SO THAT Missions Podcast | FBC Boerne
So that...God's ways may be known on Earth.
"So That" is an FBC Boerne podcast focused on what God is doing around the world with missions and through FBC Missions partners.
SO THAT Missions Podcast | FBC Boerne
Episode 89: Knocking On Doors In A Missionary Graveyard: One Missionary's Hope for Japan!
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Japan gets labeled “hard soil” so often that many Christians quietly assume spiritual breakthrough there is rare, slow, and maybe impossible. Sitting down with our friend James, a young missionary serving in Japan, challenges that assumption with both honesty and hope. We talk about his winding story from a childhood of constant moving in a military family to watching God rebuild his parents’ marriage and bring his whole home to faith, shaping the way he trusts God to change what feels unchangeable.
From there, we zoom out to missions strategy and the Bible. Romans 15 becomes our roadmap as we unpack Paul’s ambition to preach where Christ is not known and the idea of “no place left” in a region because the gospel has been fully proclaimed and local churches can carry the work. We connect that to No Place Left training, gospel conversations, disciple making, and the kind of apprenticeship approach that helps ordinary believers move from fear to faithful witness.
Then we get specific about Japan missions and why the barriers are real: Shinto and Buddhism, deep family identity, ancestor veneration, and the weight of honor-shame culture where becoming Christian can feel like betraying your people. And yet, James shares encouraging on-the-ground fruit, including gospel conversation trainings with Japanese churches and 49 baptisms in roughly six months in Okinawa, plus growing boldness to share publicly and even go door to door.
If you care about unreached people groups, Japan missionary work, church planting in Osaka, and gospel saturation that multiplies disciples, you’ll find plenty to pray about and act on here. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves missions, and leave a review, then tell us: what part of Japan’s story surprised you most?
Visit our website at www.fbcboerne.org for more stories, information, and service times.
Welcome And Guest Introduction
SPEAKER_00Hey everybody, this is Pastor Chad. So glad that you're joining us today on the FBC Missions Podcast. Today I have a friend named James who is a minister and missionary in the country of Japan. So stay tuned. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to FBC Missions So That Podcast. This is an encouraging place to hear how God is working in and around us. We know that He blesses His people so that they can bless the world around them. Join us as we discuss how to join God and all that He is doing. Why is God working in our life, church, and community? It's so that through us the world will know that He is me. Alright, guys, uh so glad that you joined us today on the podcast. Uh I have my friend James here. How are you doing, James? Kanichiwa. Kanuchiwa. I'm doing great, doing great. So uh tell us, Kanuchiwa, what does it mean? Where's it from?
SPEAKER_02Well, it's from Japan, obviously. Um, and it just means like good afternoon, good evening, or yeah, good afternoon. It's like a greeting in Japan.
SPEAKER_00All right, awesome. I think I knew that, but I never you never know what our listeners may or may not know. So Kanuchiwa is uh is that normal, it's like saying hi. Hello, it's a common greeting in Japan. That's fantastic. Well, James,
Growing Up With Constant Moves
SPEAKER_00this is the first time you've been on the podcast uh with me, and I'm so glad to have you with us. Um so let's just real quick get to know you a little bit. Tell us a little bit about yourself, maybe how old you are, what you've been doing, maybe where you grew up. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So um, yeah, my name is James. I'm 23. I um have grown up all over the place actually because I came from a military family. Okay. And uh which branch? Air Force. Air Force. All right. Yeah, we were actually stationed here in the area at one point when I was younger. So I probably moved around like 40 times at this point, though.
SPEAKER_00You really 23 years old, you've moved 40 times?
SPEAKER_02I actually I lost count. So like I just use 40 as a good number. I think that's pretty simple. So I just picked it out of the out of the air. I don't know, it could be 50. I don't what is a move? You know what I mean? I get to the point where what is a move? You know, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, normally move someplace you settled for some time. If you moved literally 40 times, you're moving every six months. That sounds like a pretty quick, uh, pretty pretty rapid move, even for military guys. Normally they're in place for a year or two, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so yeah, basically. So it's like some years it's like 10 times, you know, some years it's once or twice. Okay.
SPEAKER_00No, I don't. Ten times in a year sounds like uh vacation, like you're going from one hotel to the next.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_00But uh that's pretty wild. So um are you is your parents still with the military?
SPEAKER_02Um, they're not anymore. I don't think I'm supposed to talk about too much, but they're working with a similar organization as me, but the same organization in the Middle East and South Asia right now. Okay, okay. They're doing ministry.
SPEAKER_00Okay, awesome. Awesome. Um, well, I won't ask too many questions about that then. So that's that's great. So
Atheism To Faith And Baptism
SPEAKER_00you've grown up in a Christian home. Mm-hmm. And you guys have no okay, okay. Tell me how'd you guys find Jesus then?
