THE EARLY YEARS (1872-1923)

WITH THE OPENING of the port of Yokohama to the outside world, an obscure village began its rapid growth into a bustling city. Previously a place “notable only for its isolation, poverty, and obscurity”, which the daikan assigned to this place found “a hardship post in a dull backwater where nothing ever happened”, Yokohama became a progressive city of many “firsts”. (Yokohama, City of Firsts, p. 8)

Just a few of these “firsts” include: Japan's first newspaper, gas lights, tennis, bricks, ice cream, roast beef, beer, sewers and baseball. Two other important “firsts”, perhaps not mentioned in secular history, are the founding of Japan's first Japanese Protestant Church (the Kaigan Church) and Japan's first Protestant English-speaking Interdenominational and International Church (Yokohama Union Church). It is reported that a sister church was developing in Kobe about the same time. A Catholic and an Anglican church had been established in Yokohama.

Almost simultaneous with the opening of the port was the arrival of early American missionaries to Japan. Among them were Dr. and Mrs. James C. Hepburn. A medical doctor, a linguist and a truly dedicated Christian, Dr. Hepburn not only invented prosthetic limbs and the standardized romaji system, wrote a Japanese-English dictionary and translated the Bible, but he “still had time to found three churches, four schools and two colleges before dying at the age of 96.” (Yokohama, City of Firsts, p. 10)

As has been true throughout all of history, wherever Christians went the church followed. This was also true of the first Christians who came to Japan. Many foreigners who came with the opening of the port, whether business people, government representatives, bankers or missionaries, felt a need to worship and to be in the fellowship of Christian believers.

After meeting together informally for several years, the Union Church was organized with eleven members in Dr. Hepburn's dispensary/chapel in March of 1872. The founders, Rev. J. H . Ballagh and Rev. S . R . Brown wanted a church “entirely independent in the regulation of its affairs, governing itself according to the teachings of the Word of God as understood by its founders”. They wanted to be a congregation of people from many bodies who were a part of the worldwide Church of Christ. Therefore, “Union Church” was appropriately chosen as the name.