Japan for the Gospel
Duane & Madalyn Young
"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light." — Isaiah 9:2
We're relocating to Mihama Ward in Chiba, Japan, to plant a life-on-life missional community alongside New City Church Makuhari. It's a long road — we're planning to be there for the next twenty years and beyond — and we'd love for you to walk it with us.
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Get to know us
About Us
We're Duane and Madalyn Young, and we're preparing for the next chapter of our lives in Chiba, Japan. Both of us hold MBAs, and for years our path looked like a fairly conventional one — Duane most recently worked as a Business Development Manager in the utility and energy industry. But over time, God has redirected our plans toward long-term, on-the-ground gospel work in Japan.
Duane
Brings a business background and a love for building relationships — skills we believe translate directly into the patient, relational work of starting a missional community in a new culture.
Madalyn
Shares the same calling and the same MBA-honed eye for planning, and is equally committed to the slow, faithful work of learning language and culture alongside our future neighbors.
Our plan centers on life-on-life community: living, working, and building relationships alongside our neighbors in Mihama Ward rather than at arm's length — walking through language school, culture, and everyday life together with the people we hope to serve.
Why Japan, why now
The Need in Japan
Japan is home to over 120 million people, and the vast majority have never had a meaningful conversation about the gospel. It's not a country without religion — Buddhism and Shinto shape daily life deeply — but Christian faith remains rare enough that most people have never known a Christian personally.
Chiba Prefecture, and Mihama Ward in particular, is a dense, growing urban area just outside Tokyo — full of young families, students, and professionals, and largely unreached by any local church. That's the gap New City Church Makuhari and our own missional community are working to close: not through a single event or campaign, but through years of showing up, learning the language, and building real relationships.
This is why we're asking people to partner with us for the long haul. If that's something you'd like to be part of, we'd love to have you — join our newsletter to follow along.