Tokyo Baptist Church

Tokyo Baptist Church (organized in January 5, 1958) is an English speaking international Baptist Church located in Shibuya, situated in downtown Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo Baptist has 6 services every weekend (including a youth service on Sunday and an extra service on Saturdays) with an approximate attendance of 1,000.

History

Beginnings

The church originated as as Baptist fellowship of military personnel who felt led to begin a church which would meet the needs of English speaking Christians in Japan. On January 5th, 1958 when the church was begun, W.H. Jackson, Jr. was called as the first pastor of Tokyo Baptist Church. On this day Tokyo Baptist Church became the first church outside of the United States to be supported by the Southern Baptist Convention. In February of 1959, ground was broken for the present structure and was dedicated on November 1st, 1959.http://www.tokyobaptist.org/magnification/services/

Pastors

Throughout its history, Tokyo Baptist Church has gone through a total of 9 pastors. These, listed with the dates they were called include:
*W.H. Jackson, Jr. (January, 1958)
*Milton Dupriest (November, 1959)
*Marion Moorhead (October, 1963)
*Roy Edgemon (May, 1971)
*Marion Moorhead (October, 1975)
*Richard Horn (1981)
*William Warmth (Interim, 1990)
*Norman Wood (March, 1993)
*Dennis Folds, (June, 1999)

Offshoots

Two times in the history of Tokyo Baptist church have members decided to organize themselves as a separate church so as to better serve the Japanese and Chōfu areas respectively. These churches are:
*Chofu Baptist Church (organized March 7, 1965)
*Shibuya Baptist Church (organized November 9, 1975)

Current

Tokyo Baptist Church has recently taken part in the Purpose Driven program, officially announcing itself as a Purpose Driven church. As a part of the Purpose Driven movement TBC has instituted many structural changes, such as modelling ministry or the youth program after that of Saddleback Church's, promoting smallgroups and encouraging its members to begin new ministries.

atellite Churches

*TBC Saitama - A satellite church in Saitama Prefecture

Trivia

*On January 5th, 1958 Tokyo Baptist Church became the first church outside of the United States to be supported by the Southern Baptist Convention.
*In August of 1964 Tokyo Baptist Church became the 101st member of the Japan Baptist Convention

External links

* [http://www.tokyobaptist.org/] Church Website