[1]LEXINGTON, Ky. – When John Livingston went to Japan in 1987 to be an English teacher, serving the Lord and ministering to people was not on his agenda. But God began to give him a burden and heart for the Japanese people, and after years of ministry in Oregon, he and his wife have planted the first Japanese church in Kentucky.
Izumi Community Church began last June and meets in the youth room at Porter Memorial Baptist Church on Sunday mornings.
The arrival of John and Yoriko in Lexington was providential for Porter Memorial. “We had a lot of Japanese people who met on Monday morning for an ESL (English as second language) class,” said Nick Sandefur, Porter’s senior pastor. “We had prayed for an opportunity to connect with them for several years, and we sought out a person,” Sandefur said, but to no avail.
“Then God brought John and his wife to our church – God was answering a long-offered prayer. After conversations, they offered to start a worship service. They meet while our English service is going on. We’ve seen three baptized. Attendance ebbs and flows with Asbury because a lot come from there, but there are large days where many Japanese come on our campus – some days over 100 people. We are incredibly thankful for it and excited for it. They are great partners.”
Joshua Kim, multi-language church planting strategist for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, talked about John and Yoriko’s “clear calling to launch a Japanese language service.
“Having served in international ministry myself, I know how hard it is to build community among transient populations,” Kim said. “After our first meeting, I found myself in tears on the drive home – not out of sadness, but out of hope.”
Livingston noted that when he first went to Japan, “I was a believer but was backslidden. But the Lord gave me a burden and heart for the Japanese. I know what it means to be lost and your life going in the wrong direction.”
Livingston’s faith journey involved a time of struggle.
[2]His first wife died at the age of 29 after a long, painful year of suffering with cancer. “That was the most difficult year of my life,” he said. “God used all that to refine my life — refining me so that He could use me in a bigger way.”
But he said the Lord “was good enough to bring another Japanese [woman] in my life. … Yoriko is the daughter of a Japanese pastor who served the Lord his whole life … planting churches in Japan and sharing the gospel. She is the best helpmate I would ever hope for.”
Livingston said he and his wife were willing to be career missionaries, but the Lord “starting using us to minister to international students” while living in Oregon. They ministered to people from about 90 countries, but the large percentage were Japanese.
“After 28 years in Oregon, we had deep roots and were not open to going anywhere else. We had planted a church for Japanese speaking people in Portland and had built a team there that reached out to international students.”
More than four years ago they relocated to Kentucky. “I felt the Lord was telling us to leave (Oregon) and go. I didn’t sleep well, thinking about leaving all this behind.”
They arrived in Kentucky during the pandemic and began laying a foundation to minister to Japanese people. “We didn’t come here thinking we would plant a church. Only 1 percent of Japanese people are Christians, so financially that doesn’t make any sense. But it got to be a God thing. After we got here the Lord was helping us build a network and we started seeing more and more why God uprooted us.”
With a Japanese population in the area numbering between 2,000 and 3,000, Livingston said there is a large percentage of young men and couples or families in that demographic, many of whom work at the Toyota plant in Georgetown or subsidiaries that supply parts to that facility.
Kim said many of those workers are in the U.S. for one to five years before returning home. “By reaching families here, we have a strategic opportunity to send the Gospel back home with them,” he said.
Livingston added, “It is challenging to connect with them in such a short time and for them to come to faith. A lot of them never have had the chance to go to church or to have a Christian friend, so we are building many outreach ministries to build trust and relationships with them.”
The name Izumi was chosen because it means “well” or “wellspring,” alluding to the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. The service at Izumi is bilingual — Japanese and English. “There are some attending who don’t speak any Japanese,” he said. “It is challenging.”
The Livingstons have three children. Hope, 25, has completed a number of short-term mission trips and feels a possible call to international missions. Trueman is 22 and a recent graduate of Asbury University and is considering next steps, including ministry options. Walker, 15, is homeschooled. “All of our children are helping with this new church plant in various capacities and as they are able,” Livingston said.
This story originally appeared in Kentucky Today [3].
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What’s to appreciate about the pastor of a small country church? Plenty.