This year, our church began to partner with other Okinawan churches to start a Gospel to Okinawa church planting cohort. A group of 18 ministry leaders and pastors, began the process of learning more about church planting. The goal is of course to encourage other churches to plant more churches in Okinawa. Our church has a catchy statement of 2 church planters identified and the teams arranged by 2022. We are praying for that to happen.

This cohort is one way we can find partners, equip other churches to plant, strengthen the Okinawan church, and to build unity in the body between Okinawan churches and American.

The last two meetings were encouraging to those who attended because they were given the chance to hear how the Gospel changes people’s lives, given the chance to see how Christ completed the work on the cross, and gave the participants the opportunity to wrestle with the truths from God’s word.  The GTO meetings also give our church family here a chance to pray for the gospel to be spread here, for them to meet and interact in various ways with our Okinawan friends, and a chance for the mindset of the American believers here to be stretched to see how the good news of Christ needs to be spread to the whole world, not just for them.

All this has been encouraging to our souls, and the hearts of our partners here. It is good to see what God is doing and to be even a little part of it.