Japan

Pastor Yuta Nakayama Testimony

I was born and raised as a pastor’s kid. At the age of six, I was baptized, really wanting to believe in Jesus. However, because I did not truly understand that I was a sinner, I also did not understand the cross of Christ. That was the start of my ‘religious life.’ In other words, my faith was not really my own, and my relationship with God was weak throughout my childhood. That kind of faith made a living as a Christian painful. Worship service each Sunday, prayer meetings, evangelism with my family in front of the train stations, helping with church activities, etc., was such a burden. It seemed that those who did not believe in God lived freely, happily, and full of joy.
Testimony Continued Below:

Recent Ministry and Prayer Requests

We are grateful for the special Christmas love gift from our friends in the U.S. The gift has been a great encouragement to us and has inspired us to continue to work boldly in the Lord. Due to your prayers and financial support, Shine Church is moving forward, one step at a time.

• Pray for the salvation of Ms S who has visited out church several times.
• Pray that the Lord would send us workers to join us in the ministry team in our church.
• Pray for the increasing number of youth who attend that they will grow in their love of the Lord.
• Pray that our Sunday School and youth gatherings will be blessed and that the next generation of believers will increase.
• Pray for my spiritual and physical health that the Lord will grant me endurance in church-planting.
• Pray for me to have wisdom to know how to balance my pastoral ministry schedule with occasional and adequate rest.

I had the opportunity to attend the KDK retreat, and the teaching reminded me once again that choosing the right people is very important in building a team. I was reminded of the importance of looking not at a person’s abilities but at their character and whether or not they can unite their hearts with the pastor. As the number of church members increases in the future, it will not be possible for a single pastor to do the church’s work, and I hope that leaders will be raised from among the congregation. I would be grateful if you would pray that the Lord would give us such believers.  

We started a prayer line group in our church, and many people are actively participating in it. In the group, we pray for the salvation of our family and friends.

In small groups, we have been studying the gospel and how to walk as a Christian using a single text. We have this time once a month with both newly saved people and church members. We have a similar study with prospective members, hoping to confirm their faith. 

• Pray that the Lord would give us the right people to help build a ministry team.
• Pray for the physical and spiritual health of those who cannot come to worship services or meetings due to illness during the season changes.
• Pray for our outreach to the community and for those who have visited our services.
• Please pray for the Lord’s guidance as a church building as we continue to search for a property and church building.

Fall 2024 Ministry Update

At this month’s church meeting, we shared the vision the Lord gave to the Colosse church. We studied the words from Colossians 2:6,7 and shared the vision of ‘walking in Christ.’ Some members used to go to different churches, each coming from a different culture and way of thinking.  God reminded me during my devotions of the need to unify our church members with a shared vision among the congregation as a church. I think we are slowly coming together in unity as a church, even after going through some painful experiences.

I have recently been facing the issue of how to entrust members of the congregation with ministry responsibilities. I have had problems in the past when I allocated some ministry responsibilities to core members, and they failed to continue with the tasks I had given them.  I am finding it challenging to allow members to take on responsibilities now. Yet I believe that without delegating ministry activity to brothers and sisters in Christ in the church, the church will not mature. I need to move from the phase where a pastor does everything alone to a new phase where a pastor delegates ministry assignments to members. Please pray for courage and wisdom for me.  

My family is doing well. My son is on the autistic spectrum and has difficulty attending gatherings in larger groups of people. For that reason, my wife has been unable to attend any pastors and pastors’ wives meetings with larger gatherings, even when she wanted to. However, my son is gradually adjusting (although he still gets tired afterward), and my wife can attend such meetings lately.

My wife has been praying for a good mentor who may also be a pastor’s wife with whom she can consult on family matters, but she has not met one for quite some time. Recently, she has been able to meet with someone and another one who could be a potential mentor with whom she feels safe enough to share her life. I am thankful for that. I know how vital it is for pastors and the pastor’s family to continue serving without feeling alone. 

May the Lord richly bless all of you. Thank you for your prayers and support to us. 

Ongoing Ministry for your Prayers:

Ms. M., a woman in her 30s, received Christ as her Lord and Savior and was baptized this month after completing our baptism study. Thank you for your prayers. Our prayers were heard. When she was baptized, Ms. M. testified that she had no intention to believe in Jesus at the time she attended her first Bible study. As she continued her study of the Bible, she learned through the Word of God that the cross of Jesus Christ was for her sins. When she believed and received Jesus’s Love, the emptiness in her heart was filled.

Ms. M was first led to our church due to the Bible reading we started earlier this year. Through our prayers last year, my wife and I decided to start a Bible reading group. We started with the idea of continuing it steadily, even if there may not be very many who would come at first. At that time, a church member received a call from Ms. M. saying she would like to know more about the Bible. We invited her to the Bible reading, and she attended our second reading session. We then started an individualized Bible study with Ms. M, and she expressed the desire to be baptized. I am amazed by God’s timing and His way. 

There were hardships within the church as we approached the baptism due to emotional and physical illness. But we are thankful that we, as a church, overcame them all with the grace and support of the Lord so we could celebrate M.’s baptism ceremony together.

• Pray that my wife and I can continue our work with faith, no matter the situation.
• Pray for Mrs. M’s spiritual growth in the Lord.
• Pray for the salvation of Ms. Y., who has been coming to our guitar class. Y. has not been to a worship service yet, and we know that she is relying on various non-Christian spiritual things.

Recent contacts

This month, the mother of Mr. M., a visiting member of Shine Church, came to the Sunday Service. Mr. M’s wedding was just around the corner, and she came from Tokyo to attend the wedding.  

