A union-wide pastors’ meeting was held at the Japan Union Conference (JUC) Tachikawa office from June 20 to 23, 2016. JUC is planning for the year 2018 as a year of harvest, similar to “All Japan15.” All churches are being encouraged to hold evangelistic series and meetings to lead people to make decisions for baptism. In the year 2018, the president of the General Conference, Elder Ted Wilson, will also be coming as one of the speakers to preach an evangelistic series.
Every year, many churches in Japan are holding evangelistic meetings. However, the recent trend in many churches is that they do not have people they can invite to church. Basically, more and more churches are struggling with how to find new people who are interested in the church or God.
Therefore, JUC is proposing that these churches use health ministry as an entryway to reach people. Health ministry is described as the right arm of the gospel to enter people’s hearts. This work can prepare the way for the gospel by opening an entrance.
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If we are going to use the health message as the right arm of the gospel, we must understand the Adventist health message. In addition, in order to promote a healthy lifestyle, we must practice it for ourselves.
For the first stage of carrying out health ministry in each church, JUC invited Dr. Don Miller from Uchee Pines Institute to the meeting to reconfirm the Adventist health message.
Dr. Miller has been teaching at the Japanese training programin Uchee Pines for more than ten years. Also, followingthe meeting, JUC is planning to give financial support to church members and pastors’ wives to attend the Japanese training program in Uchee Pines to be trained as a lifestyle educator.
Hiroshi Yamaji, director of JUC Adventist Mission