Hi, this is Dr. Randal Gilmore, co-founder of Nippon Now.
My interest in Japanese people began when I was a graduate student at Western Michigan University. One of my classmates was Japanese, and we soon became fast friends.
Many years later, I made my first trip to Japan. By that time, my classmate had returned to Japan and taken a job as a professor at a prestigious university. The days I spent with Tsutomu sightseeing in Tokyo reignited my interest in Japanese people, and in their spiritual needs.
Since I am a Christian, I grew increasingly concerned about how few Japanese people truly know who Jesus is. Many have heard of him, of course. But they know very little of his story.
So several years ago, my wife, Dale, and I started Nippon Now to better share who Jesus is with Japanese people. Under the banner of Nippon Now and the Nippon Initiative, we made annual trips to Japan with university students to expose them to the spiritual climate there, and to involve them in ministry. As fulfilling as that was, it wasn’t enough. So we eventually left the church where we had been serving as pastor and wife for 20 years to focus full-time on reaching Japanese with the gospel and ministering to their spiritual needs.
But we soon discovered that many Japanese didn’t understand our message, especially when we shared in the same way that Christians usually share here in the West.
And that was so frustrating, and discouraging. We knew that authentic Christianity would provide forgiveness and hope for so many people in Japan. The statistics on depression, hikikomori, su***de, and broken relationships underscored the need and broke our hearts. But we thought we had run up against an impenetrable wall.
Then we discovered that by paying attention to the dynamics of storytelling, and by expanding our message about Jesus to include more of the larger story told in the Bible, Christianity suddenly made more sense. We also discovered how to pique interest in the gospel, using the same story-telling dynamics.
We call our method The Gospel Story-arcâ„¢ Project. You can read more about it on http://gospelstoryarc.org or go to the Gospel Story-arcâ„¢ Project page.
Since we started using The Gospel Story-arcâ„¢ Project, hundreds of Japanese have heard our presentation of who Jesus is. And in response, many have professed faith in him, restoring their hope, and immersing them in a more meaningful worldview.
Now we want to share these things with you. And through Nippon Now on Facebook, we also want to continue building a network of people interested in learning more about Japanese life and culture, in building authentic friendships with Japanese people, and in addressing their spiritual needs.
We welcome your participation and feedback, along with any questions you might have about Nippon Now or The Gospel Story-arcâ„¢ Project.
