International Ministries (IM)

On February 6, 1812, Adoniram and Ann Judson were commissioned as missionaries from the Congregational Church and set sail for India. But while on the boat, Judson began to read the Bible anew about the issue of water baptism. Arriving at the conclusion that believers should be baptized by immersion, the Judsons were baptized by British Baptist missionaries when they reached Calcutta that September.

Their life-changing decision celebrated not only individual new life through baptism, but the birth of a new gathering of people, partners, and churches: a new society of Christians who would support, send, and celebrate the work of mission. That movement, formed in 1814 as the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, is now known as International Ministries (IM).

IM has grown and evolved over more than two centuries of ministry. It is the oldest international Baptist mission agency in North America. Its central mission is to work cross-culturally to invite people to become disciples of Jesus Christ and to proclaim, through both word and deed, God’s reign of justice, peace, and abundant life for all creation.

The first Baptist missionaries to Japan, Dr. Nathan and Charlotte Brown and Rev. Jonathan and Eliza Goble, arrived in 1873. Dr. Brown completed his translation of the Japanese New Testament in seven years. Charlotte Brown was the founder of Soshin Girls’ School in Yokohama. The mission’s first seminary, Duncan Academy, became a major university, Kanto Gakuin University. Waseda Hoshien, established by American Baptist missionary Mr. Harry B. Benninghoff in 1908, is a highly respected social institution next to Waseda University. It started as a hostel for students. Then, in 1922, the Scott Hall dormitory was dedicated, and it became the foundation of the current Waseda Hoshien.

By 1922, 76 missionaries were assigned to Japan to evangelize and teach in churches and schools. At that time, there were 97 places of regular worship, 3,987 members with 500 baptisms a year, 161 Sunday schools, and 10,676 Sunday school attendees.

Currently, IM supports both church and education-based ministries. During its over 145 years of serving in Japan, the mission has found that many more Japanese people respond to education-based ministries than to other ministries. So IM missionaries are concentrated in education as a vehicle for evangelism and discipleship. Our role is to follow and support the indigenous Christian leaders in their ministries for Christ.

We walk alongside our Japanese brothers and sisters in Christ and encourage them, as they do for us. Our prayer is that the Lord will raise up more workers to fulfill the Great Commission in Japan. To God be the glory!