Harvest Saturday

The vision is a simple one, but one that will take decades to achieve. There are 500,000 people living on this volcanic plain in northern Japan, stretching around the two key cities of Hirosaki and Goshogowara. The vision is plant a network of ten churches, each with around 50 people. Once that project is finished, this denomination (JECA – Japan Evangelical Churches Association) will have a strong network throughout the region.

Itayanagi is between the two big cities and has a strong and growing church developing, under the capable leadership of Martin and Ruth Ghent. To the north, closer to Goshogowara, Kanagi Church has been planted and is beginning to grow under the leadership of OMF’s Armin Messer and his family.

To the south, the next target is Hirosaki City where a church plant is underway. On the outskirts of town where the city merges into apple orchards and farm country, a farmer’s house and barn were purchased and now serve as a church and pastor’s residence (but there is no pastor yet because the Ghent family drives 40 minutes as required to visit the church a couple of times a week). The church is called Harvest.

So how to reach a community that has heard nothing at all about Jesus except for the commercialised Christmas that hits Japan every December?

To begin with, the church needs to build respect so that the community knows that it is a safe place to come. During the week we handed out leaflets to the surrounding houses and the local school. As the church becomes part of the community, suspicion about this unknown religion will hopefully lessen.

Next, the church needs to communicate Christianity in a way that will connect with the little that people know about Jesus. And so Christmas becomes the connection point. Today we had a children’s Christmas party with about 50 primary school kids attending. Many of them had no connection with the church. But they were keen to come along and learn about Christmas, and to participate in a series of games, songs, and a Bible talk to explain the true meaning of Christmas.

It seemed like an event bigger than we could achieve on our own. But the Gracepoint team, the Ghent family and people from Harvest Church worked together as a team to present Jesus. For some of these kids it may have been their first contact with the Christian message.

For prayer:

1. Give thanks for our partnership in the Gospel with the local church here and with the missionaries.

2. Pray that the kids who heard the Gospel today might go on to hear it enough times to grasp the true meaning of grace and that they may become the leaders of some of the church plants that are planned for the coming years.