Update and our plan for the coming month

Another guitar class is planned for next month. Ms Y., a non-Christian woman in her 50s, is continuing to attend. Please pray for her salvation. Your prayers can be that the Holy Spirit will draw her to ask questions or respond to the seeds of the gospel we try to share in the guitar class. This relationship is an opening to develop Ms. Y’s confidence that we are representing Jesus Christ and that she will see our compassion and concern for the whole community.

We are also planning to hold a church meeting next month. We hope to share the church vision and discuss Christmas outreaches. We are also planning to renew the church website soon. Many people in Japan enjoy the decorations of Christmas, but we want to inform them that Jesus, the Son of God, was born and draw them into a Bible study so they will know why Jesus came to earth. Your prayers can help.

Prayer Points 

• Thank you for your prayers. I recently contracted COVID-19 and was in isolation for a week. My wife is also infected, and she still has a cough and phlegm tangle and has difficulty breathing. She is taking her medication, and I think she is getting better day by day. We would be grateful if you could pray for her speedy recovery and that she will not have any aftereffects. 

• Every Sunday, we have a worship service at Clover Plaza, a facility run by the prefecture, and I have to carry sound equipment and musical instruments from my house, as well as other things needed for the church, every week. This is a very difficult task, as we have to carry the equipment, set it up, take it apart after the service, and carry it back to the car. Then we arrive home and unload them. We are praying for a new base of operations. If we have a permanent hall, we can have a prayer group meeting in the morning, we can use it as a place for evangelism, and the members can feel a sense of home. Of course, considering our financial needs, it seems almost impossible, but we would be grateful if you would remember us in your prayers, believing in what the Lord will do. 

• I have recently been involved in three Bible study groups. I think we have been able to have good fellowship and challenge ourselves to grow. We have a family who is thinking about transferring their membership to Shine Church, so we are planning to have ongoing pre-transfer studying sessions to teach them the doctrinal emphasis of Shine Church.
  
• I feel the importance of small group sharing and preaching messages from the pulpit. I am thinking that I will not be able to teach all the small group fellowships alone. I would appreciate your prayers as we develop leaders who will become the teachers of small-group Bible studies.  

The challenges of the church are always present, but I want to look to the One who is righteous and true. I desire to do what I need to do faithfully. May the Lord richly bless all of you who pray and support us. 

Testimony Continued:

I was envious of my friends who fell in love, dated and had fun just fooling around on Sundays. Because I knew the Word, I felt guilty about my own sins. I would think, “What a rotten family I was born into!”

Despite all these internal conflicts, I attended church meetings and never missed a Sunday service. That made me proud, and I started judging other people! So, on Sundays, I lived as a Christian, and the rest of the week, I lived like a man of the world. I became a nominal Christian and started making lots of mistakes that I was uncomfortable admitting to the people at church.

When I was 20, we were given time to pray in response to the sermon at a meeting. For the first time, I was given the desire to respond to Jesus’ words, “Follow Me.” The Cross appeared in front of me, and I knew that Jesus was in front of me. I experienced His presence for the first time. Surrounded by the love of Jesus, I could only shed tears. When illuminated by the light of Jesus’ love, it also brought my dirty heart into the light, and for the first time, I realized what a ridiculous sinner I was. In my heart, I asked Jesus, “Do you love me even though I am so dirty?” He said, “I love you and was crucified for you.” He spoke so kindly. With that one moment, I understood the meaning of the cross, that Jesus did give up his life for such a ridiculous sinner. This was the moment when my faith became my own, true, genuine faith. Then Jesus told me something else. “You will be happiest working for me for your entire life.” It was an invitation to dedicate myself to Him. I was surprised at this sudden development, but I confessed to Him that I would obey. So, my encounter with the cross and my call to ministry happened at the same time.

More than 15 years have passed since then, and I can say what the Lord said was true. Working for the Lord brings many hardships, and it is a good reminder of my weaknesses. But it is the best way to know and rely on the Lord. And now I can confess that there is no happier path than being one with the Lord and serving him with my life.

Ongoing Ministry for Your Prayers:

We reported last time that Ms. M, a non-Christian woman in her 30s, came to a Sunday service in April. She also participated in our monthly Bible reading on May 10 and said she enjoyed it. She plans to come to the Bible reading in June. Please pray for her salvation. Another guitar class is scheduled for next month. Ms. Y, a non-Christian woman in her 50s, continues to attend. Please pray for her salvation as well. Pray that more seekers will attend and be saved. Your prayers lift Shine Church and move us forward. Thank you very much.

On May 12, Pastor Philip Tan, a pastor in Singapore from an organization called Love Singapore, came and gave a message. When I learned he would be giving a Sunday message, I took two days off on Monday and Tuesday of the week before and was spiritually and physically refreshed. My wife also took time off to visit her parents’ home in Yokohama for five days, and she returned to Fukuoka refreshed and reenergized. It was a needed time for my wife, who had been diligently helping me pastor the church. I anticipate having some quality downtime to relax and pray next month. I hope to be well prepared for the busy and hot summer by being still before the Lord. Thank you all for your precious prayers. Please continue to pray for our family and our church.

We are beginning to see signs of glimpses of the new salvations we have been praying for.  Quite a few people have unexpectedly come to worship services and church events. The Lord gave us the vision and the idea of opening a new door for missionary work. When we decided to have a guitar class, a non-Christian interested in playing the guitar showed up. When we were about to start a Bible reading session, people interested in the Bible came to the Sunday service. We are pleasantly surprised by God’s timing and believe a new season is coming to Shine Church. However, I often feel that attacks by the enemy are trying to keep the church from being mission-oriented. I desire to continue doing mission work while standing firm in the Word of God and building up with prayer. Please pray for the church and our family.  

