From February 11 to 14, 2024, the Japan Union Conference (JUC) hosted its first nationwide pastors’ training seminar in five years at the Kamenokoyama Church on the Union headquarters grounds. Typically, the JUC organizes a pastors’ training seminar at least once a year. However, due to the impact of Covid-19, this tradition was paused for five years.
The key speakers were Dr. Jonas Arrais, Secretary of the NSD Ministerial Association, and Dr. Peter Roennfeldt. Dr. Jonas Arrais delivered an essential lecture on church growth. Dr. Peter focused his lecture on discipleship and evangelism in the early church, drawing extensively from the contents of the book “Following the Apostles’ Vision,” which was recently translated into Japanese and published by the Japan Publishing House.
The Japan Union Conference has established the following themes as its basic evangelism policy for 2021-2025:
- Pastors are to be apostles.
- Lay members are to be disciples.
- Churches are to be light and salt.
The pastors’ training seminar provided insights into what is required to advance this basic policy. There were lively discussions among pastors about the topic, considering both generation and church size.
Pastor Toshio Shibata, Director of the JUC Communication department, stated, “Japan is an island nation, and we tend to have a narrow perspective within Japan. However, we are grateful for the new insights from the lecturers from overseas. We hope this pastors’ training seminar will invigorate evangelism throughout Japan.”