SPEAKER_02Oh my gosh. So actually, this is crazy.
SPEAKER_00Your family's in ministry now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because actually it wasn't until I was about 10 years old that my family started following Jesus. Because actually, you know, I was you want me to share like briefly my testimony? Yeah, yeah, just yeah, give us a little window. So actually, uh my mom had me when she was in high school, and my dad left when I was born, and so I've never actually met him before, my biological dad. And then um my second dad, who had one of my sisters with my mom, he actually died in Iraq in war.
SPEAKER_00Whoa, okay, so you've got third dad?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and then my third dad. Your current stepdad then. Exactly. But I've always considered him, he's my dad, you know. Yeah, yeah, of course. But um, yeah, I met him when I was like three, four years old, so really young. And um yeah, and at the time he was an atheist, and my mom was an atheist, and so um, it wasn't until I was about nine, ten years old that they were actually gonna get a divorce. And my dad was deployed in Afghanistan at the time, my mom was in the States, and uh yeah, like God just miraculously transformed their hearts. They started following Jesus, brought them back together, transformed their marriage, and by the time I was fifteen, I saw this transformation in their lives, and I was like, wow, Jesus is real, and so I because of that love that I experienced through them, I uh decided to get baptized and started following Jesus when I was about 15 years old.
SPEAKER_00Wow, James, we could unpack so many different elements of that story for so long. So I I do I do want to tell you, I want to hear more uh when we can. So you've been following Jesus since you were 15. You said a little bit ago you're 23, so eight years now following Jesus. And uh I again, so since the time you were 15 till now, your family was still moving around. And uh and obviously in the last five years or so, you're adult male, so you've started kind of pursuing your own things.
No Place Left And Romans 15
SPEAKER_00What uh what have you done since you graduated high school?
SPEAKER_02So I uh went to Southeastern uh Baptist Theological Seminary, North Carolina, when I was 18. Um and I joined uh these awesome group of guys with no place left pursuing uh church planning uh multiplication and uh just joined alongside that and learned as much as I could. And at the time when I was about 17, 18, God put Japan on my heart um as like the most unreached, second most unreached country in the entire world. And um I was like, I mean, I really want to reach the unreached people groups. So I kind of joined these people and just uh started pursuing those things and learning as much as I could and just participating in uh you know church planning, discipleship making, uh evangelism activities in different parts of the world and in North Carolina.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so that that's kind of the where North Carolina was kind of where this was happening. Um I know some guys who are in North Carolina. So let's talk a little bit about No Place Left. Uh I I don't know we've talked a lot about it in the podcast. We've got about 85 episodes up and down. So we've talked a little bit about church planting and multiplication, especially how it relates to around the world and around the globe. Um, but let's talk just for a minute about no place left. So I I have worked with No Place Left for a long time, maybe 15 years now. Um, and and so much of the the work is built off of a verse that you find in Romans 15. Do you do you know that verse?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I know the verse. I don't remember the specific reference, but it's where Paul's like, I have no place left to work in this region, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm gonna go there. I'm gonna go there. But let's talk about that just for a minute while I'm finding it. So um as you began to learn again, 17, 18 years old, you're thinking about how God has has moved the people around you. So these guys you're working with are talking about this concept, this no place left network. Um, and and and what what was their goal? What does it mean, no place left? What are they trying to do?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it's really it's not like an organization or anything, but it's more of like a network of people and a vision to see um basically to work and fulfill the Great Commission in your local area and to see no place left to to work, no place left that hasn't heard the gospel, and to go on to the next place that is unreached and keep going until everybody is heard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's perfect. So the way it works here in Romans 15 is it's kind of the end of the Roman the letter to the Romans that that Paul writes, which if you're a Bible scholar or even a Christian for very long, you know the Romans is like the the meat and potatoes of of the New Testament. It's like where we get a huge portion of what we would call kind of evangelical theology. Uh obviously the gospels are part of that, other Paul Pauline writings, but Romans is just especially rich. And so you get to the end of Romans, and Paul kind of summarizes his whole ministry. And uh and so here's how it's here's what it talks about. So Romans 15, starting in verse 17, it says this this is Paul speaking. He says, Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus and my service to God. I will not venture to speak of anything except for what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done, by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God, so that all the way from Jerusalem around to Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ is not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation. Rather, as it is written, those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand. And Paul says, This is why I have often been hindered in coming from you, coming to you. So a couple of things before we move on, I just want to highlight here. Paul is saying, From Jerusalem to round to Illyricum. If you look at a map on the back of your Bible, you'll see that that space is a huge space. It basically is the northern Mediterranean, almost 2,500 miles from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum. And Illyricum is this little tiny uh city, a little tiny place, basically across the the uh the water from Rome. Rome Italy is just across the water. So that doesn't mean he's all the way to Rome, but