Revival in Modern Japan

A Japanese woman has a vision

Praying with others for revival in an isolated mountain cabin, a woman member from Shinshiro Church saw a vision of KOSHIEN, Japan's largest baseball stadium, filled with believers who were praising and worshiping the Lord Jesus.

All of a sudden, the wind...

Late at night, about 11:00 on February 13th, 1992, Pastor Jun Takimoto, a group of young people and some staff members of the small Shinshiro Church held late-night prayer meetings in the same mountain cabin where the vision for Koshien had been granted. Suddenly, The sound like that of a tidal wave, a tsunami, came toward us, said Pastor Takimoto. He felt a rush of incredible POWER coming towards them and intuitively knew God was responding to their prayers for revival.

As the roaring sound and wave of power entered the room, one woman fell onto the concrete floor as though she'd been flung against it, and lay still as if dead.When her body moved and touched the foot of another person, instantly,almost everyone was knocked onto the floor in the same manner.

There was almost an impression of windows shaking and rattling. One woman said the entire place seemeddis-attached from the ground. With fear and awe in their hearts, the prayer group drove back to their church sensing the wave following the car. Arriving at 2:00 am they telephoned the other staff members who were knocked down as they entered the sanctuary.

Pastor Takimoto concluded, Nobody laid hands on anybody, and nobody had intentionally prayed for this to happen. It happened simply one-way, by God's hand--before we knew it we had been praying until morning. Those people who were touched by the Holy Spirit were completely changed and began to work in the midst of great difficulties with great sacrifice, to plan a Revival Meeting at Koshien Stadium.

Koshien crusade explosion!

The Koshien's Mission Crusade's three days of seminars and conferences and three nights of powerful messages by Japanese Evangelists made spiritual history. There was no focus on a foreign speaker, and the enormous cost was funded by Japanese believers.

The evening meetings, alternating with 15 minutes of praise and worship, ministered to approximately 124,000 people and 20,000 came forward to register a profession of faith in Christ Jesus.


Subsequent events

Some of the momentous series of evangelistic events by the All Japan Revival Mission organization that are greatly impacting the spiritual history of Japan include: 

  1. Registering Prayer Warriors and Fasting Prayer Warriors. The Goal is 100,000 Hours of Prayer.
     
  2. Hosting a countless number of nationally known Evangelists andRevival leaders including Argentina's Ed Silvoso, and Carlos Annacondia. Many international guest speakers have visited almost every area of Japan. (land mass is about the same size as California.)
     
  3. All Japan Revival Mission has provided Praise and Prayer Revival Meetings in fifty-five prefectures (states) in the nation of Japan, special Revival Children's Camps, Spiritual warfare and Church Growth Seminars, as well as 24-hour prayer vigils. Believers also take Revival Prayer Rides on trains throughout the nation, as well as in and around other major cities.
     
  4. The AJRM has also organized prayer marches around the Imperial Palace and Prefecture Government offices. (corresponds to US National and State Capital buildings)
     
  5. In September of 1998, All Japan Revival Mission sponsored a 10 day Tokyo Revival Mission recruiting hundreds of churches to pray hundreds of hours during a 40 day pre-crusade time of fasting. Volunteers also delivered Christian literature to 3 million homes in Tokyo, while some 1,000 people conducted evangelism outreaches and handed out another 1 million tracts.

    An estimated total of 56,000 non-believers attended the Crusade arena during 10 nights. By the Crusade's end nearly 6,000 has accepted Jesus, and a new found unity was struck between Evangelical, Charismatic and Pentecostal leaders--a decisive factor in the Crusade's success.
     
  6. Summer of 2000: At Super Mission Tokyo, forty days of evangelism saw much prayer, another 1 million tracts distributed, and 47,677 attended meetings held throughout the city. (In December the All Japan Revival Mission held a 4-day Evangelism Crusade in Osaka)

New Revival Organization

In 1995, Minoru Okuyama, Pastor and former missionary to Indonesia, helped organize the Nippon Revival association, a fellowship for Charismatic and Pentecostal Japanese church leaders including evangelicals who know about the Holy Spirit.

In 1999 Pastor Okuyama spearheaded the first International World Missions Conference inviting representatives from 150 countries that included all denominations from evangelical mainstream to Pentecostal. The three day event, featuring Dr. Cho from Korea and Reinhardt Bhonke, exceeded everyone's expectations! Over three thousand people gathered in the city of Kyoto every day, and topped at 4,000 on the last day. The budget, almost one hundred million yen ($800,000) was covered by offerings, and the meeting concluded with well over one thousand participating in a March for Jesus on the exact route twenty-six former Christian martyrs were forced to walk in 1597. (The Martyrdom of the Twenty-Six Saints by Luis Frois)

Source: Pastor Jun Takimoto, All Japan Revival Mission Newsletter, June 1996.