Our Vision
Having lived and served for a number of years in Japan, we were familiar with the many challenges facing the church there. In the early 2000s, we were considering our future direction in ministry. We wanted to do something to help the church overcome its besetting problems, not just to bump into the same obstacles again and again. We longed to make a bigger difference.
As we were considering options, Michael Oh invited us to help him launch Christ Bible Institute (CBI). It didn’t take any arm-twisting or even much ear-bending for us to join up. We quickly saw that CBI could be a marvelous means to do something about the challenges we had observed over the years.
- Need for more churches? CBI would not only plant churches but motivate and train others to plant them.
- Pastors in short supply? CBI would train new pastors.
- Legalism ingrained? CBI would champion the doctrines of grace.
- Young people feeling disaffected? CBI would reach out to and disciple them.
- Christian literature sorely lacking? CBI would translate and publish good books.
- Christians feeling alienated from but controlled by the prevailing culture? CBI would teach Christians to engage culture biblically.
Japan has multifaceted problems. It needs a multifaceted solution. That’s what CBI is. You can learn more about the various component ministries of Christ Bible Institute elsewhere on this site.
We sum up the vision of CBI with three Es: equip, expand, and engage. We started Christ Bible Institute in order to…
- Equip a new generation of pastors to reach Japan
- Expand the kingdom of God through church planting
- Engage Japanese culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ
Yumiko and I are excited to be part of this ministry and honored to have a hand in leading it. Our prayer is that God will use these efforts to strengthen and equip the church of Japan to face and overcome the challenges of today and tomorrow, to grow in number and maturity, and to embrace and extend the gospel to this beautiful, needy nation.