Missions Wednesday: Japan

In college, a professor told my world religions class that the years following World War II were prime opportunities for missionaries to enter into Japan and bring the Gospel. They were a country defeated by war, and while they had been following the false god of emperor worship, they were weak and vulnerable and potentially could have been receptive to the Gospel.

While it is not outside the realm of possibility, I don't know if this is true. But I do know that Japan recovered from the war. And now they are an economic superpower. They claim religious freedom constitutionally, yet less than 2% of the population claims Christianity.

Less than 2%.

Idol and ancestor worship is rampant in Japan, with new types of religion forming all of the time. And there are many towns in Japan that have never been reached with the Gospel. In a lot of ways, the soil is extremely hard there. But God has people in Japan for himself, and he is strong enough to soften even the hardest and driest soil.

Ways to pray:

• According to Operation World, there is very little Christian literature in Japan. And the Japanese love to read. Pray that God would raise up translators for the existing literature and would equip Japanese men and women to write for his glory.
• The birthrate in Japan is extremely low. Pray that Christians in Japan would understand God's commands to be fruitful and multiply. And pray that God would be pleased to grow his people in Japan through the family.
• Pray that the church would be strengthened and that the people of Japan would see their economic stability as a gift from the Lord, not as fruit of their own self-sufficiency.