This month, four non-Christian family members of Mr. A, a friend of a church member from work, came to the kids’ Easter service. They participated in the kids’ programs, such as games, Bible messages, and praises. All church members were overflowing with joy, having this family join us. 

On the following Sunday, Ms. M., a non-believer woman in her 30s, came to join the church service. She is a church member’s friend and contacted her friend the previous Saturday to share her desire to learn more about the Bible. After the service, M. and I talked about the Bible, and I prayed for her for God’s blessing. I believe that the Holy Spirit touched her heart. I am praying that she will be led to study the Bible more.

We plan to hold another Bible reading session and distribute flyers about it to our community. We will also continue to hold more guitar classes. We have held three guitar classes, but we know building good relationships with seekers with a long-term perspective takes time.  

My friend’s son, a twenty-year-old pastor, moved to Fukuoka for a new job, and he will be with us at Shine Church. Please pray for his future ministry in our church.

Everyone in the family is doing well. My wife and children pray before they go to bed to give thanks for the day and their needs. One night, our son prayed for a character toy, and his uncle, who knew nothing about his prayer, unexpectedly bought my son the toy; this allowed our son to experience God as real and to believe prayers are heard and answered.  

My wife and I continue to pray together at night. Our prayers have given us victories in many areas, such as protecting the faith of church members, healing, and advancing the mission. We feel the importance of praying together so earnestly.

We sense your prayers and are supported by them. We can never move forward on our own. Because of your prayers, we believe the Lord hears our prayers and supports our walk as the church. Thank you for your continued prayers for Shine Church and our family. 

Guitar Class

Ms. Y returned to our monthly guitar class after the service. I have not initiated any conversation covering the gospel directly yet, but I pray that we will be able to build a good relationship with her and know when to share the gospel with her.

We are starting a Bible reading session and invite unbelievers interested in the Bible. We will have tea or coffee, read the Bible, and talk about the Bible in a relaxing atmosphere.

Pray for new believers this year. We want to reach out in various ways, but we realize there are limits to what we can do on our own. We are reminded that it is truly by God’s work that one soul can be saved. In the course of missionary work, we are sometimes disappointed and discouraged. Please pray that through the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit, we will not give up but persevere in our missionary work. Please pray that we, as a couple, will have faith like Abraham and that we will work with hope for the future. 

My family is doing well. My son recently became excited about soccer and spends most of his free time kicking a ball around the yard. My daughter enjoys baking bread and cookies, and she makes so many that we have trouble consuming them. But as a parent, I am happy that both of them find things they enjoy in their everyday lives. 

Thanks to your prayers, we can continue our pioneering mission. I hope you will continue to pray for Shine Church and our family.

Please pray that souls will be saved.

Recently, more and more friends of church members have visited our church. A family of four who are friends of a church member came to visit us after the service one Sunday. Their youth participated in Sunday School, and we chatted over coffee. They said they would like to come to the church again. People visit us on Sunday afternoons to hang around, chat, and enjoy the time. However, they have not yet come to our morning worship service, but I sense that each member of our church’s desire to share the gospel with friends is growing stronger.

Please pray that the Lord will give me wisdom as I balance my outside ministry and my desire to put more effort into pioneering and that the Lord will show me and give me a good mentor.

We did not have any newcomers at our worship services this month. Yet,

Pray for the monthly guitar class to be used for our mission work.

Ms. Y. came again to a guitar class on Sunday, and we look to build a relationship with her and share the gospel when the opportunity arises.

Continue to pray for our church’s future building and location.

We are praying toward leasing a hall room, which may accommodate about 100 people, within a 20-minute walk from the station, a kitchen, and separate men’s and women’s restrooms, for a monthly rent of less than 120,000 yen, equivalent to about $800. If we were to purchase such a property, it would cost around 60 to 80 million yen, equivalent to $400,000 to $530,000. Considering our current church finances, it would be challenging to plan that much money, but I trust that nothing is impossible for what the Lord will do. Please pray that the Lord will lead us to a church hall for His glory.

Thank you so much for your gift of love.

Thank you for your generous Christmas gift of the desks for our son and daughter. My son and daughter have homeschooling classes at home, so those desks are a huge help for them and us; they love it. They are constantly studying hard and are reading books at these desks.

Prayer requests:

We held our first guitar class on December 3, and a church member’s friend, Ms. Y, came. We plan to have guitar classes for her on an ongoing basis. On December 17, we had a Christmas concert with our mother church, which had 43 attendees.  Five people came to the concert after receiving the church flier; twelve attendees were unbelievers, and four were people who had been away from church. It was very moving to see people touched by the love of Jesus and weeping and to see those away from church return to Jesus. I thank God for the great blessings He has poured over us. I sensed more prayers for this concert than ever before. I will continue to pray that the seeds sown on that day will one day sprout. Thank you all for your prayers.

Next month, we will have a party with church members, and we will enjoy eating cake and playing games. I hope it will be a time of good fellowship.

Thank you for your continued prayers. It was a pleasure to meet Mr. Wheeler again in November. His words encouraged me and inspired me to do my best. Thank you to all who support us and for the generous Christmas special gift. Your support has consistently helped our family and encouraged me. With the Christmas gift, we will buy desks for our son Raiki and daughter Hosana. They are homeschoolers and have been using a table in our kitchen to study together but asked for desks for their studies.

