Updates » Japan Church Planting Institute (JCPI)

Pray for West Africa CPI

More than 125 experienced West African church “leaders of leaders”, representing more than 20 denominations from 15 West African nations, who will be attending the Global Church Advancement CPI Leadership Training Summit June 2-6, 2008 in Accra, Ghana.

The purpose of the CPI Leadership Training Summit is to facilitate kingdom partnerships through which West African church leaders from key denominations and agencies are raised up and equipped to help start healthy, growing, multiplying Gospel-Centered Churches*, Networks*, Alliances* and Movements* among all nations in West Africa.

May - Coaching Skill Training

GROWLIFE Fundamentals - Want to empower others to focus on their goals, work smart, and pursue their calling? Want to help develop people around you and develop leaders. Use GROWLIFE coaching. Learn about, experience, and use the GROW process (Goal, Reality, Options, Will do) and LIFE skills (Listening, Inquiring, Focusing, Encouraging)—all in the context of Christian beliefs about empowering others. This is the same training offered at the 2007 CPI Conference. Your ¥5000 fee covers snacks/lunch, materials, tuition, and facility usage.
* May 23, 9:00-4:30 * SEND in Higashi Tokorozawa, Saitama
* To sign up, please contact growlifeworkshop@gmail.com ASAP—14 people are already signed up! * To learn more, please visit: http://closethegapnow.org/training/photos/20080104coach/index.htm
Also endorsed by the JEMA Missionary Care Committee.

May Gifting and Ministry Seminar

Personal Ministry Evaluation is about discovering and using your gifting and is taught by Paul Nethercott.

Dates: 5/17 & 5/24 (Sat)
Time: 9:30-4:00
Cost: 5,000 yen
Location: Christian Life Training Center (CLTC) in Higashi Kurume
9:30-4:00 5,000 yen
Christian Life Training Center (CLTC) in Higashi Kurume
These seminars are in Japanese (limited English helps available) and designed for training Japanese lay people. Please bring your Japanese partners with.

For more information in on CLTC and the SPRING Seminars in Tokyo see http://cltcjapan.com/2008springseminar/

April Spiritual Life Seminar

Spiritual Life taught by Gary Fujino is about applying the truths of the Gospel practically for the Christian.

Dates: 4/12 & 4/26 (Sat)
Time: 9:30-4:00
Cost: 5,000 yen
Location: Christian Life Training Center (CLTC) in Higashi Kurume
These seminars are in Japanese (limited English helps available) and designed for training Japanese lay people. Please bring your Japanese partners with.

For more information in on CLTC and the SPRING Seminars in Tokyo see http://cltcjapan.com/2008springseminar/

2009 Japan CPI National Conference Dates Announced

The 2009 Japan CPI National Conference will be held November 3-6, 2009 at Fuji Hakone Land.

Plans are in process right now on format, schedule and the like. We hope to have more information up shortly.

In the mean time:

Begin praying for this national conference, ask others to pray as well.
Mark your calendars and the calendars of your ministry partners so you can attend together.
Set aside some money and budget so you can attend.
Help us get the word out by promoting the conference and this website.
Thanks.

Equipping Seminar: Developing Coaching Support for Women

Developing Coaching Support for Women

April 4 (Friday)
Ochanomizu Christian Center Room 901
Time 10am to 4pm
Cost 2,000 yen (includes an obento lunch)

The purpose of the seminar is to equip those supporting women in ministry in developing coaching networks or teams for on going coaching and support. This equipping seminar is for any women concerned for supporting women in ministry. This Seminar is in English. Click here for the Women’s Coaching Seminar promotional flyer.

Facilitator: Peg Windmiller

Peg is a key trainer and Board Member for the Baptist General Conference LeadNet women’s coaching networks. She has been instrumental in starting several women LeadNet networks in Minnesota and Florida and strategizing others. Each group is built relationally, spiritually and missionally! Her husband, Don, has served as a pastor in Florida for 20 years. They have been married for over 38 years and have two grown sons.

“I have a real heart for Pastor’s Wives. They often bear the burden of everyday matters and ministry issues silently and alone while their husbands, no matter how loving and caring, fulfill their calling as faithful Shepherd. I love helping provide them the tools to better handle those demands.”

Sponsored JEMA CPI and the BGC Japan Mission

For reservations and other information please contact the JEMA office (03-3295-1949).

For online registration CLICK HERE.

Previous attendance at a CPI National Conference is not required. Come to this CPI regional event!

Equipping Seminar: Evangelizing Japanese

Evangelizing Japanese: Personal Evangelism & Church Centered Evangelism

This seminar will equip you in personally evangelizing Japanese and how evangelism can be more central in your local church ministry. This Seminar will be conducted in English for missionaries, church planters, tentmakers, pastors, leaders, lay people, and church workers facilitated by Dan Iverson (Keiyo Team) and others.

