YWAM Osaka
Asian Center

Eat hard, Work hard, Love hard

VISION

Our primary vision is to pioneer churches and to raise young leaders through discipleship by evangelizing in this spiritual wilderness of Japan.

Our secondary vision is to send missionaries to Muslim nations. Due to the history and pain of World War II, Korea and Japan's relationship has become an emotional and sensitive issue. Just as the passionate Koreans and loyal Japanese become united through the love of Jesus, we hope to echo the same message to Muslim nations who were once brothers as Isaac and Ishmael but are still enemies.

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." Revealation 7:9-10

YWAM Osaka Asian Center Ministries

Youth
Evangelism

From the pioneering year of 1989 and even to now, evangelism is the focus of our team. We first started with regional evangelism: visiting families, giving out flyers, worshipping at busy areas and evangelizing at parks. We came to realize that most people have never seen nor gone to a church and never heard of the Gospel. Due to the society system of Japan, it is difficult for people to make their way to church in spite of taking interest.
In the midst of our focus on regional evangelism, God has given us a new vision to evangelize to the youth of Osaka. So for 5 days per week, 3 to 4 hours per day we reached out to search for those that God has prepared. Rain nor wind, hot nor cold could not stop us from riding our bicycles to places that young people would gather such as McDonald's, any fast-food restaurants, large bookstores and college campuses. We evangelize by sharing a conversation 1 on 1 following Jesus and his disciples as our model.
The total number of people we have shared the Gospel to for 17 years until now have exceeded 100,000. Among them, there are about 1,000 people and more that have at least once visited a church. Among them, about 60 people were baptized. According to our experience data and calculation, it takes one person roughly 4 and half years to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

There are 1.2 million people from 18 to 30 years old living in the Osaka region. Wouldn't it be fair for them to at least hear about the love of God once in their lives?
We invite you to join us.

DTS
Discipleship Training Program

This is a full-time 6-month (3 month lecture phase and 3 month outreach phase) YWAM discipleship program to benefit Christians to grow spiritually and live a life as an evangelist. Since its beginning in 1960 with YWAM International, there are about 300 DTS programs happening in more than 150 places accordance to each nation, culture and environment.
Osaka DTS started in 1993 and was privileged to have 24 seasons with about 250 Korean and Japanese graduates.
View more

Mercy Ministry

After the experience of Japan's infamous "bubble economy" in the late 1980's, there were numerous people undergoing homeless situations. The Nishinari region, famous for its labor market, was once peaked with over 20,000 homeless people. Many people were able to receive help from the Osaka city welfare foundations, but there are still thousands that sleep at parks, riversides and front of closed buildings without jobs and homes.
From 1991, we have served to regularly distribute food to those in need in the Nishinari regions, and from 2006 we would reach out to people in the streets and parks of the northern area of Osaka to distribute hand-made bento boxes. We have also been cooperating with NGO organizations to distribute sleeping bags and winter gloves during the winter season.

Church School

There are currently 130,000 students in Japan that are refusing to go to school (1 among 37 students). While we were facing these issues of Japan and praying for many students going through ijime (bullying), suicide and refusal to go to school, we started a church school in 2005 through God's guidance.
For this cause, some of our missionaries studied to get a degree in education to be officially licensed to teach children in a Biblical way. By cooperating with other church schools, we are taking little steps to become a school that can educate and nourish children in the love of God.
We are continually seeking for teachers who can share the same vision.

Worship and Music ministry

One could say that Japan's Christian culture and worship variety is modest compared to other countries. One of our hopes is to translate foreign worship songs into Japanese, arrange hymns and also write new worship songs that can be widely sung in worship services and everyday lives.

Publishing Ministry

We serve to distribute prayer books by translating and publishing as we cooperate with other churches, theology schools and mission organizations.

Timeline of YWAM Osaka Asian Center

1. Initial stage (1989 - 1990)

Evangelism ministry starts.
. May 1989 Takatsuki base
    Evangelizing in neighboring Jr. and High schools.
    Evangelizing in downtown Osaka every Saturday (Namba, Umeda, Honmachi, etc.)
. Evangelism with outreach team from Korea University (1990)
. Invite Japanese Christians every Saturday to evangelize at the streets of Namba (1990)
. Pioneer base in Osaka city (1990) A Japanese entrepreneur lends land for free of charge until 2008 (18 years)

Ministries such as Friday night worship services, seminars, DTS, etc., were held to disciple young Japanese Christians and lead them to commit.

. Start of weekly Friday night service and Bible study (1991)
. YWAM Busan and Korea University outreach team comes to Osaka (1991)
. Kansai University Evangelism / YMCA International Students Bible Study / Bible study for resident employees' wives (1991~)
. First Japanese staffs join YWAM Osaka Asian Center (1991)
. Invite King's Kids Korea to have their first performance event in Japan (about 23 Christian Japanese children participated).
   Approximately 500 Japanese Christians gathered for a time of worship and prayer. (1992)
. Start of vigil prayer meeting on Friday (1992)
. Hosted 1st short-term evangelism schools to encourage Japanese Christian youths through lectures about Holy Spirit baptism, meditation, intercession prayer, Father's love and etc. Speaker Sunggon Hong, Larry Nicholas (1992)
. Changwon intercession team came to Osaka (1992)
. BBQ Party with Japanese Christians and missionaries (1992)
. Hosted worship and praise seminar. 30 churches participated (1992) Speaker Jinho Kim, Jungkwan Park
. Street evangelism during Christmas season (1992~)
. 1st Osaka DTS (1993) We were blessed with the opportunity of having 24 DTS seasons until now. Altogether we had 247 students, 76 Japanese and 171 Koreans.
. Participation at March for Jesus (1993) 1,000 attendees
. Start of Nishinari mercy ministry (1993 ~2000)
. 1st Outreach at Kyushu (1993)
. Set evangelism board series on the wall of base (1993)
. Evangelism in front of Awaji Station with DTS students every morning (1993)
. Participate in Koshien Revival Mission (1993)
. Baking Christmas cake for evangelizing to children (1993) / puppet show, worship, dance, cake making
. 2nd DTS (1994)
. "Worshipper that raises a church" seminar Speaker : Paul Hawkins, Dean Sherman, John Dawson (1994)
. Start of DTS outreach to countries that Japan invaded during World War II (1994)
. Seminar - invited Pastor David E. Ross to speak on meditation. . Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (1995)
. Aum Shinrikyo subway sarin gas attack (1995)