Pray for our ministries in the new year: guitar class, Bible reading cohort, church flier tracts distribution, and worship at home. We hope to minister with these activities under the Lord’s guidance.

Pray for us to find a specific location for our church. Currently, Shine Church rents a facility operated by the prefectural office twice a week by the hour for worship services. Recently, the facility has become popular, and there were days when we could not rent the facility. Since we pray for outreach to our community and for each member to take root in the church body, we feel the necessity of our own church space. The number of church members is still small, and we cannot afford it financially from an earthly perspective, but I believe the Lord will provide a church building according to His Will. I appreciate your prayers.  

On January 7, seven mission team members from Korea, Mr. and Mrs. O, and Mr. and Mrs. M., came from Tokyo for our worship. Also, Mr. M, who moved from Tokyo to Fukuoka, and his fiancée F. came. All are Christians. Mr. M, who moved to Fukuoka, said he might continue attending our church service.

Thanks to your Christmas gift, we purchased a desk for my son Raiki and daughter Hosana. Thank you all for your gifts and love for us.

Prayer requests:

Pray God will use our starting guitar class for His glory and that Ms. Y, who attends and is not a believer, will come to faith. Pray for our church, particularly our future church location and building.

Please pray for God’s protection and grace upon my wife’s spirit and body, as she has not been well recently. She tires easily and has difficulty getting out of bed, and her emotional ups and downs are very intense. She is turning 45 this month and is surprised at the changes in her health. She wants to pray more and engage in mission work yet is frustrated that she cannot do much. 

Pray for me as I work on my wellness by building physical strength. I recently began exercising to improve my fitness by using a bench seat and dumbbells and have not felt exhausted like I used to after preaching three sermons and leading worship on Sunday services. Perhaps the muscle training had already paid off.

Pray for my prioritizing in-depth fellowship with the Lord. Pray for us as a church to be used by God as a witness of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit as we focus on outreach this year. No matter our difficulties, we aim for the Lord’s call, expect the Lord’s work, and do what we can for the Church this year while being encouraged by the Lord.

We held our first guitar class on December 3, and a church member’s friend, Ms. Y, came. We plan to have guitar classes for her on an ongoing basis. On December 17, we had a Christmas concert with our mother church, which had 43 attendees.  Five people came to the concert after receiving the church flier; twelve attendees were unbelievers, and four were people who had been away from church. It was very moving to see people touched by the love of Jesus and weeping and to see those away from church return to Jesus. I thank God for the great blessings He has poured over us. I sensed more prayers for this concert than ever before. I will continue to pray that the seeds sown on that day will one day sprout. Thank you all for your prayers.

Next month, we will have a party with church members, and we will enjoy eating cake and playing games. I hope it will be a time of good fellowship.

Thank you for your continued prayers. It was a pleasure to meet Mr. Wheeler again in November. His words encouraged me and inspired me to do my best. Thank you to all who support us and for the generous Christmas special gift. Your support has consistently helped our family and encouraged me. With the Christmas gift, we will buy desks for our son Raiki and daughter Hosana. They are homeschoolers and have been using a table in our kitchen to study together but asked for desks for their studies.

Prayer

• Pray for our ministries in the new year: guitar class, Bible reading cohort, church flier tracts distribution, and worship at home. We hope to minister with these activities under the Lord’s guidance.
• Pray for us to find a specific location for our church. Currently, Shine Church rents a facility operated by the prefectural office twice a week by the hour for worship services. Recently, the facility has become popular, and there were days when we could not rent the facility.
• Pray for outreach to our community and for each member to take root in the church body.

Archive

Pastor Suzuki’s Testimony

When I was a junior in high school, I listened to gospel broadcasting, and during this time, my brother already had faith in the Urawa EVF church and invited me to attend. I was an introvert, and my older brother was diplomatic. When I was in junior high, I always did well with my grades, and I passed the exam to enter high school. But in my high school, there were lots of excellent students, and I suffered from a lowliness complex. One day, my brother came back to our house with a friend from church. I refused to see him; however, I had an interest in the church. It was when I went to church that everyone became friends with me, even though it was a time when everyone was busy with school exams.  The next time I went to church, I heard the gospel of the Bible. However, I would compare my self-centered sin to other people, and I noticed the narrowness and weakness of my personality. I spent six months and finally understood that Jesus’ death on the cross was due to my sin. From that moment, I changed.
Testimony Continued Below:

Recent Ministry:

Praise the Lord for the Progress of His Church

Nagano Shinonoi Church started our worship services in April 2018. We initially held church services in a renting a meeting room in the Civic Community Hall. We started with four adults and four international students. Later on, the Lord showed us a good property, and through His provision, we were able to purchase that property. As our membership has grown, we now have a vision that we are praying about to begin our new pioneering work in an unreached community.

As I have mentioned in my earlier reports, over the years of this pioneering work, we have sent out eight young adults in their twenties to the nearby city for work, marriage, or furtherance of their education. The current church has reduced the number of worshippers a little, but those faithful servants who have moved to the city remain in service to their new churches. Since last year, there has been a steady increase in the number of hopeful seekers whom we are praying will hear and understand the gospel so they may become saved. We have initiated many creative ways to develop new relationships with neighbors so we can present the gospel. The church now regularly hosts Korean Language classes, Rose Gardening Workshops, and music concerts. Each of these events provides relationship-building opportunities to reach our community with the gospel.

While considering the current situation in Shinonoi, we decided on our next target mission field, centered on the Azumino area (southwest of Shinonoi Nagano). Minister Naoki Suzuki and his wife are looking for a residence in that area and are preparing for the next phase of their ministry. Prayer meetings and pioneer preparation meetings have begun in Shinonoi Church. Please pray for these new developments. 

