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LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 13

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

MISSIONS 13

For problems such as these we need the outpouring
of the Holy Spirit as He witnesses to us of God’s recon-
ciliation in Christ through our New Guinean brethren.

3. Japan: Each in His Own Tongue

a. Japan Lutheran Church. Twenty years ago the first
Missouri Synod missionary to Japan, Rev. William
Danker, suggested a goal to the Missionary Conference:
an independent Japan Lutheran Church in 20 years.
Although it has not become completely self-supporting,
the Japan Lutheran Church (JLC) did organize itself
as an autonomous church in May 1968, electing its first
Japanese president, Rev. Kosaku Nao, together with a
complete slate of Japanese officers. With the formation
of the JLC, the former Missionary Conference has been
disbanded and absorbed into the new church.

The JLC is giving attention to developing forms for
effective evangelistic thrusts as well as to developing an
economic base for self-support. Organization is simple,
consisting of individual counselors who are responsible
for various areas of the church’s concern — education,
literature, social ministry, mass media, worship, etc. The
Japan Lutheran Church looks toward a formalized sister-
church relationship with the Missouri Synod in 1971. Asa
token of its two-way sharing, the JLC gave $1,200 to the
Ebenezer Offering.

b. Prince of Peace Volunteers. The Japan Lutheran
Church was the first overseas church to receive a con-
tingent of Prince of Peace Volunteers. Between 18 and
22 young people are serving in Japan in a program of
personal witness to the Japanese among whom they live
and work. The primary point of contact for most of them
is with Japanese young people, teaching them English
in specialized English schools, universities, high schools,
company employee groups, and individually. The pro-
gram has become reciprocal through the presence of
several Japanese Prince of Peace Volunteers in the
States. There are also plans for a Ghanaian young man
to join the POPV in Japan, as well as for interchange of
Lutheran Christian youth between Japan and other
Asian countries.

c. English-Speaking Ministry. St. Paul’s Lutheran
Church, Tokyo, provides a ministry for Americans related
to the business, diplomatic, or military communities there
and also seeks to inspire, instruct and integrate the
Americans more fully into the ministry of the whole
church in Japan.

d. Mass Media. The Lutheran Hour, well known in
Japan for more than 15 years, has now been supple-
mented with a television ministry, a weekly series of
Lutheran-sponsored programs. The Board for Missions
supplied $50,000 toward this effort. In 1969 and succeed-
ing years additional funds should be available from other
Lutheran sources, so that the potentials of television
ministry can be realized on a regular basis in a land
where more than 90% of the homes have television sets.

e. Christian Education. Ground-breaking services
for the new campus of the Japan Lutheran Theological
College were held in September 1968. This new campus,

to be completed by September 1969, will serve the semi-
naries of the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church and
the Japan Lutheran Church. Planning and subsidy pro-
vision for this seminary, as well as for other projects
supported by more than one Lutheran mission board or
society in the U.S. A. or Europe, is handled through the
Japan Lutheran Committee for Cooperative Mission
(JCM).

The Japan Lutheran Church is participating in a
Christian education curriculum development program
similar to that being undertaken by the Chinese-area
churches. Formal full-time educational institutions
include 10 kindergartens or nursery schools, Seibo
Gakuen Junior and Senior High School in Hanno, and
primary and junior high schools in Urawa. There are
also 42 Sunday schools.

f. Okinawa. The work in Okinawa is centered in four
locations with three missionaries—two American and
one Japanese. During 1968 the congregation in Naha
erected its first worship facility, with funds gathered
almost entirely by the congregation. The Lutheran
Church in Okinawa has a membership of approximately
150, with 100 communicants.

4. Korea: Each in His Own Tongue

a. Facing Growing Pains. South Korea has made
significant progress in economic growth, industrializa-
tion, and urbanization in the past few years. The capital
city of Seoul has grown to a metropolis of nearly 4,500,000.
This rapid growth presents unique challenges to the
Korea Lutheran Mission at a time when it is facing its
own growing pains, in transition from Korea Lutheran
Mission to a Korean Lutheran Church.

b. Mass Media. From its beginning 10 years ago, the
Korea Lutheran Mission has been engaged in a “‘sup-
portive” ministry to the Christian movement and Chris-
tian churches in Korea. Emphasis has been placed on a
ministry through radio. The number of enrollees in the
primary level of the Christian Correspondence Course
offered on the Lutheran Hour has reached 250,000, not
counting more than 1,300 Braille enrollees. The largest
graduation in the history of the correspondence course
took place when 536 inmates of the Korean army prison
received certificates in September 1968. Creative ap-
proaches to radio broadcasting have maintained a con-
sistently high level of CCC enrollment of approximately
3,000 per month. Periodic changes in program format
have included serialization of a Biblical novel, “‘Jezebel,
the Enchantress,” written by Pastor Won Sang Ji.

Telecasting had been curtailed by limited resources
and rising costs, but projections for 1969 include produc-
tion and broadcasting of 26 half-hour programs at an
average cost of approximately $1,000 per episode.

The Board for Missions, in cooperation with KLM,
recently sent a special mass-media ministry team to
Korea. The team, Rev. Delmar Glock and Miss Marie-
Louise Gebhardt, will be involved in research and devel-
opment of the most effective use of the mass-communica-
tions media.