The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT) and the Council for World Mission (CWM) jointly sponsored a workshop entitled “Emergency Preparedness and Response” at Nanshan Educational Center in Taichung City, Taiwan, Nov.10-13, 2015. Supported by the ACT (Action by Churches Together) Alliance, the conference was attended by 34 participants who, for the most part, lead departments in their respective ch……
One Sunday evening late last fall, I attended the dedication ceremony for the new facilities of Eifukucho Church in Tokyo. The church had decided to close the kindergarten it had run for years and sell the land in order to build an elegant building to house its sanctuary, meeting rooms, and an upstairs parsonage. The fact was that the number of children in the area had precipitously declined, so i……
The educational institution that became Seigakuin University and its schools was founded by missionaries from the Disciples of Christ denomination in the U.S., first as a seminary in 1903 and as a school in 1906. One of the first missionaries of that denomination to arrive in Japan was Charles E. Garst, who arrived in 1883 at age 30.
Prior to that, he had graduated from the famous U.S……
by Yoshioka Yasutaka, Kyodan missionary
Sycamore Congregational Church
Sycamore Congregational Church was founded in 1904 in El Cerrito, California by Pastor Okubo Shinjiro and several Japanese students who were studying in the U.S. It was originally a church “by Japanese and for Japanese” and had only a Japanese-language worship service. However, as the number of nisei (second-generation Ja……
by Iizuka Takuya, director
Mitsukaido Church Volunteer Center
Pastor, Ryugasaki Church
On Sept. 10, 2015, flooding from heavy rain concentrated in the ……
by Iwashita Hiroshi, member
Nagasaki Furumachi Church
My first encounter with the Christian faith came at the baptism of my mother, Iwashita Shizu. About ten years ago, she became ill and, upon going to the hospital, was diagnosed as having stage-three cancer. The attending physician advised that she only had a few months to live. Even so, my mother refused to give up hope. Even while suffer……
A Special Feature of the Editorial Section of Shinto no Tomo (Believers’ Friend)
The Impact of Kirishitan* Funerals
During the Warring States Period
At the National Meeting of the All Japan Young Buddhist Association in 2003, held in Kyoto, keynote speaker Hiro Sachiya expressed the view that with the exception of the nobility or samurai class, it was very uncommon for Buddhists priests to ……
The Korean Christian Church in Japan (KCCJ) held its third international youth forum on “Minority Issues and Evangelism” at the Korean YMCA in Tokyo from Nov. 15 to 17, 2015. This event is held once every 20 years. In a situation where there seems to be no prospect of solving such problems as terrorism and the migration of refugees, or the issue of hate-speech here in Japan, young people from arou……
The International Conference on Minorities and Mission sponsored by the Korean Church of Christ in Japan was held Nov. 18-21, 2015, at the Korean YMCA in Japan, located in Tokyo. The 133 participants included Kyodan Moderator Ishibashi Hideo and about 30 other members from the Kyodan.
The main theme of the conference was the discrimination experienced by Korean residents in Japan and ……
Miyako Church in Iwate Prefecture was founded in 1909, but 82 years after its construction, the sanctuary was flooded to a depth of two meters by the tsunami resulting from the 2011 earthquake. The new sanctuary was built in October 2015, and the attached kindergarten, called “Hikari Yochien,” which previously had been located some distance from the church, was also reopened in December 2015 on th……
