Ministry Title - ACC Director
The Aomori Christian Center is celebrating its 50th Year. We are working to build on ACC's 50 years of history by revitalizing it's facilities and programs in order to serve the ministry of the gospel in Aomori for the next 50 years.
After 8 years of prayer and preparation, we were commissioned to the role of ACC Director on April 26, 2015. On May 9, 2017 we began our first home assignment in Canada. While in Canada we will be representing the ministry of ACC, recruiting short- and mid-term mission workers, and sharing about ACC's need for a new main building together with the plans that are in place to make it happen. We welcome opportunities to share at churches, conferences, small groups and prayer meetings. We plan to return to Aomori at the end of January 2018 to begin our second term of service as ACC Director.
The purpose of the Aomori Christian Center (ACC) is to strengthen local churches by providing our facilities as a place for evangelism, Bible teaching, and Christian fellowship. To achieve this mission we organize or jointly host a wide variety of camps and other programs. ACC has its roots in the Kominato Bible Camp founded by TEAM missionaries in 1956. Ten years later the camp's buildings were damaged by flooding caused by the 1966 Chili earthquake's tsunami. In 1967 the camp moved to Moya village in the foothills of Mt. Hakkoda and was renamed "Aomori Christian Center."
ACC is within a five minute walk of the Moya Hills ski and campground resort and is also within walking distance of the Moya Golf Hills driving range and Moya onsen. The center is located just off of route 103, the Hakkoda-Towada Gold Line which is Aomori's prime tourist route that connects Aomori City to the white powder slopes of Hakkoda Ski Resort (a 20 minute drive away), Sukayu Hot Springs, the Oirase Gorge, and Lake Towada.
Camp Ministry
ACC began as a Bible camp, and Bible camps are still an important part of what we do. We organize and run our own camps, partner with churches and other organizations to run joint camps, and make our facilities available to churches and Christian organizations to run their own camps. Each season has its own beauty and unique activities. However, because the main building is old and does not meet current building and fire codes, we are operating under severe limitations until such time as the Lord provides the resources for a new main building. Our renewal project for a new main building is divided into three phases and it is our prayer that the Lord will make it possible for us to begin work on phase 1, the multi-purpose refectory, in the autumn of 2018. With ACC's two cabins, we are currently only able to provide bed space for 20 overnight guests, limiting us to small scale camp programs until the new main building is built.
Living English
Providing English immersion experiences and teaching English as a foreign language continue to be among the most effective bridges between church and community. Our Living English program has its origins in the English Seminars that were run by OMF and TEAM missionaries beginning in the 1960s. As opportunities for learning English as a foreign language improved throughout Japan, the program was renamed Living English Camp and shifted to a more relaxed format. These summer and winter English camps also began welcoming high school students and families in addition to the college and career age group it traditionally targeted. In 2017 ACC successfully ran its first Kids' Living English Snow Camp. Beginning in 2018 we hope to run multiple Living English camps throughout the year, including day camps and home stay weekends, for different age groups. We also hope to pioneer partnerships with churches in which ACC staff and short term workers work together with local churches to offer English classes to their surrounding communities.
Student Ministry
Aomori City is home to seven institutions of higher learning, only one of which has a Christian student group. KGK is the foremost Christian students association in Japan and our goal is to continue to strengthen our ties with them in order to reach university students in Aomori with the gospel.