Date: May 5 (Monday - national holiday) Time: 9:30-4:30 Cost: 3,000 including lunch if you register in advance. Location: Shiga Ken

For people serving in Shiga, Mie, Nara, Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, Gifu, Aichi, Wakayama, and elsewhere.

For Registration and other information contact: Martin Crowhurst by email or phone 0749-20-4955. For more information see Informational Flyer.

Previous attendance at a CPI National Conference is not required. Come to this CPI regional event!

CPI Book Shop Resources Online

Best sellers, new books and materials, and other helpful resources are available through CPI. Now you can order them online. To check out this new part of the website, Click Here.

More CPI Conference Audios Uploaded

Over one half of the plenary sessions from last year’s CPI Onward 2007 CPI Conference are on this website. Still more are coming, visit soon. And please leave a comment for everyone to read on any page.

Click Here to listen or download audio from the conference.

NEW DEAL CPI Resources Offer

Communicating Christ audio training by Dr. Bryan Chapell, author of Christ-centered Preaching. Includes a set of 3 audio CDs with worksheets on three presentations: The Heart of a Christ-Centered Message, The Hands of a Christ-Centered Message and The Hope of a Christ-Centered Message. The cost is ONLY 300 YEN for the entire package including shipping anywhere in Japan. This material comes highly recommended by CPI and Dr. Larry Kirk seminar trainer at this past CPI Conference. This material has been sold out before. Contact the JEMA Office at 03-3295-1949 or email the office.

CPI Conference Makes Japanese Press

For your Japanese friends there was a cover article on the CPI Conference in the Revival Shimbun for 11/25. This article including material on Church Planting Networks and also an article on Mitsuo Fukudas contrast between Elephant and Rabbit Churches.

The Christian Shimbun will have a page 2 article in the issue that comes out 12/2. This article includes quotes from Akira Mori’s message, words from participants and a picture of the children’s ministry.

If you would like a copy of the article contact these newspapers directly or let us know.

CPI Onward: 2007 Conference first report

The conference is over but it was a good one. Many to so many people. Here are some preliminary comments from the participants. More to come including pictures, audio and other goodies.

“It was encouraging to see a much wider representation of Christian activity in Japan than I’d been exposed to before; a vision of deconstructing/revamping Christians’ approach to ministry in Japan is definitely there.”
“I hope some of the connection here will result in partnerships between … churches, church planters … and others.”
“God has reminded me that my competency is in Christ ALONE!”
“My family has been planning to make a big ministry move in April. Now we will go into the move pro-active in church planting and networking!”
What are of personal life will be challenged: The “idols of my heart.”
“I was deeply fed personally. I was also given tools and materials that will help me in my ministry. It couldn’t have been more helpful to me personally.”

Serious about Home Grown Resources

We want this conference to include as many of us as possible in sharing resources. Specifically we would like you to bring something to put in the “home grown resources” area. Let me give you an example, in our church plant we pray for a different country each week. We do this using PowerPoint slides of the country and printed prayer requests translated from Operation World. If you want to see samples, they will be in the “home grown resource” area. We take this seriously, so this year we will give you a DVD from a previous CPI Conference if you contribute. At the conference all these home grown resources will be put in a specially designed, easy to browse area. (For your reassurance, everything you display will be returned to you at the end of conference.) For more information click here.

SPECIAL HOUSE CHURCH TRAINING - Something a little different

Mitsuo Fukuda has been gracious enough to offer at this conference his new Ten-Gai-Nai Training (Grass-roots Discipleship Development Program) 1st Story. This is 10 hours of concentrated training. But to benefit fully if you are interested, there are several aspects that you need to be aware of.

A description of this training is at the website.

Resources – Help us help you

As always, we want the Resource Centre at this year’s conference to be a gold mine for you so that you leave the conference better equipped for your own CP work. We think this will happen in three ways. One through ready to use materials you obtain to take home, two, through ideas you get by viewing other people’s home grown materials and three by connections you make talking to people.
How can you help us?
• If there are people you think should be represented in the resource centre, get them to apply for either a table or a pocket. This can be done online.
• Bring your own home grown resources to share. See Home Grown Resources. To encourage you to share, we want to give all contributors a choice of DVD’s from sessions of a previous CPI conference.

“Good Soil” movie coming to the CPI Conference

Good Soil is a 30-minute movie about the beginnings of Christianity in Japan told through the story of a Christian samurai who is confronted with the choice between his family and his faith when persecution begins. It stars Shin Koyamada of “The Last Samurai”. It is in Japanese with English subtitles and is being professionally produced by a movie maker in Hollywood for the purposes of evangelism. The movie premier will be In Los Angeles on November 3^rd. The producer will be at the conference to do an elective where the film will be shown and discussion will be on how to use this film in evangelism. Their website is http://www.goodsoilmovie.com/

Special House Church Track offered

Mitsuo Fukuda will be offering a special track at the CPI National Conference on the developing core skills for house churches in Japan. We are especially grateful that Dr. Fukuda is willing to share this material 天外内 [Ten Gai Nai] (Up Out In) with us. His material is newer than his previous Catalyst Training and has been helpful in both Japan and house church networks in China. As not many people are experienced with house churches in Japan, he will be presenting the “first floor” of the training. “Second floor” training will be offered sometime after the conference. The track is 10 hours of concentrated training on this one topic. He will also be addressing the entire conference on Thursday morning. More details coming shortly.

