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Japan 1978-1996

From Temple Dedication Onward

By 1996 the LDS Church in Japan had grown to more than one hundred thousand members in twenty-five stakes and twenty districts. Although these numbers appear relatively large, they do not reveal the kind of growth that Church leaders projected in 1980.

Unquestionably the greatest statistical Church growth in Japan was the period from 1978 to 1982. During those years, official membership grew from around thirty thousand to near seventy thousand and the number of wards, branches, stakes, and districts more than doubled. But in the years that followed, baptismal rates have returned to previous levels and activity rates have been low.

Church growth in Japan since the late 1970s created many difficult questions. Leaders in Salt Lake City as well as in Japan struggled with the question of why Japanese join the Church in such small numbers and why so many of that small number fall away after baptism. Different proselytizing methods and programs were forwarded by mission presidents and Area Authorities, some with remarkable success and others with less favorable results; but in 1995 and 1996 the leaders of the Church in the Asia North Area pulled back, reducing the number of missions and missionaries, evidently because they did not believe anyone had answers to the problem of low baptism and retention rates.

The Temple Opens

Five years passed between President Kimball's announcement of the temple and its completion. A high level of planning and preparing was required in order to be ready for the open house and dedication, but on September 13, 1980, ribbons were cut and "about 650 businessmen, politicians, university professors, ambassadors and media reporters" visited the temple as part of a VIP tour.1 In the opening ceremony, David M. Kennedy, special representative of the First Presidency, gave a message from President Kimball. On September 15, the public phase of the open house began. Between that time and October 18, forty-eight thousand visitors walked through the ten-million-dollar edifice.

"On Monday Oct. 27 one of the most significant events of this dispensation will take place. It will be the dedication of the House of the Lord in Tokyo, Japan."2 So began the editorial of the Church News issued in Salt Lake City only a few hours before President Spencer W. Kimball gave the prayer dedicating the first temple of the Church in an Asian country, the eighteenth operating temple of the Church. The editorial went on, asking, "When in world history has a temple of the Lord ever graced that part of the world? There is no record of such a thing."

In a way the editorial seemed to exclaim, "This is a world church, a global church. The Church is moving. Let's move forward with it!"

Many time zones ahead of Salt Lake City, the Saints in Japan and Asia gathered to hear words of counsel and the sacred prayer of dedication and sanctification that were offered by President Spencer W. Kimball. His counsel followed themes similar to those he spoke throughout the world-the importance of rearing good families, being sealed in the temple as couples and families, teaching the gospel to the children in regular family home evenings, attending the temple regularly, and so on. The 860 members who assembled in the temple for the first dedicatory session were deeply moved by the carefully worded prayer. In the first paragraph, President Kimball read: "We present to Thee this beautiful temple, provided by the sacrifice of Thy people in the Orient who love Thee and Thy Son."3 As the prayer went on, he uttered many carefully selected phrases of affirmation and praise to Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, words of gratitude for the Church, the priesthood, and for the thirty thousand missionaries who were then serving worldwide. He prayed for the rulers and governments of nations "that any barriers which stand in the way of the spread of Thy gospel may be removed." He prayed that peace might "abide in the homes of all Thy saints. Bless the poor and the needy of Thy people. Let not the cry of the widow and the orphan, the lonely and oppressed go unheeded." President Kimball prayed for the youth of Zion in all the world. And he remembered the women of the Church: "Wilt Thou richly endow the sisters of the Church, our wives, our mothers, our daughters, with the spirit of their exalted callings and responsibilities." The prayer could have been spoken in England, in Canada, in South Africa, or in Sweden. In the eyes and mind of the prophet, the members of the Church in Japan and their new temple were as important as anywhere else.