Lifehouse Osaka

Lifehouse International Church Osaka is a Japanese- and English-speaking church located in Namba, downtown Osaka.

It is a Hillsong^[1] Network church and belongs to the Lifehouse International Church Global movement, under the leadership of Rod and Viv Plummer in Japan.^[2]

Lifehouse church is part of the Australian Christian Churches denomination in Australia. Pastors are credentialed by the ACC. Australian Christian churches is a group of 1200 churches with approximately 275,000 members

History

In 2009 Lifehouse International Church Tokyo started a second church in Osaka with seven people which then became Lifehouse International Church Osaka.^[3] The church continues to be Pastored by Luke and Izumi Kennedy

The church started in a livehouse in Ruido Shinsaibashi and also used such venues as TB Hall ( Shinsaibashi) and AP hall ( Umeda)

In 2013 Lifehouse Osaka moved its services into Hearton Hall Hommachi located in the former Itochu Building right next to Hommachi station. These facilities have several children's rooms and a 160-seat auditorium.

From 2016 the church moved into a larger venue in "Namba Hips" in the downtown Namba area.

Church services

Lifehouse International Church Osaka has completely bilingual services^[4] in English and Japanese, including bilingual songs and live translations of every part of the service. There are 4 weekly church services including 3 on Sundays . All services are run in English and Japanese. The church is located^[5] very close to Exit 13 of Hommachi station, in the center of Osaka. It now has over 500 people attending services every week.

Ministry

Lifehouse Church has many different ministries besides their weekly church services.

The main ministries of Lifehouse Church are:

Lifegroups

The church has small discipleship groups called 'lifegroups' which meet throughout the week and on the weekend.

Lifehouse Men and Women

The church runs events and church conferences for men and women throughout the year. Lifehouse church also has a ministry for mums and families. They help young mums with their children, and also run family-based events with guest speakers and bilingual games and music for children monthly.

Marriage Preparation

Lifehouse church provide marriage resources and training to new couples. This includes a 5-week course using original material written by Rod and Viv Plummer with subjects including the purpose of marriage, love in marriage, conflict resolution and communication, handling finances, and sex in marriage.

Lifehouse Kids

Lifehouse Kids^[6] is a children's (Sunday school) program that is run during the 11:30AM and 2:30PM church services. There are two age-specific programs – Preschool program for Age 2 and up – Elementary school program for Ages 7–12 Both totally bilingual in Japanese and English. – Mother’s Room: Mothers can see the preaching on a TV screen whilst they are taking care of their babies. The Kids' church mascot is a life size kangaroo named Kanta.

Re:mix

Re:mix is a community within Lifehouse Osaka of students gathering at the Re:mix service. This service has different styles of music including original electronic sounds.

Summerfest

Summerfest is a yearly student festival in Osaka for high school and university students. The festival involves large group games and student focused talks from guest speakers. In 2014 over 150 attended from over 10 schools.

Christmas production

Lifehouse Osaka holds a yearly Christmas production. The original stories are written and cast by Lifehouse Osaka church members. The event has been increasing in size and scale for the past 5 years. in 2013 around 1800 people attanded two shows in Osaka Central Hall ( Chuo koukaidou )^[7]

References

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