Church Leadership Development

Our church currently has four married couples between 30 and 40 years old. They are attending study sessions and fellowshiping together using the Marriage Course textbook. Through my training in biblical marriage and the application of Scripture in their lives, we are praying for them to become family congregation leaders in the near future. I am glad to see those couples becoming more stable in their marriages and family relationships as they continue each studying session.  I also pray for the growth of their children.  That will also lead our church to develop a solid youth group with Sunday School and spiritual fellowship and bond among our youth in the future. We are thrilled to see young families faithfully serving in the church.

• Pray for Associate Pastor Kim as he grows into becoming more of a full-time leader for the church.
• Pray that Minister Suzuki’s family will receive good property in the Matsumoto and Azumino areas of Shinonoi’s pioneering mission field.
• Our church’s first home-style small group meeting has been going well. We were blessed to have the second meeting at the new home.
• Pray that the Lord will bless the church members who are providing the home for our study; he desired from the beginning of his construction to use his house to host a prayer meeting.
• Pray for our potential second location for another home meeting.

Ongoing Ministry for your Prayer:

We held a dedication ceremony for the new house of our church’s representative deacon, Tadayoshi Suzuki, and his wife. Tadayoshi has been involved in our mission team from the very beginning of our church plant. He is a professor at the Graduate School of Social Welfare at a local public university, where he is also a researcher and organizes support groups to help the local community and those suffering at the bottom of the economic ladder. The Lord provided land for them about a fifteen-minute walk from the church, although it is a little far from their work, and the couple built a new house to help our pioneers and form future churches in the image of Priscilla and Aquila, the couple who supported Paul in his mission to Corinth. Tadayoshi and his wife shared their vision about forming multiple churches in the immediate Nagano area. We pray for the Lord’s blessing on this couple, who have been married for three years. Church members joined them after the service to celebrate the new building.

A short-term mission team from South Korea visited.

A team of ten people from The Happy Church, pioneering in Seoul, Korea, including Pastor Chungman Kim, a tent maker, stayed at Shinanoi Church as a short-term mission group.  They helped us distribute tracts and leaflets and installed a fence in the churchyard. The young women testified to salvation at the service and sang memorable praise songs. They also participated in the youth daytime outreach on Saturday and had fun with the children playing in the water at Olympic Park. Two of our junior high school students, Suiren and Sara, who attended our church’s Korean class, joined the team welcome party on Sunday and had a fun time of fellowship. The Korean pastor and I encouraged each other as we talked about the difficulties of pioneer missions in Korea’s urban areas and rural Japan. We hope to continue ministry cooperation.

• Pray for Mr. Y., who has recently been suffering from mental weakness and tends to miss worship services.
• Pray for starting a cell group this coming month and for Chiaki, who was baptized recently and will be part of the group.
• Pray for the Lord’s guidance over Rev. Naoki and Mrs. Eiko Suzuki, who continue to do mission field research in preparation for the new stage of pioneering church planting.
• Pray for Mr. L, who lost his younger brother to a sudden illness and has not recovered from the shock, and for his seeking life and salvation.

Testimony Continued:

I’ve been involved in church planting and have served as a chairperson for the Kansai district church planting council. I’ve been a member for over 15 years of the National EVF church mission committee and serve six years as a chairperson. I was also involved with Radio evangelism and served as a chairperson for six years. In 2006 I was chairperson for the Kinki missionary church Executive committee; we had 300 pastors and 1,000 missions’ conferences. My involvement continued with the Korean CCC New Life 2000 project national headquarter general affairs for ten years. We had 13,000 Korean students dispatched to domestic churches. Lastly, I still serve on the trustee of Japan Bible seminary; this is my third term.

I want to share my family’s background further. I am seventy-five years old, and my wife Sayoko is seventy-three. We have been married for 50 years. We were saved and baptized at Urawa Evangelical Free Church in Saitama Prefecture in the Kanto area. We started our ministry career as church planters at Higashi-Omiya Church; this pioneer church was blessed, and two buildings were built in ten years.  I still worked for a company; my wife was an elementary school teacher. After that, I attended seminary for four years while my wife supported our family. We were led to the Kansai area, where I pastored three churches over 30 years: Uji Church as the first Japanese pastor in the 5th year of the church planting after missionaries founded and served; Mukaijima Church as pioneer church planting, and Kyoto Church, which had a 60-year history. God led me to Ueda Church in Nagano, where I pastored for nine years. Our ministry lives have been a series of many blessings but also hardships. I was 68 years old when we devoted ourselves to the current pioneer church plant of Shinonoi.

We have two sons, two daughters, and eight grandchildren. At the beginning of the church planting of Mukaijima Church in Fushimi Ward, Kyoto Prefecture, we had a lot of difficulties, especially in the first year. However, we had regular monthly support from other churches in the Kansai area.  I pastored this church for eight years; God blessed the group, and it became a self-supporting church of 40 members.

During the early years of raising our children, we were in financial difficulties, and my wife and I could not afford to take the train as a family, even for one station away. We encouraged our four children with inexpensive sushi rolls as a reward. We would walk hand in hand for an hour between the parsonage and church every week along the riverbank near the railroad tracks during our children’s elementary school years.

