The Kyodan sent General Secretary Nagasaki Tetsuo and Executive Secretary for Ecumenical Ministries Kato Makoto on official visits to churches in North America that previously had related to the Kyodan through the former Japan-North American Commission on Cooperative Mission (JNAC). This opportunity was precipitated by the invitation of Xiaoling Zhu, area executive for East Asia/Pacific of the Com……
Ever since the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, the Kyodan has been supported by so many churches around the world, and I really feel that this support has helped open the eyes of our rather inward-looking church to the prayers of people all over the world.
One aspect of this that I would like to highlight is the support the Buraku Liberation Center (BLC) received from an org……
Theobald A. Palm, of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society, came to Niigata on April 15, 1875, after studying the Japanese language in Tokyo. Born in Colombo, Ceylon, he was educated at Edinburgh Medical School and arrived in Japan with his wife soon after his graduation and marriage in 1874. Palm consulted with Dr. J. C. Hepburn, a Presbyterian medical missionary, and decided to go to “the mos……
(From an interview with Yamashita Yoshie,
a member of Mima Church in Shikoku District)
The city of Uwajima, in Ehime Prefecture, retains strong traces of its history as a castle city. From Uwajima, which faces the sea, a narrow road leads east through the mountain passes to the town of Mima. Alongside the Mima River, which runs through the heart of town, stands Mima Church.
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The first Executive Council meeting of the new Kyodan General Assembly biennium was held Nov. 18-19 at the Japan Evangelical Lutheran’s Tokyo Church, with all 27 members in attendance. Moderator Ishibashi Hideo gave the opening greetings, saying, “Our primary calling during this general assembly period is to be a ‘Kyodan that evangelizes,’ but we must also seek unity in our church through a unity ……
The Kyodan Subcommittee on Dealing with Handicapping Conditions sponsored its 4th National Symposium, Sept. 2-3. It was held at “Toyama Sunrise” National Welfare Center for Persons with Handicapping Conditions, in Shinjuku, at which 35 people from 14 Kyodan districts were present. The theme was “Spiritual Care for Pastors and Their Families,” with Professor Fujikake Akira from Seigakuin University……
by Rev. Shinmen Mitsugu, faculty member
Miyagi Gakuin Women’s College
This is a generation that acts as though power constitutes justice. Integrity and righteous indignation have vanished; discipline, peace, and justice are also ignored. With financial concerns uppermost, the college is being changed into a market that is geared towards career education, as though it were a job-pla……
by Akiba Mutsuko, Kyodan missionary
Ten years have passed since I became the pastor of the Japanese Church in Berlin, Germany. This congregation was started at the end of the 1980s by a Japanese pastor who began holding worship services in Japanese. It is significant that this church began with worship at its center at a time when many foreign-language churches were being formed out o……
The following is the testimony given by Ms. M, a mother who had decided to relocate her family from their home in Fukushima, at a symposium on discrimination organized by the Kyodan Buraku Liberation Center, held in June 2014 at Wakamatsu Sakaemachi Church
Resisting the calls to just “forget about radioactivity”
Ms. M and her family evacuated from a certain city in the Na……
by Hirata Nobuyuki, Kyodan associate staff member
Disaster Relief Center, “Heartful Kamaishi
We celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, with people who live in temporary housing in the earthquake-stricken area of Kamaishi. There are presently 3,124 units in 65 temporary housing complexes in Kamaishi, with 5,086 people who have no other option but to live in ……
