What do j-Teams do?

Your team will focus its efforts on assisting one Japanese church.  Asian Access' summer teams help to start or strengthen churches.  Evangelism is a hallmark of what you’ll be doing, as you seek to build friendships and share the gospel. By using your gifts, abilities and interests in your setting, you’ll generate new contacts from the community for the church members to follow up.

Regarding more specifics about what Summer Teams do, you can think of it as 4 C’s.  These four broad categories are not necessarily required activities, but include the majority of the activities used in recent years:

1. Classes - English classes, cooking classes, craft classes, etc.
2. Children’s outreach - VBS-type activities, for example
3. Camp - 1 to 3 days in a camp-like setting that encourages building relationships
4. Coffee Houses and other fun social events at the church

Teams will be encouraged to spend about 50% of their time teaching conversational English.  (Don’t worry, Asian Access will train your team members how to do this, as well as provide you with the curriculum for your classes.)  Another important ministry is giving your testimony of your relationship with Jesus.

Beyond teaching English and giving your testimony, your team will fill in the schedule with activities that use your gifts and abilities to help raise public awareness of the church and reach out into their community.  In addition to the four C’s listed above, some additional activities may include:  sports and recreation, music, drama & skits, homestays, sightseeing and advertising your activities.  In the last few years, we’ve had teamers lead a wide array of activities -- country-line dancing, swing dancing, American meal etiquette, and golf -- so it really depends on what your team members like to do!  Once you get to Japan, you’ll probably pass out flyers and do other things to help advertise the various activities that you and your host church have planned ahead of time.