Stories at The Well
WELL STORIES
Well Known: Japan
Reaching the nations until the whole world hears
At The Well, we desire to be relentless until every tongue, tribe, people, and culture has an opportunity to hear the gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus. To do this, we desire to plant 100 churches internationally by sending International Church Planters along with qualified and diverse missionary teams within the first 50 years of being a church.
Several months ago, Bryan and Esther Davidson were covenant members who attended the Avery Ranch CG, and they are now long-term missionaries working to build churches in Kobe, Japan—a city of about 1.525 million. We asked them to share their background with missions, and their thoughts on the importance of going to the nations to reach the lost.
Esther: I grew up as a pastor's kid and a third culture kid, both in Japan and the U.S. Ministry and missions were kind of always intertwined for me; ministry work was reinforced by missions, and missions were reinforced by ministry work. I went on a mission trip to Cambodia when I was in high school and also to Rwanda in college and those experiences really impacted and influenced my worldview on a really huge scale.
Since I grew up in a church and adjacent to missions in Japan, I knew that ministry and missions in Japan was hard and that spiritual warfare was real. God had to do a lot of shifting in my heart—there's been a lot of sanctification that he's done in my heart over the past several years for me to even desire to step into ministry or missions again. It’s been quite a journey to say the least.
Bryan For me, I never even really thought about ministry or missions. I never wanted to go into that area. It wasn't until I met a bunch of international students in college, that I started to become interested in different cultures, and different languages. By the time I went to grad school, I met a ton of Japanese exchange students resulting in one of my first mission trips being to Japan.
I think what spurred me into missions was relationships with people from different cultures. Not just meeting them; but really getting to know them and growing in a deep relationship with them. And then I discovered that Japan was one of the largest unreached people groups. I had always thought about Japan as technologically advanced and therefore open to the gospel, but what I hadn’t realized was that so many people in Japan had never heard of Christ or the gospel. That was the first big shift in my heart.
America is uniquely situated to be able to share the gospel not only abroad, but to many different cultural groups here in the United States.
The American church is actually in a very unique position. It's not common for a country to have access to so many different cultures; to many different people groups here in their homeland. Because of that, America is uniquely situated to be able to share the gospel not only abroad, but to many different cultural groups here in the United States.
The nations are right here in Austin. There's so many international people even just at The Well. There is a lot of opportunity to build those relationships, to hear those stories, and learn how God has worked, through the gospel and their cultural lenses.
The Davidsons are currently serving long-term in the country of Japan, where they are being trained as church planters by Mustard Seed Network. Their desire is for the lost of this nation to hear the life-changing message of the gospel, and to make great the name of Jesus Christ in a country where the average person has no idea who he is. Japan is currently home to the second largest unreached people group in the world, with 95% of a 124 million person population having never heard the gospel.
While there may not be that many christians, it is a free country to share the gospel. It's not illegal to become a missionary in Japan or plant churches, which makes the mission to spread the gospel there relatively easier than many other places.
For more information on Mustard Seed Network, visit mustardseed.network
For more information on Bryan and Esther Davidson’s mission there, contact our missions team at missions@thewellaustin.com
