The church planting strategy that Dale and Ann are developing, along with the pastoral couple of Musashino Chapel Center (Howard and Marilynn Plucar) and the leadership team of the church, is to plant a multi-cultural church with multiple language congregations (beginning with Japanese and English congregations). The location we are currently targeting is the east side of Tokyo. Many expatriates from Asia and the Middle East live in this part of Tokyo.

The map at the lower right provides geographic orientation for our church planting project. Click to enlarge. The numbers on the map correspond to the following churches:

• #1 -- Musahino Chapel Center (Tokyo Musashino EFC)
• #2 -- Tachikawa EFC, the first church planting project of MCC
• #3 -- Sunrise Chapel (Higashimurayama EFC), the second church planting project of MCC, which we led from 1999-2004
• #4 -- target area for the next church planting project of MCC. This is the project which this page describes.

The church planting project utilizes a partnership model of leadership. The partners from within Japan will include ourselves, the pastoral couple of MCC English Department, and the MCC English Department Council. Partners from outside Japan will also be sought.

We will complete laying the foundation for this exciting new church planting project by July 2010. During our home assignment from August 2010 to September 2011, we hope to recruit partners for the project. Lord willing, we will begin our first worship services in the fall of 2011.

February 2010

The website of our church planting project, Tokyo Multi-Cultural Church, is TokyoChurch.org. The current purpose of the site is to help develop strategy for this project in an interactive blog format. Partcipation is restricted to partners of the project. We invite you to watch our strategy grow by periodically visiting TokyoChurch.org.