My oldest son, unfortunately, left the Church for a while because he did not fit into the churches he tried to attend during his college years away from his hometown.  We thank God that he is now gradually returning to his faith walk. My oldest daughter majored in art in graduate school and studied abroad in Korea. The Lord called her to transfer from graduate school to study at a seminary, and eventually, she married a pastor. My second son, Naoki, worked for a company in Nagano, received God’s call, and then devoted himself to pioneering evangelism. He studied at a seminary for four years, graduated last March, and was led to be involved in church planting tent-making activities at several locations in the Nagano-Shinshu area. Currently, he is preparing to be ordained as a pastor. My second daughter was working for a long time at King’s Garden, a domestically well-known elderly-care facility run by Christians. She married a welfare worker who was a member of Tsuchiura Grace Church, one of the largest evangelical churches in the Kanto, greater Tokyo, area. She moved to Nagano last year to support Nagano regional community welfare and is now part of our pioneering effort.

I have experienced the hardships of a pioneering mission with my family, but God has given us His grace to help us each season of our ministry lives. The generous support from the White Fields at the current time is an excellent help to our son Naoki’s vision and preparation for the next pioneering project along with us.

Ongoing Ministry for Prayer:

Ninth Year as a Congregation

We are in our ninth year of pioneering, and on June 2nd, we held a general assembly meeting and officially consented to a new member, Chiaki Niwano, who was baptized in April. Thank you for your prayers. We are thankful she has a new job and can attend Sunday services. She now brings her mother, Chieko Masuda, to the weekly service. Chiaki had been a seeker for over three years and was led to Christ via the Autumn Sound concert of our churches’ outreach. At her previous job at that time, at a newspaper delivery company, she oversaw printing and distributing our church leaflets and was always curious about their contents and Christianity. She attended our concerts a few times, attended church services, had one-on-one Bible study, and was baptized. Lay church members led the church’s annual general meeting as the chairman and the secretary. The general account aligned with the budget, and everyone was thankful. On the same day, Minister Naoki Suzuki also testified about his new call to pioneering work during the service. We are praying for God’s guidance and his prep in the future.

• Pray for the recovery of my wife, who suffers from shingles. She has been on block injections for over four months.
• Pray for creating cell groups within the church and establishing a mutual pastor-supporting coop system.
• Pray for the guidance of minister Naoki and his wife Eiko Suzuki, who are praying for the preparation and guidance of the immediate church planting activities in the area.
• For those who have been away from the church for some time.

One of our members had an engagement ceremony on Sunday, June 16th. At that time, another church member and his family, who were to witness the marriage in November, also attended the service at Shinonoi Church. He is a friend of mine from my youth and has been the Head Deacon of Warabi Evangelical Free Church, a leading church in the area north of Tokyo. For the first three years of my church planting pioneering work at Shinonoi, he attended worship services once every five weeks. For him, it takes three hours by car to get here, so he stayed at a different house and served as if he were a member of the Shinonoi Church. This time, his son, the current Head Deacon, drove the family to attend the service at our church, and my friend came as a church representative and a witness for the man of the marriage. This dear friend is currently recovering from a lung disease for which he is receiving anti-cancer drugs. He was also a member of the Evangelism Promotion Committee, a supporting group for Shinonoi’s pioneering work. As mentioned above, we are being taught once again that church pioneering can never be done alone and requires, and we sense many people’s prayers behind and support.

In the past, I was involved in pastoring three churches in Kyoto Prefecture, which I never thought my service was adequate. The church there was initially planted by missionaries from the United States in the 1950s. I was the fifth pastor serving there. While I was serving, we established a church building.  As Paul writes in Romans 15:23, I was led to this Nagano area to develop a new ministry and pioneering after finishing my ministry in the Kansai Kyoto area. We have been in the Ueda Church in Nagano for nine years and acquired a legal entity, a local non-profit religious corporation. Then we came to this second pioneering of Nagano region, Shinonoi area, for nine years. The Lord gave me a vision of district formation and multiple pioneering church plantings. 

Now, we have been given a few young workers and are caring for them while praying for the next area church-planting opportunity and asking for God’s guidance. In the past, we held a home meeting for seven months in the Matsumoto area near Murai Station, which is our prospective mission field. We are conducting a field survey and have visited the area several times. However, we pray for the Lord’s timing to come as we search for the place of the Lord’s heart and provision. Please pray with us.

We are in our ninth year of church planting, and our church is gradually being accepted and recognized in the community around us. Yoko, a woman in our community, joined our Rose Garden Growing Workshop. She is studying the introductory Bible course with Minister Suzuki. There also is Ms. Masuda, the mother of Ms. Niwano, who was baptized last month; she also came for the Rose Workshop.

Another outreach is Ms. Hee’s Korean language classes. We have two classes, one for adults at our church and the other at a facility for the lightly disabled youth within Nagano City. One of the students is Ms. Kumiko, as reported last month.  Personal interactions and involvement with people in the community, even compared to larger-scale concert projects, have indeed increased, and solid relationships with them have grown. Even though our area is known to be a very conservative area with tough soil for missions, we see that the Lord is at work.

The mother church of the eighteen churches of West Kanto has brought in a younger yet experienced successor senior pastor with more than ten years of pastoral experience in other churches to lead our district. We sense the new senior pastor’s openness toward our prayers and vision for multiple church plantings and formations in our district. We pray that God will work to open renewed regional cooperation, and we thank the Lord for His timing and providence.

Members of our church are moving out of our district due to marriage. We will miss them. In the past eight years of our church planting, we have said goodbye and sent eight young people in their twenties and thirties to cities in other areas due to life changes. Nurturing new Christians and seekers takes time, and it is difficult to say goodbye to these new believers. Yet we do not have many people moving in to join us from a large city due to the hardship.  Nagano’s local people are known as stubborn and argumentative. However, we believe that souls will be saved when the Holy Spirit is at work.  I am encouraged by the Word of God. 

