This was the third year that the Faith Community Church’s Worship Ministry has served in Japan. Our ministry took place in Fukuoka, Kagoshima and Miyazaki. We served alongside local worship teams, encouraged missionaries and believers, and shared the gospel through music in churches, schools and other community settings.
The trip reinforced the importance of continuing these relationships. We saw encouraging responses to both worship and gospel outreach, as well as opportunities to support believers facing family opposition.
Our ministry in Kyushu is largely grounded in two passages of Scripture: Amos 9:11–13 and Isaiah 6:13.
Amos speaks of the restoration of David’s fallen tabernacle (a new paradigm of music as sacrifice) and a resultant season of abundant harvest.
Isaiah speaks of a holy seed remaining as a stump after the land was laid waste. This speaks of the establishment of the Gospel through Francis Xavier in the 1500s (interestingly beginning from Kagoshima) to Christians being literally cut down when the ruling class deemed it a threat. Today, the Christian population remains under 1% – a stump in the land.
Together, these passages have given us a strong sense that revival will come to Japan and that God will restore Christianity. We believe that worship and music will play an integral role in this, which is why FCC Worship has remained committed to the work.
Ministry focus
The focus of this year’s trip was twofold.
First, we wanted to raise up the next generation of worshippers. Both the Kagoshima and Miyazaki worship gatherings requested that we work alongside their local teams, and this became an important part of the program.
Second, the local teams wanted to explore the connection between worship and witness. The account of the woman at the well in John 4 became particularly significant: a woman who encountered Jesus went back to her town and told others what He had done for her. We saw something of this in the people God is raising up in Japan, particularly Shiori, who owns an English tuition centre franchise and played a critical role in arranging our gospel outreach opportunities.
The team
The 2026 team comprised me (as team leader), Lester Sim, Chris Thong, Joe Wong, Jackie Chan and Samantha Chew.
Samantha’s inclusion was significant because she initiated the team’s first trip to Japan in 2024 and had recently returned from missionary service in Fukuoka. Her relationships, language skills and logistical support were especially valuable.
By the end of the trip, we also considered that Shiori was very much a part of our team.
Day 1: Wednesday 30 September
Most of the team arrived in Fukuoka early in the morning. We collected a large rental car to use throughout the ministry period, principally to transport the team and our luggage to Kagoshima, where we would spend most of our time. (But for the number of team members and luggage, it is much easier to drive a kei car).
We could not check into the hotel until about 3 pm, leaving us with several hours in the city without anywhere to settle. Thankfully, this meant that we could start checking off items on the shopping lists that some of our wives gave us.
There was also a miscommunication about the evening program. We had expected to spend the first evening ministering to the new missionaries in Fukuoka, Tim and Joanna, through worship and prayer, with a connect group meeting the following evening. Instead, the connect group meeting took place on the first day.
As a result, the team had little opportunity to rest and settle before formal ministry began.
Nonetheless, it was providential that Pastor Benny was in Fukuoka that evening and could observe and encourage the connect group. We were told that the group had not met for much of the previous year. The gathering allowed people with whom Samantha had connected during her time in Fukuoka to reconnect (including her first convert, Kana, who along with her children are still going strong in the Lord). This was especially heartwarming for those of us who had met them during the 2024 trip.
The evening was fairly casual, with 33 people in attendance, including Pastor Benny, Hock Ching and our team.
Our team provided bento boxes, Joe led worship, and Pastor Benny encouraged the group to continue gathering.
As we left, one of the ex-group members, had lingered around so we offered him a ride to the train station (as it was late). He told about how he was living a life of getting drunk and often sleeping on park benches. Samantha chastised him and encouraged him to go back to the connect group. The next day, he texted Samantha to let her know that he would commit to going to connect group and to start going to a nearby church again!
Day 2: Thursday 1 October
We arrived at the Fukuoka mission house in the morning to undertake a beautiful (and poweful) time of worship and intercession with our Fukuoka missionaries.
There was a real sense of God’s presence as we prayed for protection for our missionaries and their work in Fukuoka and also prayed for revival for Japan.
.After lunch, we rehearsed for the rest of the afternoon (it was a gruelling 3.5 hour session) before going out for dinner.
Day 3: Friday 2 October
We left Fukuoka early in the morning and arrived in Kagoshima at about 1.30 pm. Our first ministry event that evening was Praise Night, an interchurch worship team gathering involving six churches.
We had lunch at Cafe Dining Hinata, where we had held a gospel music jam session the previous year. The owners were pleased to see us and would have liked to have another jam session, but we did not have enough time in our schedule. This has been a wonderful connection, and I hope we can include a jam session in next year’s program.
Approximately 27 people from six churches attended Praise Night. Joe led the opening worship set with Akari and Kotone from Hope Church Kagoshima joining as vocalists. Jackie coached them during rehearsal. This was a practical expression of our intention to serve alongside the local teams.
Lester Sim taught on “Worship and Witness”, drawing on story of the Samaritan woman and the Hebrew praise word halal, meaning to boast in the Lord. This passage became a helpful framework for understanding what we later saw God doing through Shiori’s sharing her encounters with Jesus with others.
I led a shorter second worship set. Had there been more time, I would have liked to move into worship and intercession, but we also wanted to respect the attendees’ time.
A lesson for future gatherings is to keep the teaching shorter and make room for questions and answers, which proved valuable at J Passion the following day.
Day 4: Saturday 3 October
We began with breakfast at the Kagoshima mission house with Pastor Matsumoto, his wife Noriko-san and Pastor Toshiko, then drove to Miyazaki to meet Hina.
The 2024 team had first met her in Fukuoka through Samantha. After a worship seminar, she expressed an interest in learning more about the gospel, and some of our team spent much of that evening answering her questions. She was concerned, however, about the cultural and family pressures involved in becoming a Christian.
Since moving to Miyazaki, Hina had connected with Isabelle, who was part of the missionary group in Kyushu and had been bringing her to church. Ultimately, Hina’s concerns about family opposition had proved well-founded: her mother had strongly opposed her church involvement and prohibited her going to any Christian meeting.
We would have liked to invite Hina to the J Passion conference that afternoon, which she had attended in 2025, but felt it best not to disturb the peace in her family. It was nevertheless lovely to reconnect over lunch. She seemed very happy, and I would say joyful, that we had come to see her.
We then went to the church for J Passion. The plan was for the local team to lead one worship set, our team to lead another, and both teams to combine for the final set.
The afternoon began with an icebreaker and worship led by J Passion, followed by my teaching on “Raising Up the Next Generation of Worshippers”.
There were good questions during the discussion.
Here, I sensed a real commitment to raising the next generation. J Passion is a combined youth ministry of churches in the area, and the attendance of older people, including parents, suggested that they also wanted to support this work. We also met a next-generation pastor in the making, Aiki, the son of one of the J Passion pastors.
Our team sponsored the dinner fellowship (bento boxes), which gave us further opportunities to speak with attendees.
After dinner, Joe led worship and Lester Sim presented a shorter version of his “Worship and Witness” message. I felt that the message connected more strongly this time. One young woman asked how she could share the gospel in her daily life.
After the questions and answers, Jackie shared a testimony involving her own prodigal son. Many were moved to tears, particularly some of the older women.
We ended with the combined worship team and a time of prayer led by Aiki. It was clear that the group was well-schooled in intercessory prayer.
We were also humbled that the gathering had collected a love offering for our team.
Over 30 people attended from three churches, which was less than last year’s attendance (around 60 people across six churches). Apparently, some of the churches had dropped out because of changes in leadership.
We returned to Kagoshima late that evening.
