Answering God’s call to pray for Japan

In 2019, Japan Harvest published an article in the Winter issue entitled “Missionaries in Japan: A snapshot in space and time.”¹ It included a graph showing the trend of the number of missionaries in Japan over the years. After a three-decade decline, missionary numbers started going up again in 2015. This graph confirms what many mission organizations in Japan have been recently feeling as they grapple with the wonderful, yet challenging reality that there are so many people around the world who have a heart for Japan.

This encouraging increase, however, is juxtaposed with a discouraging snapshot of the state of the church. The average age of pastors is between 60 and 70.² Churches are small and aging. Baptisms and seminary enrollments are down. The number of pastor-less churches is increasing, and youth in churches are few and far between.

It’s at this intersection that we felt God’s calling to focus on the work of mobilizing prayer for spiritual breakthrough in Japan. This is a conviction we share with so many missionaries across Japan. It is not a new conviction either, as we know faithful brothers and sisters who have been praying for Japan for decades.

All of this confirmed for us that God is at work. And our desire was to respond by joining him in what he is already doing.

The firstfruits of the partnership

In summer 2019, after conferring with various Japanese and missionary leaders, including the JEMA leadership team, and after much prayer, we felt the Lord was leading us to publish a prayer guide that could be used by any Christian to pray for Japan. Missionaries and Japanese church leaders helped us to choose 30 prayer topics through surveys. Members of 17 organizations wrote short articles on these topics and, by God’s grace, in November 2020, we published the first edition of Beneath the Surface: 30 Ways to Pray for Japan.

In faith we printed 16,000 copies and were so moved when all of them were sold within a few months. We estimate that about 20,000 copies have been sold so far. It is has been translated into German and French, and traditional and simplified Chinese versions will be available in 2024.

The road to the Japanese edition

From the beginning, our heart has been to pray for spiritual breakthrough alongside our Japanese brothers and sisters and to see Japanese churches leading a movement of prayer.

We were hesitant, however, about creating a Japanese version of the prayer guide. We were not sure that something written primarily by missionaries would be useful in local Japanese churches. But Japanese believers continued to ask about a Japanese version, and in fall 2022, we started a few months of prayerful consultation. As God brought a Japanese editorial team together, we felt that he was inviting us into this work.

The process was not without its challenges, from translation to editing to design, and even in shipment. But each challenge was accompanied by a timely answer to prayer, as God continued to keep our hearts steady and helped us to finish the work.

We are grateful for the Japanese leaders from various local churches, student ministries, and returnee ministries who reviewed the text for us. By God’s grace, in May 2023, we published the Japanese edition entitled 「御心が地にもなるように：日本のために祈る30項目」 (translation: May your will be done on earth: 30 things to pray for Japan), just in time for the Global Returnees Conference. At that time, we also published a second edition of the English version with updated statistics.

The prayer guide in local churches

Here are some ways that the Japanese prayer guide is being used:

This booklet is helping us to pray together as a church for the challenges facing Japan. We read and pray for one topic at the church prayer meeting every Thursday. The observations missionaries have made about Japan today, and their insights into what they are thinking and feeling, give us a very clear picture of the challenges our country is facing. —Pastor Mizuguchi, Sakuragaoka Free Methodist Church, Tokyo

I distributed the prayer guide to each of the church members. This guide helps us to know what to pray for our country and provides an easy way to do so. Japanese people can really empathize with many of the topics, and I felt that the guide portrays the current situation in Japan well. Through the prayer guide, I was again reminded that in order to reach out to those in Sendai, Tohoku, or other regional areas, we cannot avoid addressing local religious customs such as ancestor worship through funeral and grave traditions. —A pastor in Sendai

A Christian lady in Osaka got the booklet from me and started praying with three other ladies of their church every day. They knew they should pray for Japan but never knew how. They have received great help in knowing how to pray for their own country for the first time through the booklet. —A pastor in Fukushima

What can I do?

We would love it if you could introduce the prayer guide to your church or ministry as a way of encouraging Japanese believers to pray for Japan. And please continue to let your supporters know about the booklet, or perhaps gift it to them.

If you would like to order the Beneath the Surface: 30 Ways to Pray for Japan prayer guide in English or Japanese, please visit our website at www.japanprayerguide.com.

1. Simon Pleasants, “Missionaries in Japan: A snapshot in space and time,” Japan Harvest, https://japanharvest.org/missionaries-in-japan-a-snapshot-in-space-and-time (Winter 2019).
2. Caroline Anderson, “New Strategies Emerge as Japanese Churches Face Future Without Pastors,” imb.org, https://www.imb.org/2021/08/02/new-strategies-emerge-japanese-churches-face-future-without-pastors (August 2, 2021).