Pray that God will lead those who attend the Korean language class to connect further with the church. Pray for Eijun, who has returned to Korea to recover from her illness and is preparing to settle in Shinonoi for the rest of her life. Pray for Yuki Fukushima, who moved from Ibaraki and started working as a welfare officer at the city office this Spring. 

Baptism

On Sunday, April 21st, Chiaki was baptized. It was a long-awaited moment of joy for all of our church members. Chiaki has been studying the Bible (via an Introductory course by Minister Naoki Suzuki) every Wednesday for over a year for training and discipleship. She started to attend church faithfully about a year ago and has been participating in worship services.  As reported in the past, when we had the Autumn Sound Concert, we asked for a local newspaper production department to design advertising flyers for the community. We also inserted newspaper ads into 12,000 households in the area. Chiaki works at this newspaper stand, and the Lord touched Chiaki while she was picking up the flier and looking at it as she was inserting them. As she was already very interested in reading the contents of the flyers, she came to the concert and was moved by the music, the praise songs, and the testimony. The following Sunday, she came to the worship service and stayed to join the Bible study. At that time, we could sense that Chiaki was a very well-groomed soul. Chiaki had been attending concerts for over two years. She was a seeker who came to worship in prayer and correspondence and was serious about learning. Lately, Chiaki has brought her mother, Chieko, 86 years old, to worship services. Chieko has already come to the service five times. Chiaki is now praying for her witnessing opportunities and sharing her testimony with her family.

Creating a comfortable place for unbelievers 

I sense it takes time for people in Nagano to open their hearts. For that respect, I have been thankful for the opportunities to use my experiences and gift in gardening for my outreach ministry.  It has been two years of holding a monthly rose-growing workshop. At a recent workshop, about ten people came, including Chiaki, who was baptized, her mother, Chieko, and another Chieko, a seeker who has been participating in the workshop for over a year. We planted various spring flowers together and set up our flowerpots this month. People all enjoy making their flowerpots and hearing short gospel messages. In the upcoming months, I plan to take the whole group to visit the famous rose garden in Shinshu Nagano during the peak season of roses to deepen the relationship further and have a fellowship lunch together.

Pray for Chiaki to find a new job where she may have Sundays off, and pray for salvation for her mother. Pray that Kumiko will be able to join the Bible Study.  Pray for my wife Sayoko for pain relief and recovery from shingles. For the health of Eijun for her recovery from insomnia and from swelling of her face.

Mrs. M.I. was not receptive to the words of the Bible and showed a strange attitude because she had visited and sought guidance from a local animist leader in the neighboring town, hidden from our church family for over a year. The animist leader is well-known in the city and has influenced many people. Mrs. M.I. had also invited several business connections to this animist leader. During a Bible study, she confessed her sin and surrendered all to Jesus, relying on Him to care for everything. She has started studying the Bible actively and has now brought her husband to church. 

Miss M.S. kept asking me to officiate at her engagement ceremony, but I first refused as her future spouse was an unbeliever. She had an ambiguous attitude toward her faith, but her attitude changed during Bible studies. She earnestly sought the Lord and prayed genuinely for his salvation. Both are Forestry Agency public servants and many officials there are often transferred and sent to remote areas, so when they decided to continue to seek the Lord’s guidance and promised in front of everyone that they would continue to study The Bible even online, I realized I could actively help this couple step forward in their relationship. On the day of the couple’s engagement ceremony, both sets of parents, all unbelievers, were moved to tears and thanked the church. The brothers and sisters of the church show such tender love for her future, and I believe that this also helped her future spouse open his stubborn heart. Her fiancé, Mr. T.S., faithfully continues his Bible study.

We are entering the eighth year of our current pioneering mission. The Lord has blessed us with more than twenty worshippers, and we have reached the point where we anticipate being financially self-reliant in two years. We have added two more to our ministry team and set up a vision for the next stage of development. As we move toward developing another church plant in the district, many Japanese church members are aging, and there are difficulties in finding a pastor willing to work with a small local church planting effort and do the hard work of local evangelism. Please pray for our ministry team’s unity and wisdom as we seek to develop our leadership team.

Pray for C.N., who is studying for baptism. Pray for the spiritual growth of the engaged couple, M.S. and T.S., as they study in preparation for marriage. Pray for the growth of a 9th-grade student who recently accepted Jesus.  Pray for the unity and wisdom of church staff.

Funeral service for Mrs. I

Thank you for your prayers. We consider hosting a funeral our opportunity to minister, preach, and share the gospel in the community with the unsaved. The mother of Mr. I, one of our members, passed away; she was 92 years old and had dementia, so she could hardly communicate with us. Mr. I is the only child in that family and has a slight developmental disability, so the church supported him and took care of all that needed to be arranged surrounding the Christian ceremony funeral service. All his relatives are unbelievers. The Christian funeral service touched the families; we saw it was a good testimony among them. We are also planning to hold a memorial service; please pray, as the family is planning to attend our church on that occasion again. 

Mengumi, whom I mentioned earlier in my prayer requests, had been dating a non-believer man but repented. She and her boyfriend are continuing their faith study with Pastor Kim. They are both initially from Kyoto, with a strong Buddhist influence. Please pray for the salvation of her boyfriend.  In my past forty-six years of ministry in pastoring, I have witnessed fifteen couples, each of which led the partner to become Christian, and women led their boyfriends for salvation fourteen out of those fifteen couples. Each shared stories of complications in their relationship and spiritual warfare. I encouraged and prayed with believer women who were in tears and advised them to lead their partners and friends to salvation by the grace and mercy of the Lord.

