This article examines the clergy shortage and congregational leadership crisis facing the largest Protestant denomination in Japan: the Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan (United Church of Christ in Japan, hereafter UCCJ), a body formed through the union of mostly Presbyterian, Reformed, Methodist, and Congregational mission churches. The crisis is multifaceted. Looking ahead, a demographically based shortfall in trained pastoral leadership, tied to the graying of the Japanese populace and the exceptionally low birth rate (around 1.3 percent), is rapidly approaching. In the present, changes in ministerial recruitment, in understanding the function of church schools, and in the demographic ...