Missionaries in each prefectures
In recent decades, almost all missionaries serve in Mega Cities or other urban areas, and very few in rural areas. At present, less than 100 of Japan’s 1560 foreign missionaries serve in rural areas. 90-95% serve in urban areas that already have one to several churches. There are needs in all segments, but the data and the map below reveal an imbalance in the proportion of urban and rural missionaries and also in their geographical distribution among prefectures. For example, in the prefectures with a high proportion of unchurched areas, there are almost no missionaries, and in the few with a high proportion of churched areas, there are many.
Given the shortage of workers and tremendous need in rural Japan’s unchurched areas, 1) many pioneer missionaries from overseas and within Japan need to be raised up, commissioned, and released to plant churches in areas that lack their first church and 2) many urban churches in Japan need to be plant daughter churches in the subset of unchurched rural areas that are nearby.
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