it's right there on the on the threshold. And if you know, in the day, Rome was the most powerful city on the planet. Italy was the most powerful country on the planet. And uh and so you've got this this this 2500, and Paul he's saying that from Jerusalem all the way to Lyricum that he's fully proclaimed the gospel. And uh and so what had happened, he talked about it earlier in in Romans, is that he had been bumping into people who were sharing the gospel, and he kind of got tired of that. He's like, if there's people here sharing the gospel, I don't need to be here. And uh and so he looked at that space, 2,500 miles. It's kind of after all three of his missionary journeys, um, where he's like, There's no longer a place that I can work here where I'll be sharing with people who've never heard before. And uh and really what he was saying is that this church has been firmly established in all these places, and therefore the church can take on the local work. So then he continues on verse 23, and Paul says, But now that there's no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I've been longing to visit you for so many years, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you by passing through and have you assist me on my journey there after I've enjoyed your company for a while. So a couple of things that kind of stand out that's funny. One is he literally says those two those those three words that there's no place left for him to work within that space. Twenty five hundred miles. According to mystiologists, over ten million people he's been ministering in that space for about 15 years, and he's like, There's no more work manager. So, like you could ask yourself the question what would it take for us in the local area we live, for us, it's Bernie, Texas, to ensure that nobody living at this place has not heard the gospel yet, right? So a saturation vision is the way we talk about it. And uh and so Paul had a saturation vision for the globe, and he had already covered the northern Mediterranean, literally, if you think about that. Our church is like 150 years old or really close to it. Uh 10. We started in 1898, so 128. 128-year-old church. That's crazy. Um what would it take for us to fully reach not only our city but Kendall County and the region around us? If we go 2,500 miles from here, it almost gets us a Seattle. So you really could could say from here to Seattle, there's no more work for us to work, you know, no more room. Yeah. If we're trying to say the things are the scope and scale of what Paul said. So for those of you who are listening, um, I don't know how you interact with this concept of saturation vision. But uh James, my friend here, when he was 17, 18, begins to interact with these guys who are pursuing this same kind of thing. What's it mean to share the gospel, saturate a region with the gospel, and to make disciples out of new believers who ru who come to faith through the gospel in that space? And of course, the idea would be that they would become saturation vision, like-minded disciple makers as well. Exactly. And so, James, uh, you caught that vision, 17, 18 years old. Uh, some of us didn't even hear about that vision until we're much older. I talked to some friends of mine who are in their 70s, like, oh, if I had heard this when I was younger, how would it have changed the way that I live my life, you know? But you got to pick it up fairly early. And maybe you wish you had done that when you're 13. But either way, praise God that uh you caught this, you heard this early. It impacts how you live. So they begin the no place left training and network. When he said that it's there's it's not an organization, it's because there's no boss. There's it's a network of like-minded people who try to partner and encourage each other, but there's no one in charge of each other. That's that's the beauty of the network. Um, with that said, you might find very different practices from one group to another that are all affiliated or partnered with no no place left. And so uh, so James, they they taught you how to share the gospel, like uh evangelism strategy, probably the three circles, I would imagine, is a part of that. And uh they taught you how to make disciples, probably using tools like the commands of Christ or or uh Ten Steps to Faith, or there's all kinds of different ways to do it. And then ultimately, you know, you start working through how do you do Bible studies that help people draw and and build community so they can grow closer to God together. You know, we start talking about what is the church and how do we be the church, how do we plant the church wherever we go. So somewhere in that picture, you start hearing about this place called Japan.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh I think all Americans uh are familiar with Japan. It's not a it's not a very I mean it's foreign to us, but we're familiar with it. It's got a long history with the United States. Uh, we've had Japanese living within our country for a long time. Obviously, people remember the World War and and uh what happened uh historically, but that's a different country than it is today. So so now um what I've been told as a missions pastor for more than 20 years is that it's the I think one of the largest, if not the largest, unreached people group remaining on the planet. But what people typically say when they say that is also one of the most resistant uh to the gospel. And uh so I have talked to a number of missionaries over the years who have served their career in Japan, and what they come back is it's a very difficult place to serve because you might serve a whole career and only see a few people come to faith. Uh it's very difficult to plant churches when they do. It seems that they're filled with expats. So like the military guys go to church there. There are Christian communities in Japan, but they're just not filled with Japanese people. Uh my last church, um, where I was in in McAllen, Calvary Baptist and McAllen, we had a family, a Japanese family, who were Christians, uh, who came to faith when they were here in the United States, and they have shared the gospel with their family and friends in Japan, and none of their family in Japan had come to faith yet. So in about 20 years of ministering among their own friends and family, they hadn't seen anyone come to faith. So they were like, Yeah, it's really hard there. Yeah. But they prayed for and loved their Japanese family, of course. So um you started hearing about that what, five, six, seven years ago, and uh and now are you smiling because I said six seven?
