“One very encouraging feature of the work is the success of the Bible Training School in Tokyo – in the securing of students, and the evangelistic work that is being done by the students. Encouraging because more efficient native workers are so much needed, as well as more missionaries. The school begins this year with ten students. Need is already being felt for larger quarters for our school work. The need for more missionaries and more buildings is an appeal that ought to be heard by our people.

“… Besides the above, the students in the Bible Training School in Tokyo, ten all together, do much Christian work — Sunday-school teaching and soul-winning.”

– The Christian Annual, edited by Henry Crampton, Secretary C. P. A., 1905

The Tokyo Bible Training School was founded in 1903 by Dr. A.D. Woodworth, beginning his second missionary term in Japan with a commission to develop a training school for Japanese pastors. Woodworth modeled his school largely after the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. In 1909, the school would expand its curriculum and change its name to the Tokyo Christian Theological School, Azabu.