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As new missionaries to Japan in 1995, Ralph and Joan Justiniano dreamed about a “new” Japan—a land where Christians wouldn’t remain outnumbered ninety-nine to one. The couple also hoped to see a change in the stagnant statistic of one church for every 17,000 people.

One hundred congregations closed their doors permanently early in the Justinianos’ second term, the first decline in the overall number of churches in Japan in 20 years. But this only fueled their vision for starting a church north of Tokyo in Saitama Prefecture (state).

Odds were against them. Language difficulties, deeply ingrained Buddhist and Shinto culture, and slow gospel response add up to a high turnover of missionaries. Many Christians, pastors included, doubt that their efforts will ever make a dent for Christ.

Ignoring negativism, the Justinianos launched a new outreach on the “dinner party circuit,” Ralph Justiniano said. Four families with children in the same elementary school began meeting every other Saturday for dinner. Six months later, the missionary couple asked their new friends for permission to add a Bible study to the dinner hour. A house church had been planted.

But the new church hit a brick wall within a few months. Tenkin, Japanese companies’ custom of routinely transferring employees with little notice, had just claimed one family of the house-church plant. Almost overnight, a quarter of the congregation was gone.

Scattered believers, new churches? The Justinianos could have been frustrated, but instead, they saw the transfer as a new vision from God for building the church in Japan. The first-century church was spread by the scattering of early Christians who fled persecution. In Japan couldn’t the scattering result from tenkin?

The Justinianos’ vision for reproducing new church plants based upon the mobility of Japanese Christians has given birth to the National Church Growth Consortium, a group dedicated to equipping, mobilizing and networking scattered believers.

“House churches are an especially effective tool for church growth here in Japan,” Ralph Justiniano said. The couple is laying the groundwork for a second church plant, patterned after the first.

“The Japanese couple on point for this project are not seminary graduates,” Justiniano said. But, “they have been saved and trained with house church-type church planting principles. Their view of ‘church’ is simple and unencumbered, and they have confidence that planting a church is well within their grasp.”

Not healthy yet The birth of the National Church Growth Consortium couldn’t have come at a more opportune time for Japan, where, even with an increase of 40 churches in 2002, the national picture remains discouraging.

“Even with data showing church growth in 2002, the Japanese church still isn’t healthy,” said Yukio Hanazono, director of Church Information Service (CIS). He cites the fact that church membership is flat and congregations are aging, reflecting the “graying” of the nation as a whole.

John Mehn, director of the Japan Evangelical Missionary Association Church Planting Institute (CPI), agrees with Hanazano. “Overall the Protestant church in Japan has not grown very much in the last 30 years,” he said. In response to this disheartening picture, CPI hosted its first annual conference nine years ago.

Nevertheless, encouraging signs do exist. Among them, Hanazono notes that CPI is receiving increasing inquiries, a trend Christian broadcasting groups are also reporting. Additionally, attendance at the CPI conference has grown from 27 participants in 1994 to almost 500 at the November 2003 conference. Cooperation among Japanese believers, missionaries, denominations and para-church organizations is also increasing.

Multiplication through networking Hope for church growth is also shared by Hiroshi Kawasaki, executive director of the Japan Church Growth Institute, whose vision is church multiplication through networking. In 1996 five churches began working cooperatively in northern Japan’s Yamagata Prefecture. Since then, the original five have each planted one church which, in turn, have birthed other groups—a total of 14 churches today.

“We plan for church growth from the very beginning. Our vision is to plant churches that plant churches,” Kawasaki explained. The church multiplication pattern centers around a three-year cycle that begins with a year of prayer, training, relationship-building and encouragement by the cooperating churches, all before identifying a new location to meet. During the third year, regular worship services are launched.

In addition to the initial pattern begun by the original five churches, new networking groups were started one year ago on Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, and Okinawa, to the extreme south. The Japan Church Growth Institute is in the initial stages of forming similar networks in the Tokyo and Osaka areas, the country’s two most populated areas.

“We believe networking is going to break us out of the traditional thinking that church planting can’t be done in Japan,” Kawasaki said. “It can be.”

Cheryl Johnson Barton has been a missionary in Japan for 25 years.