What I Learned from My First Church Plant
Editor’s Note: The following article was originally posted by City to City Japan. In 2022, Pastor Kikuo Irie and his wife, Naomi, started Saga Bible Church in Saga, Japan. However, this was the second church that the two had planted, not the first. The first was planted in the nearby city of Fukuoka 27 years ago—and as Irie-san reflects on the differences between these two ministries below, he shares what he’s learned from past trials and past mistakes.
When my wife and I planted our first church in Fukuoka in 1995, I was 40 years old and we had three children (a third grader, a kindergartener, and a one-year-old child). When we planted our second church in Saga in 2022, I was 67 years old. We were living with my wife’s 91-year-old mother and our second son at the time, as well as a missionary couple from South Korea who was involved in the church plant.
During the first five years of our first church’s ministry back in the 90s, all of its activities were held in our rental home. From the outset, we had Sunday worship services, Wednesday prayer meetings, various evangelistic activities, and lessons in Sunday School right where we lived every day. We built relationships there—mainly with families of our children’s friends. Although we shared the gospel with them, none of these parents ever decided to get baptized. It was a blessing, however, that some of the children decided to do so with their parents’ permission.
After our first three years, a couple in their sixties—two accountants—decided to become baptized, as well. Later on, the husband became a driving force in building our church a new sanctuary, and he worked with me to establish the church’s organizational structure after it was built. We began distributing brochures that introduced readers to the gospel and held new evangelistic events in the sanctuary. We rented even more facilities to host our Bible camps for school students during the summer and winter, which became places for these children’s spiritual growth. We were grateful for all of these things—especially that some of the people we invited to our church were actually being saved and becoming active parts of the establishment.
But looking back on our efforts to evangelize the people of Fukuoka and grow the church, I regret that only my family and a few selective members worked extensively while the other members’ gifts went unused. There were members who, in my eyes, seemed too immature in their faith to properly utilize. This was a mistake. Inspired by verses like Ephesians 4:11-12, we have tried to adopt a fresh attitude in our new church plant by discovering people’s gifts and mobilizing them from the outset—even when we only had a few members in attendance.
In Fukuoka, I also ended up taking on a leadership role that focused more on one-on-one teaching using textbooks than it focused on integrating them into a community of believers. Teaching one person at a time had benefits, but too much of it resulted in a lack of fellowship among the members (including me) that led to feelings of isolation. From this experience, I learned how important community-wide interaction is in fostering spiritual maturity, as well as personal study.
As such, another goal for our church in Saga is to develop members’ character and gifts in small groups, rather than the purely isolated textbook teaching I performed in the past. Unlike Fukuoka, Saga is a smaller city with a population of roughly 240,000 people, and its culture enjoys a more relaxed pace that is more conducive to form strong relationships. Because of this, we focus on building relationships together, evangelizing and growing spiritually as a group. And as we introduce the gospel to people, we make sure to get to know them as friends, listen to their thoughts, and invest ourselves in their personal matters.
My wife and I are grateful to take these revelations into account as we develop this new ministry, though certain challenges of church planting still remain. As I pastor in Saga at almost 70 years of age, I notice that there is much harvest and “I have many people in this city,” as Paul says in Acts 18:10—but the workers are still few. Saga Bible Church is praying that God will send people interested in working with youth ministries, English conversation, and worship music—particularly from among the many medical professionals and college students in our area. But even if you are thousands of miles away, we humbly ask that you lend a hand by joining our church in prayer. Our hope is that many will come to know the gospel in Saga and help spread it to the whole city—and to “go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15-16).
About the Author
Kikuo Irie is a pastor at Saga Bible Church. He was born in Fukuoka, saved while attending college, and went to seminary. As a teacher for Japan Alliance Christ Church, he was a pastor and missionary in Saitama, Chiba, and Fukuoka. He planted Saga Bible Church in Saga City in April, 2022.