Scope
By 1958, the Spirit of Jesus Church had grown to a number of 28,000 members, becoming the third largest Protestant denomination in Japan. For 1970 it had 453 churches and a membership of 62,726 adherents. The church continued to grow strongly during the decade of the 1970s and has experienced great growth during the last decade. Early in the 1990s the church is believed to have 420,000 members.
The church has recently clarified these statistics by indicating that there is an "active membership" of 23,283 individuals who regularly attend meetings and engage in church activities of one kind or another. One rural church on the island of Shikoku reported a membership of 600, however regular attendance at weekly meetings in the mother church was from 3-15 people. The Tokyo district reports a membership of over 80,000, but attendance at weekly meetings in the main church averages around 500. The Okinawa Spirit of Jesus Church reports a membership of 7,464, but pastors informed me that attendance is between 180-200, and 400-500 would attend the Christmas and Easter services. If one generalizes from these three examples, the active membership is probably less than 10% of the total claimed. Although the Spirit of Jesus Church continues to report thousands of baptisms, these claims are not accompanied by a serious increase in "active" members.
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