SPEAKER_02I didn't do that on purpose, but like I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down.
SPEAKER_00If you're here, if you're hanging out with people under 25 and you just accidentally say six seven, they smirk. Sorry, sorry, corrupted. No, no, you just said I'd be corrupt. Uh okay, so let's just go, you know, six years ago. Um that's better, you know, and uh we'll leave the other dates and times alone. But uh what you first heard about Japan, and what happened? How does the Lord begin to a lot of people know about Japan, but not a lot of people want to move there. So what happened in your heart that made that something that became more more impactful for you? So to tell us about how you get to Japan.
SPEAKER_02Okay. You mean like this past year?
SPEAKER_00No. I mean like how do you go from I'm in North Carolina, doing no place left, hearing about Japan, to now wanting to live there.
SPEAKER_02Well, I first when I was 15, I moved to India with my family and we lived there. Um and then later, you know. So this is when their ministry began. This is when they left the industry. And uh that's where I first got exposed uh to just the lostness around the world. Okay, you know, and just w what people groups look like when they don't have the gospel and how like depraved they are, you know. And just very sad situations. Yeah. And so I I had a very strong uh burden put on my heart when I was first living in Japan and experiencing the lostness around the world.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so you said India, and then you said North Carolina. Uh-huh. When does Japan come into this? When was the first time you went to Japan?
SPEAKER_02Oh, when I first go to Japan? Yeah. Oh, I didn't go to Japan until I was like 22.
SPEAKER_00So a year ago.
SPEAKER_02Twenty yeah, twenty one, twenty two.
SPEAKER_00All right, so we're jumping all over the place. So if you guys are listening and you're trying to keep track of what this chronological order is, uh we're talking about India, then you come back to the United States, okay, and then you're in North Carolina for a season. And then what?
SPEAKER_02And then um yeah, so I'm actually in North Carolina from 17 all the way till I was twenty one. Okay. So that whole stretch.
SPEAKER_00I'm Okay, so you're working with a new place left no place left network for those three years, um, kind of working understanding and uh and learning about how God's using so you had some interactions with missions through India. Your parents kind of began that. I want to ask you a whole bunch of questions about North India. We have a partnership there. We've we've been to Bihar, we've done a lot of work in in Hyderabad and other places, even right now. We have a family today in Punjab um working with with planters and and things there. So it's a super exciting place for us. So maybe another day, what you can share. Um is your family still interact at all?
SPEAKER_02So um yeah, well, they do. They were actually just there. But um we also worked West Bengal as well. Okay, and then yeah, and then later in Kurdistan, and then and now they live in Malaysia area and they do a lot of non-resident missionary work in Middle East South Asia. Yeah, yeah. And so I've been a part of that over these past several years. Yeah. In various different ways.
SPEAKER_00You have siblings?
SPEAKER_02I have five younger siblings, yeah. Younger, all younger.
SPEAKER_00So they're all kind of scattered around too. They're they're all over the place. They're all over the place. They've moved 40 times.
SPEAKER_02They've all they've probably moved more than me.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. They got the military and the mission field. So that's uh that's amazing. Uh what a crazy story. Like you think about you guys have grown up literally, you have grown up, your life has grown up just without really any roots anywhere. And uh, and and so that's
Japan Background And Gospel Barriers
SPEAKER_00that's exciting. Um well, so let's let's go ahead and move into the Japan part. So we started hearing about Japan. Um, when did you first get to go there and and what was that like?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I was about 21. It was the summer of 2024, and uh so long ago, way back when in 2024. Honestly, it feels like it's been like 10 years. Uh but um because I like live my life in like three-month segments. Okay, okay, each year is worth four. Exactly. Um, and so I went there on a vision trip. Actually, yeah, so it was just crazy. I was like, I had this burden on my heart when I was 17, and then I went in and out of wanting to go to Japan, and then eventually um a week before that summer, I was like, man, should I join the military or should I go overseas and do mission work? And I was actually gonna join the military, and then um immediately, like the Lord was just putting on my heart to do mission work, and so once I decided, okay, I'm gonna go and start going to Japan, a week later I got connected with this guy who's like, Hey, I'm gonna um basically fund your trip to Japan. I you just gotta get the tickets and then like let's go. And so I was like, Oh, okay. And so then we went and I got introduced to people all throughout Japan. And so in Okinawa and Gifu and Tokyo and Osaka and Sendai, um, all throughout, and um just made a really cool connection with different churches and really got to see what is the work look like at the moment, you know, in Japan. Sure. And I was like, oh wow, there's like nothing going on, it would seem at the time, you know. Yeah. Um like there's like some hope. Sure, you know, but sure.
