This research project is an investigation into the interaction of church and society in contemporary Japan. The churches in this study were selected as special cases of religious and social vitality. The basis for evaluating the interaction of Japanese church and society is based on extensive precedent research in sociology, theology and biblical studies. Each of these areas contributed to the formation of a model of church vitality that is relevant to contemporary Japanese society. This model supports the understanding that truly redemptive change in society is possible only through a caring community. In this way, a church represents an alternative way of life for the surrounding society that can bring new meaning to a dynamic cultural context. A description of how this is manifested in contemporary Japanese culture is the outcome of this research project.

The methodology for this project is composed of two parts, a broad based church survey using questionnaires and several in depth church case studies. Questionnaires yield a large amount of data that is easily quantifiable, but they are only useful for describing something that falls within the categories defined in the questionnaire. Following the questionnaires with in-depth case studies helps to verify the data collected with questionnaires, but also opens up the possibility of discovering new categories based on the experience of the Japanese churches.

The vitality model is built on eight categories based on biblical, theological and sociological precedent research. These categories became the research objectives of the questionnaire which consisted mainly of multiple choice questions with several open-ended questions at the end. The open-ending questions probed the respondents' memories for experiences and events that were significant in the life of the church. This method draws out stories with multiple layers of meaning that cross multiple categories and give more depth to the data.

The next step was participant observation. I attended the worship, small group and business meetings at each church. I took notes on the dynamics of the meetings as well as my own feelings and impressions. I also made some more direct observations like taking pictures and writing down my impressions about the location and facilities. I also collected all relevant church documents such as statistical or demographic information, worship bulletins, a purpose or mission statement, a constitution and any books, pamphlets, advertisements or flyers recently produced by the church. After processing these observations have along with the data returned from the questionnaires, I interviewed the church leaders to help clarify the meaning of the data.

In the analysis we searched for patterns in the data and for ideas that help explain the existence of those patterns. The patterns we are specifically looking for are those that coincide with but agree not limited to the original research objectives of this study all of which contribute to a propositional understanding of church vitality. We expected this proposition to be up held in most respects, but we also anticipated the discovery of new factors in the interaction of church and society in Japanese culture.

The case studies served this research project in two ways. They verified the information gathered through the questionnaires and they helped to uncover new categories of church vitality. Through a statistical process called "factor analysis" we uncovered several new categories that describe the interaction of church and society specifically in the Japanese context. However, this process only concerns the numerical data. The responses to the open-ended questions, interview responses and my own observations had to be grouped into categories as well. Finally, we compared the quantitative and qualitative data together to see where the categories overlap. We did this with each individual church as well as considering all the churches together. Following this process we were able to develop new categories that accurately describe the interaction of church and society in the contemporary Japanese context. These findings will be published later this year in Japan.