community. Spiritual formation is the most immediate need of the Christians themselves.