This is a continuation of my last post on Japanese ministries.

As many of you may know, I went to India for a short term mission last year. I went to the villages where the nearest hospital is 5 hours away by car, villages have rolling blackouts and sometimes left without electricity for weeks, and people were killed for just sharing the gospel. Without the everyday needs of a conditioned North American, they rely on God for everything from their daily bread to healing from a fever, which can be a fatal disease. Christians are even sometimes held at gunpoint to renounce their faith but most stay strong. (I am in the process of writing a book and will publish it very soon.)

Now, Japan is the completely opposite or India. In terms of human and economic development, Japan ranks as one of the highest countries in the world. The difference in salary between the rich and the poor is minimal, healthcare is amazing, you can buy whatever you want and sometimes when you want some technology that is not invented yet, sooner or later it will be invented. In return, the workforce consisting of mainly men work for long hours everyday with no overtime pay and most women stay at home and become full-time housewives. High school students study day and night and on weekends too whilst university students go to school in the day and work part-time jobs at night. Their schedule has almost no place for anything else other than perhaps the rare exercise.

Rev. Yano described it as the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42. Japan is so preoccupied with so many things on people’s agendas they feel like they have enough in life. Many of them have a gut feeling that something is missing in their lives but the culture dictates that talking about religion or culture with others means you are trying to use them therefore faith is not discussed at all.

Despite the culture completely rejecting God, God is still good and there are still quite a few loopholes or workaround in the culture for God’s word to seep in. My next posts will be on examples of evangelism and ministries in Japan. For a heads up, ministries in Japan are a long process which means sadly, only long term missions will have the optimal results.

Today I had the blessing to talk to Rev. Ichiro Yano from Hiroshima Jogakuin High School. He has been a pastor at that school for many years and we shared about our thoughts, opinions and current conditions on Japanese ministries.

Japan is very different from other countries I’ve done ministries in. First off, the traditional Japanese culture caused the delusion that there is no place for God in our daily lives. Ever since 1597 when the first missionaries arrived in Japan to share the gospel and were martyred, Japan has been refusing the word of God. Japanese people in general hold a worldview of pluralism, where they accept many different types of faiths. There is a saying that Japanese are born Shintos, married as Christians and die as Buddhist. To be more precise, Japanese people love following customs and they love following the custom of a western Christian wedding, ever since Princess Diana’s wedding was broadcasted live all over the world.

In Japanese culture, friends love talking about sports, music and celebrities but the two things they avoid the most are politics and faith. Even the mentioning of faith itself will lead someone to walk away thinking you are trying to use them. This is because Japanese have a very bad image of faith, especially Christianity. Many cult groups, even recently, have been damaging the image of the body of Christ. For instance, Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese New Religion Terrorist group claiming to be Christians launched the 1995 Tokyo Metro Sarin Attack killing 12 and injuring 1050, and also a recent “pastor” vandalizing temples around Japan. Moreover, the view of believing in a religion has a negative connotation of being weak, as strong people can be individual.

As for churches, most of their purpose is to serve weddings and funerals. As for Christians in Japan, the majority of them are Sunday-only Christians, and due to the culture, the Christian community is absolutely nonexistent in medium-scale cities, such as Hiroshima. That is, the number of churches are declining, with the majority of Christians being Sunday-only Christians, and with people scattered all around, there are not enough people to form a community and even if there were, people are demotivated to do so due to their busy schedules.

Now one may ask how does the gospel get preached in such a dark area? I will write about it in the next few days. It is a completely different style of evangelism so for those who wish to do ministry in Japan, I strongly suggest you stay tuned as I will write about how evangelism works from a Japanese Christian point of view.