OMS (One Mission Society)

OMS Christian Mission Church began in 1901 when Charles and Lettie Cowman together with Juji Nakada started the work in Japan. Earnest and Hazel Kilbourne joined them the next year. Cowman, Nakada, and Kilbourne opened the Central Gospel Mission where they held services every night while also starting the Bible Institute (Tokyo Biblical Seminary). From its very beginning as the Oriental Missionary Society (OMS), Charles Cowman and Earnest Kilbourne’s focus was training Japanese people to effectively share the gospel, with the goal of winning their own people to Christ. Juji Nakada established the Japan Holiness Church, and OMS has worked with them for 113 years.

Today we continue in this goal to empower the Japanese to reach their own people. In 2013, One Mission Society in Japan became the OMS Christian Mission Church. We still work in partnership with the Japan Holiness Church and Tokyo Biblical Seminary. The OMS Christian Mission Church was established to continue the task of evangelism, training and equipping, and releasing Japanese Christians to reach their own families, friends, and fellow workers.

We seek to reach Japanese people through English classes, cooking classes, craft classes, hula classes, an English fellowship and coffee ministry, and sports ministry. We are in the process of translating into Japanese and publishing a method of training potential Christian leaders called ‘Train and Multiply’ to help Japanese Christians reach their neighbours. They in turn would also train and equip those they reach for Christ to continue to reach the next group of believers. We hope to have level one of ‘Train and Multiply’ ready to be published later in 2015, and level two published in 2016. We desire to see Japanese believers trained in this way to reach their own people. We believe we will see the evangelism of Japan as the laity are trained to evangelize, disciple, and release those they lead to the Lord to reach their families and friends for Christ. This is the goal and focus of OMS Christian Mission Church.