SPEAKER_00Like like I said, I I've talked to probably probably five different missionaries who live and work, and some still do, and all of them basically say the same thing that the you know, other than the expat community, their churches really struggle to gain traction within the Japanese um people group themselves. Um so before we get into what's happening right now in Japan, let's let's talk through some of the statistics. Like tell us a little bit about Japan. So how many islands? It's a bunch of islands, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't know how many islands, but it's like I don't know, I feel like there's like a couple thousand. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like Philippines is 7,000, so it's something like that. It's many islands. Obviously, most of those are uninhabited, they're a little tiny, but exactly. There's probably 10 or 15 that are large enough to have large communities on them.
SPEAKER_02And of course, there's the main couple islands, um, which yeah, like the main three Hokkaido, I think Honshu is the main mainland Japan, and then that's where Tokyo is. Yeah, uh-huh. Then the southern area, which is where Okinawa and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00And it it really is uh people think about it being small, but it really is a long country. So like the northern Japan is really cold and the the southern Japan is very tropical. Yeah, right. So like northern Japan is gonna be like Russia, yeah, Siberia type type weather. A lot of snow. Yeah, and southern Japan's like the Philippines.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Or like Hawaii. It's actually Japanese Hawaii.
SPEAKER_00Okay, Japanese Hawaii. So so just in your mind, like don't think about like a small island that looks all the same. It's very different. Uh you have mountains in the north, you have um, you know, uh the majority of the land is mountainous. You have rice rice patties in the south. So you've got just two very different climates throughout the whole country. And uh and a lot of people. Do you know how many people what's the population?
SPEAKER_02It's like 122 million. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking one hundred million.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, so it's it's it's huge, it's a large people, and and it's an ancient people. So tell us a little bit about why the Japanese are so resistant to the gospel, at least historically.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so the Japanese, like at the moment, they say over 97% of Japanese have never heard the gospel, right? Um the current church is about 0.4% Christian, and they say like by 2030, you know, 50% of the church will be gone. And um it's a very, you know, lost uh country, and most people have never heard about Jesus. Um Japan is primarily Shinto and Buddhist, and um and they they really take that and it's part of their identity, you know what I mean? So to be Japanese is to be Shinto and Buddhist. And so um I think part of that resistance, there's so many different things, right? There's a spiritual element, there's a identity piece, um, so much. Like that part of that identity, identity piece is like if I were to become a Christian, I would no longer be Japanese. And to make that big step is a is a big deal for Japanese because they would have to get rid of their um their ancestors, you know what I mean? Like they basically stopped worshiping their ancestors and they stopped passing down things from you know generation to generation, and so and things like that. You know what I mean? They they might bring dishonor among their family, um, they might be. ostracized from the community because they're no longer really Japanese in their mind.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. There's so much of what you're saying that I think warrants some some pieces here. So a couple things I just jumped while you were talking online. There's 14,000 Japanese islands. Oh my gosh. I knew it was something 14,000. So it's there's more double Philippines is 7,000. So it's double the size number of islands as the Philippines, which is wild by itself. 125 million. So between 123 and 125, depending on which statistic you looked at. And and what you're talking about this historic uh Shinto uh religious Buddhist background really ties it back, I mean really 2,000 to 3,000 years old of like a religious history that links who you are today to who your family has been throughout the the the history. So you know people maybe uh are familiar with like uh the Disney character Mulan you know and the the ancestor worship that is kind of shown in the cartoon and it's funny and even the little you know the little dragon that is like the family god you know that kind of thing that is such a big part of that cartoon uh those those are the they're they're funny um illusions and and and illustrations of what is very real like so if you were to no longer be uh shinto or Buddhist then you really disconnect from everything that you would say makes your family what it is. Yeah. There's similar things in Western culture. Like I lived in Mexico to be Mexican is to be Catholic and to to but it doesn't have that same sort of like generational connection to ancestry or ancestor worship. And then there's another component that I think is unique about Eastern culture and it's the honor shame. You mentioned that they might bring dishonor to their family. If you've uh read a lot about Japan you would read that there's a high suicide rate when people make major mistakes in their life their personal life that will look like it's gonna you know shine some sort of bad uh light on their family it's honorable to take your life rather than to bring dishonor into your family you can almost restore that honor by doing that by doing that it's like an honor killing there's honor honor suicide all these things all of these things are to protect the honor of the family which is a high high high high mark and uh and it's totally different. Western culture tends to align around innocent shame I'm sorry yeah innocent and guilt guilt and innocence so like we we tend to litigate we think of things like you you commit a crime you have to pay for it or have justice but in an honor shame society honor is really difficult to restore when it's lost and uh and so if you've dishonored your family it basically moves your family into a shameful state and the rest of the world looks at that family as if they're shameful. And uh and again in Western culture it's hard to identify um in our culture if you're shamed in some way you rest it perform some sort of restitution and then your your honor is restored but that's not the way it works in on in the honor shame uh shame shame and honor are very difficult to undo. And uh and so so you add in this idea that if I were to shift my faith or move my faith or become of a different faith then I bring dishonor on my family. It really brings the weight of your entire ancestral history into that conversation. And so generally when I hear missionaries talking about what's happening in Japan they tend to talk about how resistant people are to the gospel. They're very kind they're very gentle they'll even listen to you and if they think that it'll make you feel good if they raise their hand they might even raise their hand and say a prayer but but it's really hard to see them become part of the church or to be baptized or to see themselves as a Christian rather than than like you said Japanese which often is connected to their their faith history. So that's been what I've heard so many times.
