Our History

At the end of the Second World War, General MacArthur called for a thousand Protestant missionaries to Japan. WEC’s work began as a response to that call when Lon and Yvonne Fulton arrived in Japan on October 22, 1950.

A Quaker missionary couple, the Nicholsons, had agreed to act as guarantors for the work, and since they had strong links with the Omi Mission in Shiga prefecture, they arranged for WEC also to begin evangelistic work in Shiga. The Fultons purchased the house which now serves as the WEC headquarters for 70,000 Yen and spent half as much again repairing the buildings. In 1951, a further eleven missionaries arrived and were living in the headquarters building. Within two years of the Fultons’ arrival, a total of eighteen WEC missionaries had come to Japan, half of whom were from America.

The first Japanese workers were brought into the mission in 1956. Lon Fulton set up an organisation called “The Crusade”, with Miss Yamaguchi and Mr Nagazawa as first members. At the time The Crusade was seen as the Japan branch of WEC and its workers were WEC International members. In 1957, three more Crusaders were added to the mission. In 1958, The Crusade was folded into WEC International, and five more Japanese workers joined. The present grouping of Japanese WEC Churches, the Sekai Fukuin Dendou Dan, was officially established in 1965, and WEC missionaries became SFDD members.

Further evangelistic efforts led to churches in Otsu (Geoff Roberts and pastor Nagasawa, 1956), Moriyama (the Turnbulls, 1957), Ritto (Doris and Ken Sunde, 1963)

The first thirty years of WEC Japan can be characterised as a period of rapid expansion. The start of the second thirty years saw another attempt at such expansion, as in 1979 the field agreed a new target of starting 10 new mission stations in 10 years, leading to churches in Rakusai New Town, Tango, Kusatsu, Hikone, Wani and Saidaiji.

The work in Kusatsu began in January 1980 when Hermann and Gillian Spronk began evangelistic meetings in their house in east Kusatsu. From 1983, they rented a house in Nomuracho as a church building and Mr. and Mrs. Ikeda from Yokaichi church moved to Kusatsu to help with evangelism.

Rakusai New Town also started in 1980, in near record time: the Massons moved into a flat in the area in May and began services at a local believer’s house at the start of June. In 1983 they moved to the present location and saw their first baptism in December that year.

In 1990, a team of believers from Uzumasa church, working with Newman and Marianne Muzvondiwa, began evangelism in Tango in the north of Kyoto. Despite ten years of good contact-making and some interest, a church there did not develop. In 1998, the SFDD’s home mission team identified another area of interest, Saidaiji, between Kyoto and the church at Yoshino. Pastor Aiba was sent from Ritto, and joined by Irelle White, Pastor Hazui, Diane Yarnell and Peter and Edi Wilson, but again the church was not sustainable.

The SCENT team comprised of the Crowhursts, the Wilsons and Jocelyn Pethybridge (NZ) launched Kaori Church in 1999 as a pioneer church plant in Wani, Shiga-cho, which is now a part of Otsu city. In 2000, the Lees joined by SeonJae Yu pioneered a new church named Ai No Kyokai in central Kyoto but closed down in 2008.