Juji Nakada served as an influential missionary in Japan and Korea during the first half of the twentieth century.
I first learned of him while researching Oswald and Biddy Chambers.
I’ve written about his friendship with Chambers here.
He turns up in several of my posts because he was an extraordinary man, used by God.
But who was he?
This post, the first one, describes his younger years serving God.
Part 2 describes his role as a founder of the Oriental Missionary Society.
Part 3 describes his influence into the 21st century–through a surprised me.
Where did Juji come from?
The son of a minor samurai, Juji Nakada was born October 27, 1870, in Hirosaki, Japan. The small town is in a not-densely populated part of the island nation.
As he wrote:
I was born in a Samurai family, I confess I loved my country more than God.
The Samurai are the ancient military class of Japan. . . . Their object was to live and die for their country.
Electric Messages April 1904
(OMS Archives)
More significantly, Juji’s mother Chiya was an early Methodist convert in nineteenth-century Japan.
After her difficult husband’s early death when Juji was four years old, Mrs. Nakada raised her two sons in the Methodist Church.
Her younger son was particularly good at getting into mischief. As he grew into a strong stocky teenager, he focused on judo expertise.
Her older son Kyukichi became a Methodist minister.
Juji admired his older brother and eventually his heart changed.
When I was sanctified, God delivered me from all things, even from patriotism, and I have always felt that to love Him [God] supremely and even die for His sake is a great privilege.
I feel that the spirit in the blood of the Samurai is the kind of a spirit we ought to have for God . . . having but one object in life, to live and die for our Lord.
Electric Messages April 1904
Baptized at seventeen, Juji had a deep, jolly laugh which drew people, despite his sometimes austere appearance. He loved his mother and brother and often helped with church work.
Education
Encouraged by the family’s pastor, Juji began studying English literature at the age of 18, but then switched to theology. He didn’t like the higher criticism he heard in the classes and eventually dropped out.
(Wikimedia commons)
But the family pastor recognized Juji’s skills as an evangelist and arranged a probationary preacher’s license in the Methodist Church.
Juji preached the Gospel in northern Japanese islands with great success.
He married a lovely young woman named Katusko and fathered a child.
One day he heard of American D. L. Moody‘s skills and spiritual power. The young Japanese evangelist wrote to Moody asking how to receive such power.
Moody invited him to Chicago to study at the Moody Bible Institute. Off he went, “in search of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and more effective evangelism methods,” according to historian John Merwin.
He arrived in Chicago in early 1897 where he met several important people who changed his life.
Friendships
The most significant meeting occurred within days of Nakada’s arrival in Chicago.
Charles and Lettie Cowman noticed the Japanese man with a large black Bible in the pew before them at Moody’s Grace Memorial Church.
Part-time students themselves at the Moody Bible Institute, the Cowmans befriended the cheerful man.
(Wikimedia Commons)
They introduced Nakada to Charles’ telegraphy colleague, Ernest Kilbourne. Together, the men brought Nakada to meet with the men’s Telegraphers’ Mission Band.
The Cowmans loaned Nakada books, eventually paid some of his expenses, and encouraged him during his time in America.
Nakada left Chicago in April 1898 as a member of the Pentecostal Holiness League.
Wanting to visit other churches associated with the Holiness Movement, he arranged to travel home by way of the eastern United States and England.
He had little, if any, money so he worked his way across the ocean on a cattle boat.
In England he met League of Prayer President Reader Harris. As a result of their acquaintance, Nakada befriended Oswald Chambers.
The young Juji in Japan
After a nearly two year absence, Juji Nakada returned to his impoverished family and ministry in Japan.
Once home, he began preaching the Gospel. His words now contained the power of the Holy Spirit. Many listeners became Christians as a result.
Within months, Nakada founded a Holiness magazine, Tongues of Fire. With friendly Holiness evangelists and ministers, he also formed the Holiness Friends Society.
Nakada’s fame spread as the magazine became popular throughout Japan. He received invitations to speak at large rallies and churches. Many began referring to him as the “D.L. Moody of Japan.”
Nakada corresponded with his friends around the world and received financial backing from the Cowmans, Kilbournes,, and the Telegrapher’s Mission Band.
They were all interested in beginning a Bible school and preaching ministry in Japan. As the turn of the century arrived, they recognized God was on the move.
Juji Nakada was in the middle of it all.
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My father, born in Finland 1909, went to Manchuria, China on 1929 as a Pentecostal missionary. I don’t know if he met any of those you mention, but he did have fellowship and connections with several American Assemblies of God missionaries.
He was in Manchuria till 1939. He met and married my mother, a Swedish-speak Finn while they both were there. He survived robber attacks, typhoid and sunstroke. My parents went for ‘short furlough’ to Finland, but the war kept them there longer.
They returned with five kids 1947, me the youngest. Long story.
I love your stories and the Workshop you had at the WCCW 2021 conference. I could learn much from you!
Thank you, Lisa. What a wonderful, rich heritage you must have! I’ve been reading a number of stories about missionaries in China. Manchuria was a very tough spot.
Great post! Can’t wait for the other installments.