The Japanese, the beloved people among whom I live and serve, are the second largest unreached ethnic group in the world.
The category of “unreached people groups” describes peoples where less than 2 percent of the population is evangelical. Unreached peoples are those most in need of missionary ministry. However, while this category is useful in diagnosing missionary need, it never tells the complete story of God’s redemptive work among a people. “Unreached” does not necessarily mean that there is no Christian presence, and unreached peoples may indeed have small but faithful churches with their own remarkable stories of God’s sovereign saving work. Japan offers an excellent example of a little-known story of redemption that deserves to be remembered.
Psalm 105:1-6 teaches us that making God’s greatness known among the people (verse 1) is deeply connected to remembering His wonderful works (verses 2, 5) and responding with thanksgiving (verse 1). ). By remembering how God worked mightily in places known to have hard ground, we can be filled with thanksgiving and worship, which then propels us into mission with new energy and insight into how to ‘extend the Gospel where it seems impossible.
First agitations
The first Protestant missionaries arrived in Japan in 1859. Japan’s borders had been closed to the West – particularly Christianity – since 1603, when an influential Catholic mission was expelled following extreme persecution. A ban against Christianity remained in force when the missionaries arrived in 1859, and it was difficult to even get the gospel heard. Just mentioning the name Jesus could cause Japanese people to run a finger across their throat to illustrate the danger of the subject. The missionaries nevertheless set to work learning the language and finding creative ways to serve, including through education and medicine.
Early in 1872, Christian missionaries and expatriates organized a week of prayer in Yokohama, which several non-Christian Japanese students decided to join. Each day, those gathered read a passage from Acts and prayed together. As they prayed, the Spirit began to work in power. The group decided to continue meeting once the week was over. By the end of the second week, the Japanese students, many of whom were from proud samurai families, were on their knees crying out to God in tears for the Holy Spirit to descend on Japan, just as He had done for the early Church.
Nine of the students soon professed their faith in Christ and were baptized on March 10, 1872 as members of the first Protestant church in Japan. Although two of the nine turned out to be Buddhist spies who quickly disappeared, the other seven were joined by another wave of newly converted students to form the Yokohama Band, the first in a series of small movements of Japanese Christians who would help spread the Gospel throughout the country. Japan.
Bands of Brothers
Similar movements occurred throughout the remainder of the 1870s, notably in Kumamoto and Sapporo. In Kumamoto, Captain LL Janes, a civil war veteran, was recruited to start a school of Western learning. Janes did not go there with strong missionary intentions. However, after a few years of teaching and bonding with the boys at his school, he began leading a Bible study in which all the students felt obligated to participate. Although Janes preached a gospel laced with aspirations for the Westernization of Japan, his message nevertheless had a significant impact on the boys. Many converted to Christianity and Janes added weekly worship and prayer.
“God has worked mightily in Japan in the past, and nothing can stop Him from doing it again. »
Soon, believing Japanese students were evangelizing their non-Christian classmates, and on January 30, 1876, more than thirty students gathered on Mount Hanaoka. Together, they sang “Jesus Loves Me” – the first hymn translated into Japanese – and entered into a covenant to proclaim the Christian faith for the enlightenment of the Japanese Empire. They came down from the mountain as the Kumamoto Band, and many became influential politicians, business leaders and pastors.
Another Civil War veteran, Colonel William S. Clark, helped establish the Sapporo Agricultural College in Hokkaido in 1876. Like Janes, Clark also went not as a missionary, but during his eight months in Japan, he led students in regular Bible studies and experienced personal renewal in his own faith. Many of his students became Christians, and Clark wrote a covenant for all students to sign, which declared their intention to follow Jesus. The students all signed the covenant, some out of zeal for their new faith and others under peer pressure. Unsurprisingly, half of them gave up shortly after Clark left. However, the other half were baptized and formed the Sapporo Band, which included notable Japanese Christian thinkers Uchimura Kanzō and Nitobe Inazō.
The formation of these Christian bands was the beginning of a larger movement to come.
“A wonderful work among us”
In 1883, missionaries from all over Japan gathered in Osaka with Japanese Christians for a major missionary conference. This conference emphasized the power of Christian unity and dependent prayer, prompting some Japanese Christian leaders to organize their own conference in Osaka – which later led to similar gatherings in Kyoto and Tokyo . Each of these conferences gave rise to numerous prayer meetings in their towns which often lasted for weeks and initiated revival. Japanese Christians cried out like the early converts of Yokohama for the Holy Spirit to descend, and God answered their prayers. Many revivals began to arise throughout Japan, leading to repentance and renewal among Japanese Christians and the missionary community.
Charles F. Warren of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) described “showers of blessings which God has graciously bestowed this year in different parts of the country” and a revival leading to greater unity and love in the Japanese Church (A History of Protestant Missions in Japan, 108). Robert Maclay, who oversaw the American Methodist Episcopal mission, offered another account: “A spirit of religious renewal, bringing seasons of refreshing through the presence of the Lord, is spreading in Japan, both in the community of foreigners and among Japanese Christians. . . . I am sure that we are about to become witnesses of visible and divine manifestations of grace in the conversion of souls” (109).
CS Long of the CMS also described “a glorious work at Nagasaki” – where an atomic bomb would be dropped just over sixty years later – in which “multitudes are truly converted and testify to the truth and power of the new religion. . . . The Lord is certainly doing a wonderful work among us. The news spread throughout the city and hundreds of people flocked to the church. . . . It is indeed wonderful. I have never seen anything more striking at home” (109).
Japanese harvest
Japanese pastors shared similar testimonies. Kozaki Hiromichi, from the Kumamoto group and one of the main leaders of the Kumi-ai (Congregational) Church, recounted how a great revival began in Yokohama after a week of prayer. Joseph Neesima, founder of Dōshisha University, described a revival that began in the small town of Annaka in Niigata. It began with a congregation in repentance and tears until they were overwhelmed with joy and love.
Reports of revivals came from all over Japan, including Sendai, Fukushima, Kobe and Okayama. Japanese missionaries and evangelists began renting theaters to host preaching and teaching events for hundreds of people at a time. In May 1883, preaching services were held at the Hisamatsu Theater in Tokyo for several days, with a total attendance of four thousand people. Revivals also broke out in several Christian schools across Japan, notably at Dōshisha University, where two hundred students were baptized during a single prayer meeting in March 1884.
Following the revivals of the 1880s, the average number of church members in Japan doubled, churches were planted in new areas, local funding for ministry increased, and Japanese Christians began to take the reins of the leadership of the Church. The season was so successful that some missionaries expressed hope that Japan would become a Christian nation within a century.
From memory to missions
It is a sad fact that such expectations have never been met and that although God has brought other periods of growth, the number of Japanese Christians remains small. It is also amazing how God has worked in the past, and there are several lessons that sending and going missionaries can learn from this history.
First, even though Japan seems consistently cold toward the gospel, God has worked mightily here in the past, and nothing can stop Him from doing so again.
Second, like the early Church described in Acts, the Japanese Church arose more from prayer than from any method of evangelism or charismatic leadership. We have reason to hope that God will again hear and answer such fervent prayers.
Third and finally, these movements all swept across the missionary community as well as the Japanese community. Missionaries cannot create revival in the Japanese Church, but we can prayerfully seek it with our Japanese brothers and sisters as we remember together God’s wonderful work in the past.
