For Horizon Church member Shota Shiozaki, sharing Jesus in Japan starts with an invitation his classmates do not always accept.
“My biggest prayer is my friends will get to know Jesus and be saved and get to know the truth of the Bible,” he told CBN News.
Shiozaki shared how SUPERBOOK, an animated Bible series, is helping bring the Gospel to Japanese children and older adults. His concern makes the outreach personal. He wants the friends he sees at school to know the Savior he knows.
“My friends in school are not Christians yet, and so I invite them to church. Sometimes they are not interested,” he said.
That challenge also drives Pastor Nozomi Nishimura of Jesus Family Church in Tokyo. According to CBN Asia, the church’s annual Joy Joy Festival gives families a welcoming introduction to church life.
“We wanted to find a way on how to share the gospel to more people, especially the children,” Nishimura explained.
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The pastor said 10 non-Christian families had attended that day’s festival. SUPERBOOK participated for the third time, with children joining its team in singing and dancing to The Salvation Poem, according to CBN.
The team hopes the familiar song will lead children beyond knowing the tune to understanding its message: salvation through Jesus’ death on the cross. Its visits to Sunday schools also introduced children to Queen Esther’s story and encouraged them in their faith.
For SUPERBOOK, Japan is not a new destination but a return to its beginnings. CBN’s history of the series traces its launch to 1981, when the Christian Broadcasting Network partnered with Japanese animation studio Tatsunoko Productions to introduce biblical stories to Japanese audiences.
Today, that mission reaches into problems children face outside Sunday school. CBN reported that a school anti-bullying event used SUPERBOOK’s THE GOOD SAMARITAN episode to encourage kindness, courage and compassion.
The official episode guide describes an adventure that begins when Chris notices two children who have nothing to eat while Joy looks forward to pizza. Jesus’ parable challenges the children to recognize a neighbor’s need rather than look away.
Relationships matter just as much offscreen. CBN Asia producer and SUPERBOOK volunteer Shekinah Grama learned Japanese so she could better understand the people she served and show that she wanted to know them.
“They started sharing their lives, little by little opening up, and that’s something that they told me they haven’t done before,” Grama said.
The outreach now extends to people far beyond childhood. CBN reported that a Christian elderly-care home owner requested SUPERBOOK DVDs and Christian materials for residents across nine facilities, giving older Japanese people an opportunity to hear the Gospel.
The effort is also laying groundwork for a permanent presence. John Tan, CBN’s regional director for Japan, said the ministry has opportunities to open an office and expand its work with adults as well as children.
From a classroom invitation to a conversation in a care home, the report follows the same hope across generations: that a Bible story can open the door to knowing Jesus.
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