Unexpected Fruit And 49 Baptisms
SPEAKER_00And then we had lunch a few weeks ago and you were telling me that well that in the year that you spent there this last year that that there's some excitement because maybe there's something shifting. So tell us about your experience you you went to to Japan you got to kind of move around like you said you saw that there wasn't a lot happening so then what's this last year look like tell tell us a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah um yeah we saw some really amazing things happen right because before I went to Japan uh all I had heard was like it can't be reached it's a missionary graveyard you know it's a hard soil it's resistant and honestly you should prepare yourself before you go and for disappointment.
SPEAKER_00This is all the things I've been told so like I I've heard this over and over and over again. Yeah exactly so again if you're a listener just imagine you're getting ready on the mission field and people are telling you listen prepare yourself to be disappointed.
SPEAKER_02Exactly I was like oh dang okay I was like that's not very encouraging you could be like hey like I hope it goes well I'm praying for you. Yeah yeah it's gonna be awesome though actually prepare yourself it's gonna be terrible yeah no they weren't even like hopeful about it I've seen so many missionaries in Japan that aren't even like they just lost that hope. There's no more glimmer um in their eyes I guess. And so I went to Japan and um yeah I mean I definitely was like I was expecting a lot more actually so than what I saw a lot more resistance. I was actually respect expecting a lot more people to be saved. Okay. Because I heard that 97% of Japanese have never heard the gospel and so in my mind actually the problem in Japan is that there's not enough gospel saturation and gospel proclamation all throughout Japan. And so that's in my mind I think there's multiple things that are at play there. Right um and so um yeah I mean I don't even know where to start but actually um a lot of this is all like I'm seeing a lot of Japanese people saved through other Japanese reaching the Japanese. And um so like in Okinawa for instance I was uh working there for a couple months uh my family was there for part of it um I was working with this guy named Tex he's an amazing Japanese guy he's from Texas he's actually um nope he's gotta be from Texas his name is Tex no I know actually he comes and visits here he was just here actually recently okay okay um but uh we make fun of him we call him Tex right um from Texas but um his name is like tetsuo um and so uh he's an older Japanese guy and um he's just an awesome guy and he's been partnering forming these partnerships with churches in Okinawa and Japanese churches and seeking to kind of do no place left type work with them. So uh we did a lot of really simple things we we did gospel conversation trainings with these churches and um we're trying to help them kind of create their own little discipleship groups uh and so in these trainings we were just we are training them um getting them equipped to be able to share the gospel with the people around them and in their local communities.
SPEAKER_00Which is exactly you don't know this but here at First Baptists I've been here for three years we do gospel conversation conversations three or four times a year. Yeah trying to give our believers the people that that live and love Bernie that love the Lord here the the the ability to go and share their faith and ideally lead someone to grow in their relationship with Jesus right. Yeah actually I think I was there for one of them right we did we did well we did the first one we did in the first the one that you participated is the most recent which was in someone's house we didn't do it at the church is the first one we hadn't done at the church and uh in a few weeks we're actually doing another one at the church kind of led by the same guys and we're gonna do Praise the Lord. Yeah right the the day before Easter that puts a date on our podcast but just if you're listening to this you're available April 4th come to the church we're gonna teach you the same things that we're training churches in Japan to do very similar tools. So go ahead.
SPEAKER_02Yeah there's a really no there's not too much difference of what we're doing in Japan versus what we're doing here in the U.S.
