Lessons from a Minority Church

Knowing of my experience in Japan, a professor at one of South Korea’s leading theological seminaries made the following surprising comment during a recent visit to my office. “Given the current challenges of the Korean churches, such as leadership scandals, an aging and shrinking Christian population, and the secularization and materialism of society, I believe we may have something to learn from the experience of the minority churches of Japan.” With close to 30% of its population identifying as Christian, since the 1980s South Korea has been the poster child for church growth and missionary mobilization in East Asia, so I was shocked to hear a Korean theologian looking to Japan for guidance, where Christians make up a mere 1–2% of the population. In part as a response to this declaration, I plan to offer some reflections on the missional situation of the Japanese churches in my final editorials of the IBMR. Sometime in the 1930’s, Kagawa Toyohiko, the world-renowned Japanese evangelist, social reformer, and writer, told the following story.