Churches in the Graveyard
Blurb from the TGC newsletter ... a bit of insight into some progress in one theater of the world mission commission, by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra. (Full article with some interesting detail of the history of the work in Japan here: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/churches-graveyard-plants-years-tokyo/) [Sidebar pic: Dan and Carol Iverson with their nine kids.]
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If you were to give me 10 guesses as to where a gospel-centered church-planting network was springing up internationally, I would not guess Tokyo. Japan is notoriously difficult ground for missionaries, killing so many evangelism careers that it’s nicknamed the “missionary graveyard.” So when I got an email a few months ago from a musician in Tokyo and he mentioned that he’d watched 10 gospel-centered churches take root in 10 years, I was hooked. It’s not an easy story—there’s an earthquake, a tsunami, spiritual warfare against physical bodies, and a church that has given so much of its money and members to plants that it felt like it was starting over three times. But the fruit is incredible: From a team of 12 in 2010, there are now 500 to 600 people attending 10 growing, Reformed churches in the city center. And the church-planting intensive this fall has another 15 potential planters signed up. “I think we’re going to see an incredible number of churches in the next 10 years,” City to City vice president for Asia Pacific and Latin America Jay Kyle told me. “It’s God’s work, and it’s very, very exciting.” |
Frank