SPEAKER_00Yeah and you went through the training so you get to see firsthand what we're doing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah exactly yeah um and so um and train like the same things pretty much and so um we are doing the exact same trainings in Japan in Okinawa with these churches and um yeah we ended up seeing over 49 people get baptized into these churches in six months.
SPEAKER_00Yeah that like the the 49 new believers getting baptized so just to kind of again for the re for those of you listening a lot of times when we go on mission trips we'll count the number of people who convert they'll come to faith they'll raise their hand they'll say a prayer and uh sometimes that's 10 times uh the number of people who will later get baptized so one of the things we've done overseas is we've started to only count the ones that get baptized because those are the only ones that you kind of can see consistent and long term fruit in. Doesn't mean that those that make the audio audible or raise their hands or make a doesn't mean that they're not believers. It just means that we we kind of lose track with them after some time because they tend to not follow through. But those that get baptized tend to move quickly into some step of obedience and it does tend to show that they're more serious about wanting to follow Jesus with their whole heart. And uh so 49 baptisms most often would represent at least 500 plus who have made some sort of verbal commitment. But these are the ones that we can mobilize we can train we can encourage we can walk alongside them because we know they're willing to follow Jesus in his baptism likely they'll be able to follow Jesus in other ways.
SPEAKER_02Yeah and so in Japan I would say it's even more so right um because now they're going out and publicly proclaiming that they follow Christ you know yeah the the that's what baptism is it's the public proclamation right and it's like um yeah it's just so like now all the Japanese know you know what I mean so they can't hide it. And um and so when we see that in Japan it's it's an indicator that oh these person is serious about following Jesus. Yeah. Um and so actually we're about to do another baptism celebration in May um in Okinawa again because they're continuing to do the same work. And so um what we would do right is do the training and then we would go and do door to door evangelism. Or we would go out to the mall we would go out you know wherever is a public area and uh we would take um another Japanese alongside of us and we would kind of maul them right yeah um you know model assist watch launch um just kind of train them in how to go and share the gospel in public settings which is crazy in Japan right because what you see is Japanese tend to not be bold in proclaiming the gospel just in general in their family.
SPEAKER_00Sure they're not a they're they're very hospitable which means they're not pushy they're not they're not aggressive the way that we might think of Americans.
SPEAKER_02Exactly yeah um yeah they don't they would not go door to door that's not normal um and then they wouldn't go into somebody's home like a stranger's home and I saw all three of those things happen in that time of Japanese welcoming us into their homes um seeing Japanese people be bold in knocking on people's doors and proclaiming the gospel and I think a lot of it honestly it's really just the Holy Spirit it's the living word moving in these people transforming their lives and then also telling Japanese Christians hey Jesus has to go do this and we can do this. It's okay. You know what I mean? Because I think a a lot of times in the Japanese church we like a lot of people told me that no we don't do door to door. That's for the Jehovah's Witnesses like stuff like that. Don't do that. That's really bad. Japanese will not receive that well and it'll be really bad. And I shared probably over a thousand doors and only one of those doors said hey don't come back in a really nice Japanese way. Right sure don't come back but I've been inside many Japanese homes now at this point and even more so if you count all of the people that we've trained how many homes they've been in and actually been able to do Bible study
Training Disciple Makers In Public
SPEAKER_02in their homes and people that they saw saved.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah well James we're we're kind of coming to our end of our time and I it really is exciting. I I wanted our listeners to at least get a get a glimpse um of what maybe what we're praying for will be kind of a cracking of the door like that God would open that door wide open that Japanese would come to faith by the thousands by the millions like uh if we're just trying to get two percent of 125 million that means we need what's that it's like two and a half million yeah I at the very million like we're talking a lot of people and so to go from 49 baptisms to three million baptisms is going to take a lot of work and that's just to get two percent which is uh an important metric in myciology those of you who are want to know more about that let me know yeah uh you also mentioned really briefly what I would call an apprenticeship model uh that we use we call it mall in a w l and uh you you you said it really quick it's a model like first stage is you model for people the behavior you want them to repeat then you assist them as they begin to do it themselves so if we're talking about specific about evangelism means you go with somebody and teach them how you evangelize then you assist them while they evangelize and then you watch them kind of observe them. This is again if you've ever been an apprenticeship like in a nursing internship it's very similar right so you observe as they do it on their own and then lastly is you observe them from a distance while they do it without you and that's the watcher so so you got model assist watch them and then leave or launch them let them do it on their own. And uh and that process is something we can see replicated in scripture a lot in the way that Jesus trains his disciples the way that Peter and Paul trained their disciples and uh and so we we talk about that kind of apprenticeship model especially no place left. If we want new believers to become disciple makers which seems to be the metric that Jesus go make disciples of the nations it's a command for all believers of all time if we want all believers to be able to make disciples then we have to train them. What's it look like to do that? So so that's what this even gospel conversation is as the beginning step first step in learning how to share the get share your faith but we're really going for and praying for the day that you only not only share your faith but how to grow a disciple who can go and then grow new disciples right so we want generational growth saturation saturating an entire
Support Needs And Japan Vision
SPEAKER_00region. And in this particular context an entire unreached people group yes we're praying that God would would uh do great things uh among the Japanese so um as we finish I know that you're uh you've got a lot coming up in your life and I don't want to get too much into detail there but one piece particularly is that you're fundraising you're you're looking for people to support what God's doing in your heart and mind um you've been back in the US for a few months just trying to build support and uh I think you told me you're a little less than halfway um but you're gonna go back to Japan here in a few weeks and uh be there for a few more months uh before you come back one more time and kind of think through that next step for you. Uh if you could just dream like would you one day be full time in Japan for a long time? Is that what you're hoping to do?
