The season of annual district assemblies begins in late April. The General Affairs Department of the Kyodan General Office has been particularly busy making preparations for the 2008 sessions and has completed the moderator's greetings to each of the districts and the general secretary's report on the business of the Kyodan during the 2007 fiscal year. As general secretary, I have reviewed the charts listing church statistics for 2006, the budgets and financial reports, and distributions of financial support for district activities, etc., and was reminded anew of the severity of the Kyodan's situation. The unfortunate reality is that Kyodan membership and attendance at worship services as a whole is slowly declining, and the same can be said concerning the church's financial status. Thus, each Kyodan church needs to renew its commitment to outreach and evangelism.

Recently, I also found some very interesting data in a report entitled, "50 years of Kyodan data: See the church in graph format." Prepared by a member of the Committee on Finance as an aid to committee planning, it looked at the past 50 years on both the general church and district levels, analyzing a number of relevant statistics, such as communicant membership, worship attendance, number of baptisms, deaths, age distribution of membership, church school attendance, apportionments (amount paid by churches to general church), pastors' salaries. The implications of the various statistics were easy to identify. In addition to these internal church statistics, the analysis included the aspect of the general financial strength of each area or prefecture involved and drew the following conclusions.

-If current church trends are prolonged, the Kyodan will continue to decrease in strength.
-If the Kyodan wishes to grow in the future, its motto must be "#1: evangelism, and #2: evangelism." It must refocus its efforts on evangelism.
-If each church could average one baptism and the reinstatement of two inactive members per year, the Kyodan would maintain a growth pattern.

I think this explanation is easy to understand, and I find it convincing. I pray that as a church that is part of the Body of Christ, the Kyodan at its national and local levels will refocus its efforts on evangelism and make its worship services more meaningful so that this goal of one baptism and the reinstatement of two inactive members per year can be reached. I pray that each church will recommit itself to the principles of an evangelical statement of faith and the following of the bylaws of the church. (Tr. TB)

Naito Tomeyuki
Kyodan General Secretary