Revival in Japan: history and hope for today
Examining the history of revivals in Japan provides great encouragement for weary laborers today!
NBC headline news on February 16, 2023 read: “A nonstop Kentucky prayer ‘revival’ is going viral on TikTok, and people are traveling thousands of miles to take part.”1 Thanks to the power of social media, the world learned about a revival that was happening in a small town that boasts only two stoplights. I read every article and blog I could find; I was sad that my plans to visit the Asbury campus were one week after they closed the campus to outside visitors. Yet students from over 260 universities and 50,000 people from across the country (and world!) were able to make the trek to Asbury University within a one-month window!2
Simply defined, revivals are times of “divine visitation when God the Holy Spirit quickens and stirs the slumbering Church of God.”3 There seem to be two main purposes: to set Christians ablaze with the Holy Spirit and to bring many unsaved to repentance. In these politically polarized and war-filled last few years, Christians throughout the world find ourselves spiritually weary. We long for a fresh touch of the Spirit to revive our homes, our churches, our beloved Japan. I believe that examining three historical cases of revival in Japan will encourage us to anticipate and prepare for a fresh work of God’s spirit.
1881–1889
The beginning of modern Christianity in Japan saw rapid expansion of the church due to a significant revival between 1881 and 1889. The fervor that existed among the Christians during that time mirrored the characteristics of other Christian revivals: unity among believers, social and private prayer, public confession of sin, and a joy in witnessing to unbelievers. As in the other seasons of revival in Japan, God’s spirit touched and unified both the missionary community and the Japanese Christians.
One story during this time of revival recounts that three laymen and one pastor met following the defection of many of their members; they were discouraged and hurting. After a time on their knees, Bishop Lambuth (an American Methodist Episcopal missionary) began to pray.
His voice began to fail because he seemed to be disturbed by a sense of the actual presence of God. God seemed near and mysteriously visible to him. As his voice after a while began to return, what seemed to be an upward tide swept the room and carried away the burdens that had rested so heavily for months, liberating their hearts into joy so great that they scarcely knew whether they were in the body or out of it. And from that time onward, each of these men knew a vaster power, lived at a deeper level, and God wrought vast deeds through them.4
Letters home from missionaries during this time were filled with stories of revival.
By 1881, the katakana term リバイバル (ribaibaru) had become commonly known across Japan. Stories of revival were reported in Osaka, Nagasaki, Kyoto, Sendai, Fukushima, Tokyo, and Okayama. The fledgling church grew from about 4,000 to 30,000 adult members in this seven-year period.5 If he could do it then, he can do it now!
1930
Another major season of revival in Japan was in 1930, which seemed to begin with the gathering of about 30 missionaries with the Japan Evangelistic Band. During their gathering, with no specific agenda, a few began to confess their own spirits of criticism and disunity. On the third day, they focused on a desire to better love their Japanese partners, “that they would see the Japanese Christians as His servants and members of His body, breaking their own alabaster boxes of ointment over these ‘His feet.’”6 I found a 1930 newsletter sent out by Irene Webster Smith, my favorite missionary heroine, in which she quoted one missionary member:
Wonderful days! March 26–31st have been for many of us a real Pentecost! Oh! Wonderful Days! Our mouths are filled with praise and our hearts ablaze with fire. The Fire of God’s love has fallen at least upon us as a missionary body, in a new and deeper way than ever before. Hallelujah! . . . I never heard such singing, we sang and sang again. There was no leader . . . Everybody saw “Fire” in the Bible wherever they opened it.7
Some months following this, a spirit of revival swept through the Holiness Bible School. Revival meetings began in Tokyo, with crowds reaching 2,500 people. There was an emphasis on prayer and the second coming of Christ, and revival spread to other places, where many were healed, and missionaries were transformed. If he could do it then, he can do it now!
1953
In 1953, after months of discouragement with many Japanese abandoning the church, members of various missions across Tokyo began gathering for early morning prayer to ask God to bring revival. As about 100 missionaries of The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM) at a conference began to pray about financial needs, the prayer turned to a time of confession. Darrell Thompson writes, “Everyone was broken before God and his fellow workers.”8 They were filled with new joy and power, even as revival was breaking out in other missions. I love a little side comment by Thompson that husbands who had been away came home to find their wives revived. The Spirit’s work of revival happened in a broad, beautiful, and sweeping way. Revival meetings were held every night in Karuizawa. And, as we have seen in recent events in Asbury, there was no designated leader apart from the Holy Spirit. Thompson reported that until almost midnight every night, there was prayer, singing, testimony, confessions, and praise. Missionaries touched by the Holy Spirit traveled to distant locations, where God continued to heal individuals and change hearts. If he could do it then, he can do it now!
What can we learn?
Studying the history of revivals across the world reminds us that more often than not when the Holy Spirit powerfully touches a group or small population for his specific purposes, revivals will spread like wildfire to various parts of the world. And usually, the conduits are revived individuals or groups who intentionally take the Spirit’s flame to new places.
