Tokyo Multicultural Church has been without a Japanese pastor since spring 2024. Japanese ministries have been led by a part-time senior missionary couple from the USA. English and Chinese ministries have missionary pastors in place, although not a full-time English pastor until summer 2026. So when an EFC of Japan senior pastor in Tokyo recommended a possible lady candidate, Dale followed up. She is indeed interested but not sure yet whether to let her name stand as part-time Japanese pastor at TMC. She holds an M.Div. degree from Japan Bible Seminary and has pastored for five years. She and her husband lived in Europe or the USA before marrying. They have two girls—a baby and a 6 yr. old. The family visited TMC for the first time on Aug. 10. If she does decide to let her name stand, TMC's Leadership Team will need to decide whether to officially invite her and then she would enter the candidate process.

Due to our unanticipated move out of EFC Canada ServeBeyond, we have been searching for a mission agency that could adopt our team of church planters at Tokyo Multicultural Church. Christar Canada’s “Safe Landing Zone” is good for Ann & me. But others at TMC also need a mission agency. This is a tall order because not only is TMC an unusual multicultural church planting project in a monocultural country. TMC also desires to become an EFC church in Japan. But the Free Church ethos seems somewhat unique and difficult to duplicate outside the EFC world. Can an inter- or non-denominational mission agency really champion the planting of a denominational EFC church in Japan?

To our surprise, and despite what we wrote in our Jul. 31 newsletter, it seems that perhaps Christar International might be able to do just that. We learned this at Christar Canada’s orientation on Aug. 8. Much of the day was focussed on learning about Christar’s church planting vision and strategy from Peter Bowers, Christar Church Planting Director based in Spain. So we are now pursuing the possibility of Christar International onboarding any TMC missionary pastors who would like a mission agency connection for missionary care and support team building.

In 2025 we had hoped to visit our EFC Canada supporting churches (BC, AB, SK) in the same busy manner we had visited our EFC America supporting churches in 2023 and 2024—between our trips to Asia. But due to January’s EFCC ServeBeyond earthquake, in May we are transitioning from ServeBeyond to Christar’s “Safe Landing Zone.” Processing our exit from ServeBeyond has been time consuming and energy draining for several months. The process is still underway. In addition, in May we are dropping to half-time ministry and salary because about half our ministry portfolio was removed in the earthquake—our Asia regional leadership. So it appears that during the summer and fall of 2025 we will not have the financial resources or personal energy for visiting our EFC Canada supporting churches. Hopefully, we can resume those visits in late 2025 or early 2026.

After prayer, lots of discussion with each other, and interaction with colleagues, on April 29 we made the difficult and disappointing decision to move to Christar Canada (https://christar.ca). Christar has set up a Safe Landing Zone for ServeBeyond “refugees." Earlier we had two tentative onboarding interviews or chats with Christar, so transferring to them seems to be going smoothly. Christar is a warm and welcoming space for us to land. “Read more…” for the background. Read More…

In response to the EFCC Board to lay off Canada based ServeBeyond missionaries, we could (1) stay with EFCC ServeBeyond, (2) transfer to another Canadian mission agency, or (3) develop a partnership between TMC and an EFCC church. We are in discussion about all three of these options with appropriate parties, but have not yet decided. Also in response, we decided we needed to move to part-time status. Read More…

For 22 years Dale has been teaching a class in Japanese on Contemporary Theology at Japan Bible Seminary on the western side of Tokyo. It is a required class for final year students. He completed his final modular teaching with its grading in December 2024. Read More…

In light of the EFC of Canada’s mid-January decision to lay off all salaried Canadian ServeBeyond missionaries, we had hoped to transfer our church planting project, Tokyo Multicultural Church, from EFCC ServeBeyond to EFC America ReachGlobal. This would mean transferring TMC ServeBeyond missionaries (3 households, soon to be 4). We were thinking it would be good to belong to a mission agency that continues to send salaried missionaries. However, on March 14 when we were finally able to dialogue with the Asia Division leaders of ReachGlobal it became clear that ReachGlobal could not become our landing place.
Read More…

On Feb 10, 2025, ServeBeyond Regional Coordinators sent a series of FAQ’s to EFCC churches, EFCC Board members, and the EFCC Executive Director. The focus of our FAQ’s was less on the content of the decision than how it and the process used in making it is impacting missionaries and ServeBeyond itself. Dale was the primary author of these FAQ’s, but with significant input and edits from other Regional Coordinators.

Go here to view these FAQ’s.
A pdf option is available from there.

In a Jan 16, 2025, announcement from Bill Taylor, EFC of Canada Executive Director, ServeBeyond missionaries were told…

…ServeBeyond will no longer be able to have missionaries who are salaried employees of the EFCC. If you are an employee of EFCC, this letter is notice that your employment with EFCC will end on April 30, 2025.

See the announcement here. We are working through our options, considering what our next steps might be after April 30. Read More…