Today’s media reaching tomorrow’s Japan

The needs of the Japanese young generation are huge but rarely appear in the news headlines. Broken families, peer pressure, burnt-out school teachers, and the absence of trustworthy role models in society are just some of their challenges. All over the world, a flood of social media entangles the hearts of children and teenagers. In Japan, adequate media education is lacking, but there are some organizations seeking to produce useful digital resources for children and teens to address the issues they are dealing with. These resources are based on Christian values and offer the hope of the gospel online.

Today we have Christian media producers making the best of immense opportunities through online technology. This article aims to introduce some of the Christian ministries that produce online material particularly for ministering to children and teens in Japan. We can understand their vision by outlining their BEST: Basic mission and target groups; Equipping online, and other resources; Strategies, training, and activities; Together for kingdom networking.

One Hope Japan (onehopejapan.net)

B – The mission of One Hope Japan is “To affect destiny by providing God’s eternal Word to all the children and youth of the world.”

E – One Hope’s resources include:

• A range of print and online resources that include gospel material and teacher resources. Their booklets and tracts such as Manga Mission and SuperBook Story of Hope cover segments of the Bible and address issues relevant to Japanese youth.
• An online Sunday School began during COVID and is still going. You can read the story behind this in the next article.
• A series of films for older teens address serious issues such as dysfunctional families, dysfunctional dating relationships, social media addiction, suicide, fear of others, and misled moral decisions like compensated dating.
• The Bible App for Kids is a series of interactive animated Bible stories with narration and fun quizzes built in.

S – One Hope’s strategy is to create evangelistic tools based on research of their target audience (Japanese kids) and to provide training for local churches and Christians to be effective in using those tools. They hope to encourage interaction between the generations through media at church.

T – Together with churches, they reach out to the community through evangelism both online and in person.

hi.-b.a. (High School Born-againers) (www.hi-ba.com)

B – hi.-b.a. ministry is targeted at high school students, as they aim to reach the next generation of believers. Their goals are: 1) Trust in God, 2) Value people, 3) High school evangelism as mission, and 4) Serve the church.

E – hi.-b.a. has a YouTube channel featuring songs, interviews, testimonies, recordings of meetings and other videos. They also have accounts on Instagram, Line, Facebook, and Spotify, which have helpful ideas for topics or songs for people ministering with young people.

S – They have regular in-person meetings in some areas for prayer, Bible study, outreach to friends, as well as special events and camps.

T – They network intentionally with multiple organizations reaching young people.

Onfire Japan (onfire.jp)

B – Onfire Japan’s goals are to empower and equip Christians of any age—particularly teens—with a kingdom and disciple-making vision. They want to see people filled, healed, trained, and sent with the presence and power of God.

E – Life-transforming tools:

• The 55-day PureHeart challenge helps girls to develop a healthy, biblical understanding of their sexuality and value in Christ.
• Their YouTube channel and Facebook page contain online worship, prayer, and Bible readings.
• They sell a range of tracts, such as Father’s Love Letter (multilingual) and Kotoba Quiz (Japanese), through their website.

S – Onfire Japan’s Discovery Bible Study and mentoring are other practical ways they seek to connect young Christians with other generations of believers.

T – Online networking provides fellowship, worship, prayer, and outreach.

Family Forum Japan (ffj.gr.jp)

B – FFJ exists to strengthen homes and churches and to proclaim the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ through biblical truths about family life, marriage, parenting, sexuality, and gender.

E – Their online shop sells books and leaflets such as Futatsu no Doa (Two Doors), a fairy-tale style story that helps children learn how to make God-pleasing choices, and Otoko to Onna no Monogatari (The Story of Man and Woman) uses stories to help parents teach children about biblical sexuality. For youth and young adults, Otōsan kara no Jū no Tegami (Ten Letters from a Father) walks readers through a biblical understanding of sexuality, gender, dating, and preparation for marriage.

You can also find talks about sexuality and gender for youth in their YouTube playlist (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbWGNWWXVN_ZyxDpWFfpUjFd9zF1WrAue) and material on marriage for adults on their Facebook page.

S – FFJ produces online resources, publications, radio broadcasts, seminars, and lectures.

T – Originally connected with Focus on the Family and TEAM, FFJ is currently cooperating with Network for Biblical Understanding of Sexuality (NBUS) in providing seminars on gender issues online and in various parts of Japan.

Besides the organizations mentioned above, there are several more producing print and online resources for ministry to young Japanese people:

• New Day Today (newdaytoday.net) is a ministry founded by Dr. Andy and Junko Meeko. They have a large range of print and digital resources available for many different age groups. Those focused particularly for children and teens are the Treasure Hunt series, which includes a manga tract, discipleship Bible reading guides, and associated apps, and Risk Ride, a set of resources that aims to help people ministering to young people struggling with thoughts of suicide.
• J-House Media shop (https://jhouse.tv/shop). Growing from a youth and student church, J-House now reaches second and third generation Christians, sharing Christ’s love and grace according to the Great Commission. They have produced bilingual study manuals like Curious and Grow that answer many commonly asked questions and connect extremely well with today’s Japanese young people.
• New Life Ministries (newlifeministries.jp) produces their impactful, multilingual Manga Bible series.
• Word of Life Press (wlpm.or.jp) sells many children’s books in their online shop and has some kids’ videos on their YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@user-lk7ep1ps7y).
• Alpha (japan.alpha.org) is an introductory course to Christianity that is now available in Japanese and is offered by many churches across Japan in person and online.
• Our Daily Bread (japanese-odb.org) has a website with many videos including content for kids with Bible stories, a Sunday school show, and crafts.

With such rich resources, we remember still that praying and obeying through the power of the Holy Spirit is what will ultimately equip us to carry out our calling: to reach the children and teens of today for the Japanese society of tomorrow.

Logos from author and respective websites