ALL unchurched communities remaining in Japan are in rural areas.
Facts, Challenges, Strategic Nature, God’s Heart, and the Urgent Need
Reaching out to rural Japan reflects the heart of God, is strategic, and is possible in our generation. We need to reach out to rural Japan for the following reasons.
- The Facts Compel It
- The Challenges can be Overcome
- It’s Strategic
- It Reflects God’s heart
- The Need is Urgent
These Facts compel us to evangelize rural Japan. Rural Japan is:
- Unreached—All Japanese in Japan comprise the world’s second largest unreached people group (UPG)*. 34 million of them live in rural areas where the percentage of Japanese Christians is well below the national average.*UPG scaling method: unreached = <2% Christian population
- Unchurched—Rural Japan is not only unreached, but it also contains 100% of the unchurched areas of Japan (unchurched= an area, such as a city, town, or village, without a single church [yellow or green in map]). While urban Japan is still partially unreached, it has been consistently engaged for a long time so all Japan’s cities over 50,000 in population have churches, while most of rural Japan remains unchurched 2000 years after Jesus said ‘go to the ends of the earth’
- Unengaged (that is, no regular outreach or local access to the gospel). Very few foreign or home missionaries have served in rural Japan in recent decades. There is also a great imbalance in the distribution of foreign missionaries relative to areas of great need as shown in the map. There is also a large imbalance in the distribution of missionaries among urban and rural Japan, even on a per capita basis. Just as only a small fraction of missionaries world-wide work in unengaged UPGs, a disproportionately tiny fraction of missionaries in Japan go to unengaged unchurched parts of Japan. Disproportionately large numbers serve in areas that already have some gospel access.
Unengaged Area Figure 1:
All Japanese comprise one unreached people group (UPG), but pragmatic considerations make it useful to divide this UPG into these three segments—Mega City, Urban, and Rural—because each is at a different missiological stage.UPG Segment Segment Popul. # of Churches % of Christian # of Missionaries Total popul. 12 Mega Cities > 1 million 10s to 100s 1-2% Hundreds 27 million Urban Areas 50K to 1 million 1 to 10s/city 0.3-1% Several to ten 66 million Rural Areas < 50K 2/3 have no church 1/3 have 1-2 churches
0.1% Mostly none 34 million The national map shows where all remaining unchurched areas in Japan are located. All of Japan is unreached (unreached = <2% Christian), but its Mega Cities are approaching reached (reached = >2% Christian), have many churches, and are highly engaged. The Urban Segment is well engaged and each urban area has churches, but they are not yet near reached since they are still well under 2% Christian. Two-thirds of rural areas are still without their first church. Most of these unchurched rural areas area also both unengaged and highly unreached, with almost no believers.
These Challenges for rural Japan can be overcome with intentional focus:
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Missionary Distribution Imbalance (Downloadable)
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. - Lack of Local Gospel Access. While urban areas definitely need ongoing evangelism and some need more churches, their residents already have some gospel access. These churches can also take responsibility to accomplish much of the ongoing outreach in their respective cities. However, residents of 2/3 of Japan’s rural areas live in areas without even one church. Areas with no church at all need to be highly prioritized since their residents have no meaningful access to the gospel where they live. Cross-cultural missionaries share a special responsibility for areas with no local gospel access. By going or raising up a church planter to go to an unchurched area, you can bring gospel access to a place where there is none (1).
- Insufficiency of a trickle-down effect from urban churches. If it hasn’t happened after 170 years–it clearly isn’t going to without intentionality in reaching rural areas. The trickle-down effect to rural Japan has not occurred due to: distance from urban churched areas, and limited nearby human resources; lack of church planting vision; transportation realities; no local believers, or a few who often are afraid to live openly as Christians in their rural home towns; missionary mobilization and first term training approaches that unwittingly reduce rural placements; challenges to retaining pioneer foreign and national missionaries for rural Japan; and the void created when some groups that once played a large role in rural outreach lost an evangelistic focus several decades ago. Intentionality will be needed in order to turn the tide.
Note: 1. Information on church-to-population density is useful to prioritize planting of additional churches in churched areas, but is not relevant (nor mathematically possible to calculate) for areas that still lack their first church. In such areas, lack of access makes them a high priority.
It’s Strategic to reach Rural Japan, so as to:
- Increase Openness in all of Japan. Reaching rural Japan can free all Japanese to consider the gospel. Heads of extended households disproportionately live in rural Japan. Reach them, and the entire extended family becomes free from the sense of obligation to ancestor worship and other common barriers to faith. In this way, one doesn’t just win individual converts in a branch family living in a big city, but opens the door for the gospel to penetrate entire extended families over multiple generations. Those who come to faith in urban Japan are often on the fringes of society or have limited influence and responsibility in the extended family. Reaching rural Japanese enhances the spread of the gospel along familial relational webs. In this way, reaching rural Japan helps reach more in urban Japan.
- Make progress in Deeply Contextualizing the Gospel. Rural Japan is the heartland of Japan. If a means of sharing the gospel penetrates the heart of rural Japanese, it is likely to resonate deeply at the heart level with all Japanese. We can learn to reach the heart of Japanese by learning to reach Japan in its heartland.
- Reap the current harvest. If seeds sown in rural elderly 50 to 90 years ago are not soon watered and harvested, rural Japan may become harder to reach. Further, many rural Japanese are elderly and quite close to eternity.
- Reach millions who otherwise will remain without gospel access. While rural populations are declining, most will remain present as distinct psychological communities, even though a subset may not retain a distinct local government and may become less self-sufficient economically. 34 million people live in rural areas, 14 million of whom live in the 1800 unchurched rural areas. Even if half move away, that is still a lot of souls.
God’s heart includes rural Japan.
- Jesus’ compassion compels leaving the 99 to go after the one lost sheep. 1800 rural areas are filled with lost sheep without a Shepherd.
- Jesus went not only to the urban areas of Israel, but also to many small towns, even when those in the city wanted Him to stay longer. God wants all to have the chance to meaningfully hear an incarnated gospel and come to the knowledge of the truth.
- Jesus commanded His followers not just to make disciples in all people groups, but to go to the ends of the earth. God wants all to have access to the gospel within their own community.
The Need for Pioneer Outreach in Rural Japan is Urgent.
At this stage in its history, rural Japan needs much pioneer church planting (planting the initial church in an area). Urban and rural Japan are in very different missiological stages. Urban Japan, after 70 to 170 years of seed sowing, is entering an increasingly reached expansion phase, while rural Japan with almost no outreach for decades is still mostly unchurched and thus at an initial pioneering stage.
While Urban Japan is not yet considered reached, it is in a time of transition where, though still in need of some foreign missionaries, that need is gradually declining.
The Urban Areas, which all have churches, are becoming increasingly reached and these local churches are increasingly able to take on responsibility for ongoing evangelism and disciple-making in their respective cities.
Cross-cultural missionaries have a responsibility especially to areas that do not yet have local gospel access. In Japan, those areas are all rural. The existence of 1800 such areas results in a nearly unlimited need for pioneer church planters (foreign or national) to be raised up, commissioned, and released to plant churches in them. Rural Japan is thus a great field to place those called to pioneer. Reaching rural Japan in our generation can be done–IF many new laborers arise from within Japan and abroad and IF more current foreign and home missionaries and Japanese churches also get involved in rural church planting.
Rural Japan is missiologically in a much earlier phase than urban Japan, since urban Japan has had 70 to 170 years of prior seed sowing. Reaching rural Japan is pioneering work in largely untilled soil, yet it is very possible with approaches intentionally adapted to rural cultural and lifestyle realities and a longer time commitment.