The revivals in the late 1800s that helped grow the fledgling Japanese church did not happen in isolation; in the previous decade, we see God’s special work across the world. After Dwight L. Moody experienced unusual activities of the Holy Spirit, he went around the US and England, spreading revival and influencing many. The famous Cambridge Seven were propelled to serve the Lord with the China Inland Mission at this time, and their story inspired many others to dedicate their lives to foreign mission. The gospel spread with the spirit of revival.
The 1930 Japan revival coincides with a decade-long revival that started in China in 1927 through the evangelist John Sung and an evangelical band (much like the one in Japan at that time). They spread revival throughout China and southeast Asia, converting hundreds of thousands. There are also wonderful stories of revival during that decade in central East Africa and Australia. Similarly, the years following World War II in the late 1940s included a worldwide revival movement; we see God calling and uniquely touching young Christian leaders who would influence the world: Billy Graham, Bill Bright, William Branham, Kathryn Kuhlman, Oral Roberts, etc. Countries including Canada (1948), Scotland (1949), India (1954), and Argentina (1951) all had significant revivals in which the Holy Spirit did a remarkable new work.
We can be so encouraged by revivals happening across the world because, historically, revivals spread! One Japanese colleague serving in the Tokyo area, Tetsu “Tex” Watanabe, had a chance in February to visit the Asbury revival. He reflects:
I was in line for about 2.5 hours at -1℃ (31℉) and snowing, but I saw people either worshipping along with the public view livestream, or strangers telling testimonies and praying, hugging, and ministering to each other in love. The fruits of the Spirit were displayed in the people around me. . . . And finally, when I got in and sat at the Hughes Auditorium, there was this sense of unity with the 1,500 persons in there and in the worship. It was an unexplainable unison that suddenly gave me this great peace inside. It was like a “silent revival.” By the time I left, I could see in the faces of the people expressions of satisfaction and joy. Some were weeping, and some were excited. I believe each one had an encounter with the Lord and received according to how much they were seeking or asking from Him. My biggest takeaway was ‘hope!’ And the Lord is doing something amazing here in Japan and will do so much more when we come together in repentance and seek His face earnestly.
He’s doing it now!
We recognize that revival starts and ends with God. He determines the timing and seasons. So what is our role?
- Pray! Let us determine to seek more of Jesus and of his Spirit. The mystic Evelyn Underhill has said, “The new life, when it comes, I think, will not be the result of discussions, plans, meetings, etc., but will well up from the deepest sources of prayer.”9 Each revival that we have examined started when believers were gathering to pray.
- Be humble. Contrite hearts (Psalm 51) seem to be God’s favorite entryway for the Spirit of revival. These stories were not about perfect missionaries or extraordinary pastors but rather Christians who had chosen humility.
- Practice unity across denominations. One of God’s primary purposes of revival has been the unity of his church. What better place for Japanese society and the world to see the realities of God’s transformation than in Japan, which historically has been splintered among denominations and groups?
- Let us be intentionally creating structures, so that we are ready to disciple many and multiply when the Spirit brings revival and widespread conversions! My husband, Eric, often talks about the need for us, the church in Japan, even while still small, to be ready for when revival comes and the church needs to swell quickly.
- Believe! I am ready and can’t wait. Let’s believe together in our God who does not change: If he could do it then, he can do it now!
1. Jake Taylor, “A nonstop Kentucky prayer ‘revival’ is going viral on TikTok, and people are traveling thousands of miles to take part.” NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/asbury-university-revival-college-kentucky-going-viral-tiktok-rcna70686 (February 16, 2023).
2. Sara Weissman, “The Aftershocks of the Ashbury Revival”, Inside Higher Ed, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2023/03/02/asbury-revival-comes-close (March 2, 2023)
3. Colin C. Whittaker, Great Revivals, (Springfield, MO: Radiant Books, 1984): 21.
4. William Bray, “Renewal of Church Leadership in the Japanese Context”, Seventh Hayama Missionary Seminar “New Life for the Church”, (January 5–7, 1966): 112. https://www.horao2020.net/documents/Hayama/Hayama1966.pdf
5. Darrell Thompson, “History of Christian Revival in Japan,” Seventh Hayama Missionary Seminar “New Life for the Church,” (January 5-7, 1966): 60. https://www.horao2020.net/documents/Hayama/Hayama1966.pdf
6. Thompson, “History of Christian Revival in Japan”, 61.
7. Irene Webster Smith’s personal newsletter, The Sunrise, no. 70, (August 1930).
8. Thompson, ibid, 63.
9. Simon II. Baynes, “The Place of Prophecy in Revival”, Seventh Hayama Missionary Seminar “New Life for the Church”, (January 5–7, 1966): 41.
Asbury revival photos by Tetsu “Tex” Watanabe