Bible Study and Future Marriage of Mr. S. & Ms. S

As I reported earlier, a believer and a seeker repented and confessed their sin of sexual impurity. While they were studying the Bible, they realized their sin. The believer, our church member, invited her boyfriend to church. During more than ten times of study, the two who had rebelled against the Bible yet later repented, and our member’s facial expressions changed to peace. The boyfriend continued coming to our church and has been taking the seeker’s class and marriage class. They decided to have the wedding ceremony at our church. It is so touching to see their change of attitudes and heart.  We are counseling them about their wedding, and we believe that this will lead them to a clear confession of sin and a decision of faith.

Strategy meeting for the subsequent development plan

Since our church planting ministry began, my wife and I believe the Lord has been calling us to form a new district. We have weekly staff meetings with Associate Pastor Kim and his wife and Minister Suzuki and his wife. We have come this far with our motto, “Building a flock of love to establish a missional community.” When I was transferred from Kyoto, I prayed to develop multiple churches and create a district council, an independent cooperative flock of churches. The church I was assigned to in Ueda City, Nagano Prefecture, was a young church pioneered by the mother church, Urawa Church, and the previous pastor had resigned, having some problems. After nine years of assignment, the church became self-reliant and received consent from the local government to be an independent religious non-profit legal entity, which led to the current Shinonoi Pioneer Church. We are now praying to start a third church in the Matsumoto/Azumino area after studying the population survey, economic structure, urban planning, existence of Christian churches, and the history of past missions. We aim to strategically investigate our resources in this targeted area. When Shinonoi Church is ready, we will send my son, Minister Suzuki, and his wife to promote the pioneering work. Please pray for us. In the photo on the left is Minister Naoki Suzuki and his wife, and Associate Pastor Kim and his wife on the right. They are both working and serving as tent makers.

Pray for C, who is in a baptism prep course. Pray for growth for those who continue to study the Bible faithfully. Pray for the pre-marital counseling and the salvation of Mr. S and our weekly Bible readings. Pray for our church to be self-reliant and unified in vision as we establish a stable team. Pray for Minister Suzuki and his wife’s practical preparation for their future pioneer church planting work. They are in the process of raising their child.

On Saturday, November 18, we had a rose-growing workshop and party. Aiko, a conservative peach farmer, and Chieko, who has participated in the rose-growing seminar for over a year, attended a recent concert outreach event where I shared a short message from the Bible.

Tetsuya who has been coming to our worship service periodically since this summer is the husband of Miyuki, who recently made a decision of faith in Christ. Tetsuya is about forty-five years old and is a truck driver. He comes to worship whenever he has free time on Sundays. He is a long-distance driver who travels all over the country so he says work can feel very lonely. We send him cassette tapes of my sermons so he can listen in his truck and video messages from my cell phone. He and his wife are friends of Sadao, who recently had a revival of his faith at last year’s Christmas service. Tetsuya attended the worship service with us and is becoming very attracted to a new faith in Christ.

We had a church retreat and Rev. Takashi gave a lecture on the theme of Church and Family. We learned about church formation based on the principles of worshiping with adults and children together in the same service. We have five children at our church ranging from an infant to grade three. We continue to hold services together and have not been able to do a separate Sunday school due to logistical reasons including lack of space, time, and volunteers.

However, in the past, two elderly families left the church because they were dissatisfied with not hearing the sermon well when children, especially toddlers, were incorporated into the service for adults. We are trying to form a church that nurtures children as we anticipate them being the future of the church despite a declining birth rate and aging population. We are encouraged by the fact that our church plant has four young families who are attending, supporting, and being a part of the church. In our region, there are three elementary schools with six to seven hundred students attending. The recent composition of the community reminds us that we are a city of young families, and we also need to remember to have a good balance in reaching out to the multiple generations in our community. I sense the importance of reaching the older generations who have funds and time to spare for ministry and involvement.

The last weekend of the month, there was a joint cooperative distribution of tract flyers from churches belonging to the Kanto West District Council. Pastors and members from seven churches participated, traveling three hours each way and visiting three-thousand houses with flyers. The purpose of the visit was to publicize the concert of Ryoji, a former cellist with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. A total of thirty-four people attended the event. We stopped distributing flyers for three years due to covid and are grateful to be able to continue this outreach event. We have had three people connected to the church so far through this outreach. One is Ms. Chiaki who made a clear decision about salvation and attends the introductory class. We are grateful to the participants who circulated the flyers and for their support and cooperation.

I was invited by the Yasu Evangelical Free Church in the Kansai area, the west central region of Japan, to give a sermon at their service and share my testimony of church planting during the afternoon. When I received the initial request from them, I asked why they wanted me to come to their distant Kansai region. They replied that one of their congregants remembered my involvement in resolving a church conflict and they wanted to hear my testimony as a pioneering missionary, and so invited me to the church during their pastor’s summer vacation. I also learned that my experience with an incurable disease was a great encouragement to them. A former core member of their congregation who lost his eyesight suddenly due to an incurable disease attended the service and looked up to the Lord with me. The pastor later contacted us to say it was a great encouragement. I praise God that our church planting testimony was helpful to this church group.

• Pray for the successful completion of the renovation of the parsonage for the evangelist that was approved by the church general assembly.
• Pray for God’s direction and guidance in the next Nagano church planting and development at our pastor’s meeting. A new discussion began last month, and I was getting the impression that the voice of certain generations with no experience in church planting is getting more dominant in making future decisions.

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