As we were focused on raising young Japanese Christians, a local mother and a child came to our base asking if we had Sunday worship services. Through this opportunity, our focus shifted to a church ministry for the local region to reach out to children to senior citizens. From there, our ministry shifts to solely focusing on reaching out to the non-Christian youth of Osaka.

. Evangelism at local schools, parks, train station entrances, house-to-house and personal
. Evangelism events: movie, bazaar, sports, arts and crafts, cooking and etc.

. Pioneered Awaji Chapel (1995)
. Participated Pastor David E. Ross's 60th birthday mission convention. Mission report (1995)
. Occasional Nishinari mercy ministry ( ~2005)
. Publishing prayer booklet
. Japanese staffs start theology school(1996)
. Seminar - invited Chris Harrison to speak on Father's love. (1996)
. Seminar – invited Yoshihiro Kishi (Every year since 1996)
. Start of Wednesday school for children who can't make it on Sunday (1997)
. Special evangelism gathering – invited Yuichiro Nakano (Every year since 1997)
. Translated An Abundant Life For Christians to Japanese, Published (1997)
. Staff outreach to Philippines for forgiveness and reconciliation (countries that Japan invaded) (1997)
. Staff outreach to Saipan for forgiveness and reconciliation (countries that Japan invaded) (1998)
. Sunday school and serving breakfast for neighboring children (2000)
. Start of Sunday Celebration, worship service for local region evangelism (Every month since 2000)
. Learning how to make kimchi with local neighbors (2001)
. Movie night for local neighbors (once every 3 months)
. Cherry blossom bazaar at the base front yard for local neighbors and children (every year)
. Christmas caroling and Christmas worship with local neighbors and children (every year)

The Holy Spirit led us to shift our focus from the 0.8% Christians of Japan to the numerous non-Christians of Japan whom never had the opportunity to hear the Gospel, especially towards the youth. Our staffs would go out everyday for 3 to 4 hours to streets, college campuses, bookstores and train stations to share the Gospel and have met about 100,00 people. Among them, there are about 1,000 people and more that have at least once visited a church. Among them, about 60 people were baptized and 26 people took their DTS.

Evangelism starts with a conversation, sharing of contact, becoming friends, invitation to church events and worship services. It takes an average of 4 and a half years until one hears about the Gospel and decides to be baptized.

We prepare invitation events every month to create opportunities for non-Christians to come to church.
(Rice cake party, Sweets Party, Picnic, Easter celebration, Sports Day, Takoyaki party, Shaved ice party, summer camp, Pancake party, Thanksgiving day, Christmas celebration and Christmas concert, etc.)
We also have guitar and bass clubs, tap dance, mini orchestra and gospel choir to create opportunities for people to come to church.

We are cooperating with Blessing Church International to carry out these ministries.
. Major shift of ministry to focus on reaching out to non-Christian youths
   Raise 120 youth leaders from the Kansai region (2001)
. Korea-Japan World Cup (2002), drama ‘Winter Sonata’ (2003) brought an expanded interested towards Korea which brought a new wind to evangelism
. MYWAM Osaka's ministry clip was featured at Mission Korea 2002
. Base leader, Jung Hwan Kim introduced YWAM Osaka's ministry at Mission Korea 2002
. Start of church school, Seiren Gakuin (2005)
. Participated at Takatsuki Jazz Street Festival as gospel choir group (2005 ~)
. Kansai Worship Festival , won Grand prize (2006)
. Won grand prize at Japan's largest gospel choir competition held by Sponichi Annex called Gospel Awards (2005, 2007, 2008)
. Gospel choir volunteer at Christmas party held for residential facilities for senior citizens (Every year since 2007)
. Food share ministry for the homeless in the northern region of Osaka (every year since 2008)
. Seiren Gakuin's (church school) school trip to New York (2009)
. Hosted YWAM's 50th anniversary held in Japan at Blessing Church International
. Attended Jeju UofN East Asia leader's meeting, Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity (2011)
. Seiren Gakuin's outreach to Philippines with Osaka DTS (2013)
. Participated at Empowered 21 Summit (2013)
. Hosted annual YWAM Japan Staff Conference (2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016)
. Kobe Gathering (2015)
. Participated at Umeda Snowman Festival as gospel choir (2015)
. 24th DTS graduation (2016)
. Guest appearance at German Christmas Market Osaka as gospel choir (Every year since 2008)
. Guest appearance at Osaka UNICEF charity concert as gospel choir (Every year since 2010)

Leadership Group

YooMegumi

Kim Ruth

Cho Una

Oh Naomi

Kim Chris

YWAM OSAKA ASIAN CENTER

© 2019 YWAM OSAKA Asian Center