Life continues after 50: Ritto church.

Ritto City is the third most densely populated area in Shiga Ken, the main county where WEC is working in Japan. Ritto’s population is 65 000, by no means huge, but it does stand out as having only one church to reach the whole city. That church has been without a Pastor for the last year. Julie (my wife) and I had a desire to see the church not just be helped to survive, but to be a light giving church in its community. Expressing that desire has led to our just being appointed as (remote) Pastors. Within our WEC Japan leadership role, we have been very keen to encourage new church planting initiatives using new church models, but we also are passionate that we want to see existing churches be used to reach those around them and to themselves plant new churches.

What challenges do we face as we become involved with the members of Ritto church?

2013 is the 50th anniversary of Ritto church being started, and whilst there is vision among the membership, many of them are over 70 years old. This contrasts to the results of a recent city census that shows that the average person living in Ritto is actually under 35 years old. Currently the church building is open and used primarily just on Sundays, so we need to look at ways of connecting with the community around the church.

Oh yes, and one other big challenge, we are still the leaders for Megumi church in Hikone as well! So we hope to use Ritto as a base for growing others. We rejoice that our Japanese co-worker, Miho, shared our vision for involvement with Ritto and that we have other Japanese Christians that we also hope to see developed in their gifting there.