Every two years the Church Planting Institute conference is held in November. This year there were over 700 missionaries and Japanese in attendance. The conference facilitates time to worship, study church planting strategies in various seminars and network with Evangelicals across denominations committed to church planting in Japan. We always enjoy this conference because it gives us the chance to connect with friends and colleagues whom we haven’t seen in a long time, network with new folks and grow in our ability as church planters.
Usually a team of 70+ come from America to run the kid’s program for the 250 kids who participate. This year the team was reduced to 44 and since the conference was closer to Nagoya for the first time in the history of the conference the Nagoya Team hosted the group. Our team has never hosted a group this large and although quite apprehensive about how it would all come together Cathalain led and organized the group with help from everyone on our team. We even moved out of the Ministry Center for two nights so twenty members could sleep there!
This was a great opportunity for us to share our vision and ministry of church planting in downtown Nagoya. It was also a great opportunity to be encouraged by those who came. We like to take any opportunity for people to come see the ministry center that God has given us and also to use this space to serve others. It’s one thing to hear that only .3% of the population is Christian, but it’s another thing altogether to see and experience that spiritual darkness for yourself. We feel that hosting these teams is worth it when we hear them say how they have a newfound heart for the lost in Japan and will fervently pray for Japan!
Leave a Reply