Christmas Service, 11:00am -12:30 Sunday, December 24, 2023

Join us every Sunday at 11:00am -12:30 face to face.
Or same time on Zoom ID 4332594049, Password newlife7.
Welcome

New Life International Church is a non-denominational bilingual Christian church. 400-0025 Yamanashi-ken Kofu-shi Asahi 5-4-16 Just a 10- minute walk from Kofu Station, parking available. New Life International Church is fun, active, and devoted to serving Christ! Our services are bilingual, English & Japanese. Every Sunday we worship, study the Bible, and fellowship with each other. You are welcome to join us-Christian or non-Christian alike. We have hearts for Jesus and we love to actively serve him, because he died on the cross and rose again to save us from sin!

Description of the Church

New Life International Church is an independent church. Thus it is not a part of any denomination. We consider ourselves an evangelical Protestant church. However, we appreciate and fellowship with Christians from many denominations, Catholic and Protestant alike. Our church holds that faith in Christ and his death upon the cross leads to true Christian salvation. We teach that no one can enter God’s kingdom by reaching a high level of obedience, since even the most spiritual among us is filled with evil. Instead, we must humbly depend on the grace of God to save us. However, anyone with a true faith in Christ will show evidence of that faith by repentance from sin and obedience to Jesus’ message of love. Our worship style is modern. We encourage spiritual gifts, including all the gifts taught in I Corinthians chapter 12. But we encourage Christians to speak in tongues privately while using public gifts at church.

Church History

Our church began in Kamiishida, Kofu City, Japan in 1991 when Pastor Junya Kato asked missionaries, Bud and Marita Hall to begin an English service as part of Megumi Kirisuto Kyoukai (Grace Christ Church). This church had much success in leading people of various nationalities, including numerous Japanese, to faith in Jesus. Pastor Hall felt a special calling to help Filipino people, and many Filipinos came to Christ during his ministry.

In December 1998 Pastor Hall and family resigned the church and returned to the U.S. Pastor Kato asked Danny Brown in February 1999 to officially became pastor of Kofu International Christian Fellowship with the help of his wife, Suzy, who took the role of worship leader.

Three and a half years later, with the permission of Pastor Kato, we moved across town to Yamanashi Eiwa College and formed a separate church in order to reach out to youth at the school. We had our first meeting at the college on November 2nd, 2002, under the name of New Life International Church. For 8 years and 8 months, we met in Room 101, where we invited many students to join us in our worship. We saw a number of college students come to faith in Christ during those years.

In July 2011, New Life moved to the Pure Sogo Center every week. In March 2012, assistant Pastor Adeng Chen and his wife Annie began to evangelize and assist us in preaching and leading the church. Their coming was especially joyful since Adeng originally became a Christian while attending our church as a college student.

We met weekly at the center, and our people constantly searched for a proper building to buy for a church. In the summer of 2014 we found a building on the north side of Kofu within walking distance to Kofu Station that was being sold through an auction. Miraculously, we won, and by God’s guiding hand we received the building.

We are now meeting in our Asahi church, where we also established an international Christian school from kindergarten through junior high. We will open a high school in 2022. We invite you to join us as we grow and develop ministries to bring others to Christ in Kofu City, Japan.

Church Mandate

All Christian churches are called to live in faith and obedience to God, to teach the message of Christ’s love and salvation to the lost, and bring Christ’s healing and hope to our community through our personal prayers and actions. Pastor Brown also feels deeply that this church is specifically called to pray and work toward a great Christian revival that God wishes to bring to Japan. We are to be one of many churches in Japan that God will bless with a greater anointing so that we can bring Christ’s message with special power. We believe that God wants to bring a special power to convince the Japanese people to turn to Christ. POWER is the word from God – power to preach God`s word. Our church is called to pray for and find numerous spiritual gifts, including healing, prophecy, and evangelism. We believe that after learning to live for Christ, God will send many of us into other parts of the world to bring Christ’s message. We are not ambitious in wanting to build a program with our church’s name. Instead, we want to help anyone who is eager for Christ. We welcome fellowship with others and feel that we are blessed to have the wonderful company of many good churches of various denominations around Japan. While these visions may seem lofty, we are currently far from reaching our goals. We also recognize that we have many weaknesses and failures. But God has chosen to place his great treasure of the gospel in simple clay pots such as us. May God be graceful to us in our search for his great kingdom!


 
 

Danny Brown : Pastor

Danny Walter Brown was born in Norman, Oklahoma, U.S.A. on November 24th, 1961. He attended Southwestern Assembly of God Bible College for a year and a half, but transferred to his hometown in order to be treated for cancer while continuing his college studies. On May 8th, 1983, he graduated Western Kentucky University with a B.A. in religious studies with the intention of becoming a minister. The next day, May 9th, 1983, he married Suzy Somervill. However, due to serious voice problems, Danny was unable to become a minister and worked at jobs that required little speaking.

After serious searching and prayer, Danny went back to school to become a teacher so that he could teach overseas and work as a self-supporting missionary. He received an M.A. in English with a concentration in Teaching ESL in 1987. At the end of his master’s program, with God’s help his voice returned, and he and Suzy began teaching English in Osaka, Japan, in 1987.

Danny returned to the States to teach in a different environment. But feeling a need to return to Japan, he began working on a Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education with a concentration in Teaching ESL, while focusing on Japanese learners of English. In 1996, Danny received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He moved to Kofu, Japan in 1997 with his family and began teaching English at Yamanashi Eiwa College.

In 1999, Danny became the pastor of the English service at Megumi Kirisuto Kyoukai. This English service eventually became New Life International Church. Danny continues to lead the church and to teach as a full-time tenured teacher for Yamanashi Eiwa College. 

In 2015, Danny and Suzy started New Life International School, a Christian elementary and junior high school in our church building.

Adeng Chen:  Assistant Pastor

 
Children's Ministry

We have a children's church for all children ages 4 to 12.  This meets during the sermon from 11:40 to 12:40.

 
Fellowship

On the first Sunday of each month, we eat lunch together in our fellowship hall.  We also have other times of fellowship - parties, celebrations, etc.

 
Outreach

We go to 4 different senior homes every year to share our love with songs, drama, and spend a little time with these dear people.

 
Good teaching

Every Sunday either Danny or Adeng teach Biblical principles to help us grow in Christ.  This is in English and in Japanese.

Worship

We love to worship God!  Come and lift up His name in praise!

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

T

 

 

 

© Copyright New Life International Church - Kofu, Japan