PRESENT MINISTRIES

The conference senses a new call to church planting in Japan, where only 1 to 2 percent are Christians. Leaders have a goal to double church membership in 10 years. They will plant churches in large cities, from which satellite units will be launched. A pastoral training program at both graduate and undergraduate levels is available at Osaka Theological Seminary. Osaka Christian College, a junior college with a strong Christian witness, is located on the same campus. The Japan FMC became a general conference in 1961 and reorganized in 1984.

ORIGINS

Paul Kakihara, a young man from Japan who attended Greenville College in Illinois, pioneered Free Methodist missions in Japan in 1895. He first evangelized on the island of Awaji, in Osaka Bay. There he joined forces with Teikichi Kawabe who was also preaching on the island. Mr. Kawabe became the leader in laying the foundation for the Japanese Free Methodist Church. The first North American missionaries arrived in 1903.

The work spread from the island to the great commercial center of Osaka. Mr. Kawabe founded Osaka First Church, at one time Free Methodism's largest congregation. He began Bible classes that grew into Osaka Theological Seminary.

The church became a general conference in 1961, then reorganized in 1984.