Perhaps the greatest contribution that Asian Access has made to the work of the church and the work of the Gospel in Japan has been the development of a new model and a new strategy for church multiplication.
Traditionally missionaries in Japan would go into a new area to work alone as an individual missionary or as a missionary family. Often times they would work for many years to gather together a small congregation. They would then spend many more years trying to develop a pastor who could assume the leadership. In many cases the congregation would not experience any further growth once this leadership transition had been made. As a result, church planting was often seen as a lonely, tedious, and relatively fruitless endeavor.
In that context, Asian Access developed a model whereby missionaries worked in partnership with and under the leadership of visionary and capable pastors. From the very first day of the project it was known that a Japanese leader was already in place to provide the ongoing leadership for the church. It was also known that the project had a limited duration of just three years. Thus, with a clear vision and with strong partnerships, Asian Access has been able to accelerate the process and increase the fruitfulness of church multiplication by linking church planting missionaries and congregations into cohesive teams. Read about one Japanese pastor's encouraging endorsement of Asian Access' church multiplication strategy.