CLTC Workshop: “Biblical Worship Service Design and Planning”

This CLTC workshop will take place this coming Saturday (Oct. 13), please register by Wednessday.

What is worship? Is there a biblical framework for what we do in our corporate worship at church? How do I actually design and plan a worship service that leads the people into meaningful worship of God? How can I be a real “worship leader” and not just an MC of a program?

In this intensive seminar participants will be involved in seeking the answers to these questions and then creatively apply what they learn. We will spend significant time in groups designing meaningful, biblical, times of worship and then sharing those ideas with each other. Seminar leaders are Nancy Nethercott and Mika Tsuneda. The seminar will be held in Japanese with some English handouts available.

If one person from a church attends it is highly unlikely that they will affect much change in thier church so we strongly recommended that church worship teams (those involved in designing, planning and leading the worship service – including the pastor!) come together. To learn, process, and grow in unity. To facilitate this, there is a discount for groups of 3 or more from the same church/group.

The seminar will be held in Higashi Kurume (Tokyo) on Saturday, October 13. The cost is 5,000 yen per person. For more details contact the CLTC office. Phone: 042-446-8344 or Email: cltcjapan@yahoo.co.jp

This workshop will be conducted in Japanese.

Biblical Worship Service Design and Planning Flyer

Survey Says!

With one month more still left for people to register for the Japan 2007 CPI National Conference, we have taken a look at those who registered up to this point:

Over 280 adults coming (but keep telling your friends - some more room)
Over 50 kids coming (should mushroom)
Over 60 different mission agencies, denominations, local churches (this is the most diverse group ever)
From 21 prefectures in Japan. (from North to South, West to East)
Over 5 international countries including Nepal, Sri Lanka, The Philippines, Togo, and the USA.

One month more to register.

Children’s Program: ONWARD on the Journey

ONWARD on the Journey - The journey of a Christian is the most incredible adventure ever imagined- it is onward and upward!

This year at Japan CPI 2007 the children will learn about the Onward Journey that leads upward towards knowledge of God. Through the adaptation of John Bunyan’s classic book, “Pilgrims Progress” your children will be introduced to the basic themes of the Christian walk. They will learn about the high adventure of following Jesus and the dangerous detours along the way. They will learn the importance of staying faithful to Jesus, trusting Him when the journey is difficult, keeping a pure heart, and looking for “The City” not made with hands.

Come join as we travel Onward on the Journey… we’ll learn from God’s Word, sing, make crafts, play, pray and have fun together.

“Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” Ps 86:11 NIV

Churches Need an Outward Focus - Mitani’s Article

Today good will toward Christians is increasing. Research has shown that, of those who might like to have faith, 30% would choose Christianity. This was the highest ranked choice. Over 60% of weddings are Christian style weddings. According to the Gallup research, 23% felt that Christianity is a good religion. The Elijah kai did some research and found that 27% read the Bible. People responded that Christians are sincere, trustworthy and warm. People have a good image of Christians. If over 10% of the people around us have good feelings toward Christians, then why is only 1% of the population Christian? … According to my business thinking, nakayoshi kurabu is the reason we cannot break through the 1% barrier. Pastors take such care of believers that the church becomes a clique (nakayoshi kurabu). Such an in-group gradually builds up a strong barrier. Christians lose relationships with the people outside their group. They lose friends outside the church and then it becomes difficult to witness. This is the inward focus of Japanese churches… All growing churches are outward focused not inward focused. Inward focused churches change nothing.

Please leave your comments and impressions on this page.

For the complete articles from CIS in English or Japanese CLICK BELOW

Bring Some Newness to Your Ministry

Meet some new people - some that may be valuable partners to help you in your ministry

Gain some new ideas - though training and networking gain some new methods and resources

Experience a new touch from God - though worship, prayer, joint sessions and fellowship

More Tools for Ministry - Help Us Help Everyone!

The word is out, more frontline people, want more tools, and toolbox resources for ministry. We know there are many people out there who have developed their own Home Grown resources. But no one knows about them. Come help fill our CPI National Conference Resource Center with a whole batch of new resources for ministry. Between now and the CPI National Conference we want to locate 30 new tools and resources. For more information and the place to leave comments on resources click here.

Download Scott Parrish’s Article “The Power of 3″

Scott Parrish has graciously shared his resources on personal evangelism. Please download, leave a comment, and use them in your ministry. English, Japanese, and PowerPoints click here.