As the 2012 Kyodan Yearbook has just been published and contains the statistics for the 2010 fiscal year, I want to discuss recent trends within the Kyodan from the standpoint of statistics.
The overall basics statistics are as follows:
Total Number of Churches – 1,724
Total Membership – 182,418
Total Number of Resident Communicant Members – 90,184
Average Sunday Attendanc……
The 4th Executive Council meeting of the 37th General Assembly Period (10/2010-10/2012) was held at the Kyodan headquarters in Tokyo, Oct. 17-18, with all 30 members present. Council members include representatives from 16 of the 17 districts nationwide. The meeting was opened with worship led by Nagasaki Tetsuo, who spoke about the close relationship between evangelism and fundraising/relief oper……
It has been eight months since the great earthquake and tsunami that occurred along the length of eastern Japan on March 11. Restoration following the unprecedented destruction in the various areas, and especially with the additional accident at Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant, has been extremely difficult. People are in pain and despair and are struggling to see the light of future prospec……
In January 2011, Iai Gakuin celebrated its 137th anniversary, making it the oldest girls’ junior high and senior high school in Hokkaido. The first missionaries to work here were Merriman Colbert Harris and his wife Flora Lydia Best Harris. They were sent by the American Methodist Episcopal Church and arrived in Hakodate on January 26, 1874. Flora Harris quickly gathered a group of young girls tog……
by Sagara Masahiko, Kyodan missionary pastor
I was sent to New York to work in Japanese Ministry for three years, from the spring of 2008 to 2011. I served as program director of the Special Ministries to the Japanese and as the pastor of the Union Japanese Church of Westchester. SMJ is an outreach program for Japanese families and people with care and love in Christ. SMJ has been supported in ……
The coastal area of Fukushima along the Pacific Ocean, called hamadori, is reeling from the triple disasters of the Great East Japan Earthquake, a tsunami, and nuclear radiation from the damaged nuclear power plant. Staff of the Kyodan’s monthly magazine Shinto no Tomo (Believers’ Friend) visited the eight churches located near the power plant and shared with their readers the following testimonie……
by Jonathan McCurley, UMC missionary
Asian Rural Institute
Nasu-shiobara, Tochigi Prefecture
As we move into Advent and the Christmas season, we are reminded of the new things that God promises in the incarnation. The promises of God being with us, of a new way of life, and of new birth is not only something that happened 2,000 years ago but also has been the experience this pas……
The Kyodan’s Disaster Relief Planning Headquarters hosted a symposium at Ginza Church, Aug.29-30, on the theme “Christianity and the Crisis in Present-day Japan–Issues Raised by the Great East Japan Earthquake,” which was attended by 440 participants. Four speakers–a pastor, a theologian, a Christian educator, and a Christian social worker–made presentations from their individual perspectives, and……
The 3rd Executive Council meeting of the 2010-11 General Assembly was held July 4-5, with all council members in attendance. Following the suggestion proposed at the previous meeting by council member Kita Kiyoshi, the meeting began with a brief worship service led by Kita, in which he gave a short sermon. There is no record of any previous Executive Council meeting beginning with such a worship s……
—Noda Taku, director*
Student Christian Fellowship
The activities of the Tohoku District’s Disaster Victims’ Relief Center are mainly focused in the Arahama and Ishinomaki areas of the Wakabayashi Ward in Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture. Our desire is to see the restoration of the homes and lives of the people living there. Arahama is the area closest to the center of Sendai that was damaged by the……