SPEAKER_02100% yeah um my goal is to get married this year uh with this uh there's a candidate but we're not we're not gonna get into that because if it doesn't go well then I'll just get this on the podcast it's all right you know what I mean uh no but a launch out there like there's a candidate and we can pray for James pray for James next time you come back we can tell people how well it went exactly exactly or apologize and pray for well so so my vision right is to see not just Japan reach with the gospel but to see Japan reach Northeast Asia with the gospel. Because I believe that Japan can one day become one of the greatest senders of missionaries and I think that we can see all unreached people groups reach with the gospel if we reach Japan. I believe that Japan is really key to that and I think God is doing something big. Actually God is doing something big right now in Japan and it looks like we're seeing even more missionaries coming every every year. And so I'm excited to see what God has you know in store and yeah I definitely invite everybody as many people sure as possible as many churches as possible to join us in this mission in reaching Japan the second most sunreach country in the entire world yeah so if if this is exciting for you you want more information please reach out to us here at First Baptist.
SPEAKER_00We can give you connections to James we're not going to put it in the show notes we don't want people randomly going from there but please do reach out to us we'd love to get you connected if you have an interest in hearing more about what what God's doing through James and uh and what he's praying for in the future as well. James um in the short term we got uh let's just say two minutes what uh what can we pray for for you bud?
SPEAKER_02Um I guess praying for um like longevity in the field yeah uh praying for all like a big you know just foundation of support you know financial and prayer um spiritual emotional just that the Lord would just provide those things yeah and then just praying for this next short season I'm in Japan again as we're trying to plant this church in Osaka we're gonna be doing some gospel pushes you know just praying for the work you know the big baptism celebration that's happening in Okinawa in May you know there's a lot that's about to be happening in May June and July.
SPEAKER_00Awesome awesome well we are so thankful for you thanks for taking a few minutes to join us on the podcast um we'll stay in relationship my friend definitely stay connected to us we'd love to hear how God um really opens the doors for for what you're doing in your future and for those of you listening please take a few minutes pray that God would open the hearts of the Japanese people to respond his gospel uh it's very likely in these coming days there's gonna be a stronger gospel push than maybe has ever happened in Japan and pray that God would open the hearts of the people to respond. Maybe maybe in a few years we'll be talking about how amazing the work of God has been among the Japanese people and maybe it'll become national news even global news that there's a thriving movement within their within their their culture. And like I said historically it's been one of the most resistant places on the planet. So join us be the church of God praying for that church to grow in this particular region. I've introduced you to James so pray for James pray that God would use him protect him protect his family who's engaging in missions in lots of other places and uh pray that God would provide for their needs. We always talk about finances and it's a major part of every one of these missionaries focus but there's so many others you know pray that God would protect them uh physically people get sick sometimes they have diseases that they can't get rid of
Prayer Focus And Closing Charge
SPEAKER_00and and it takes them off the field. So just pray that God would protect uh his people um and that he would use them uh for his glory and within his will uh in all these places so um FBC and those of you listening we're so thankful for you uh we pray for you and I want to remind you why we do the podcast we do this because we talk about um how God has a purpose for his people why does he bless us why does he call us to be his people why why does he give us all these well there's always a so that it's so that through us through his people he can make himself known to those people who are far from him so this is the So That Missions podcast and we want you to be a blessing. So whatever he's given you use it for his glory for his purposes really until he returns. So James thank you for being with us you've been a blessing and uh those of you who are listening if you need anything please reach out to us here at First Baptist Church in Bernie. We appreciate you and have a wonderful day. God bless we are so thankful that you joined our podcast today we would love to hear any feedback you may have for us number 767 make this page and forget