Leonard Coote

Leonard Wren Coote was a British Pentecostal missionary who played an important role in the development of Pentecostalism in Japan and Korea. Born in Enfield, North London, on April 22, 1891, Coote was raised in the Methodist tradition. In 1913, at the age of twenty-two, he moved to Kobe, Japan, as an employee of Lever Brothers. Although only a nominal Christian at the time, he came under the influence of J. B. Thornton and other Christians associated with the Japan Evangelistic Band. He was converted and baptized in February 1914. Mary Taylor, a Pentecostal missionary from Britain, also influenced his spiritual development.

On November 19, 1917, Coote received the baptism of the Holy Spirit while visiting the Taylors. Convinced of a call to ministry, he resigned from his business career in 1918. He initially planned to become a missionary in the Belgian Congo, but when the expansion of WWI made this impossible, he believed God directed him to remain in Japan, saying, “Coote, Japan, and Pentecost until Jesus comes.” He subsequently moved to Tokyo and assisted several Pentecostal missionaries, including Frank and May Gray.

In 1920, Coote married Esther Inone Keene from Bethel Temple, Seattle, Washington, who had assisted Mary Taylor in Kobe. They settled in Yokohama, where Coote promoted one of Japan’s earliest significant Pentecostal revivals. Their work was disrupted by the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, after which Coote moved to Osaka and developed his ministry throughout the Kansai region.

Coote maintained relationships with both Trinitarian and Oneness Pentecostals and was relatively unconcerned with denominational boundaries. He was affiliated at different times with the Assembly of God, the Pentecostal Band, and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. In 1929, he established his own Japan Pentecostal Church and Japan Apostolic Mission. He later developed connections with the Apostolic Church in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, but these relationships ended in 1938.

Ministerial training became one of the pillars of Coote’s ministry. He purchased property in Nara in 1924 and established Ikoma Bible School in 1931. The school trained Japanese and Korean Pentecostal workers, and several Korean graduates later contributed significantly to the growth of the Pentecostal movement in Korea. Through his widely circulated publication Japan and Pentecost, Coote also attracted more than twenty foreign Pentecostal missionaries to his ministry, many of whom later established independent works in Japan.

Coote left Japan for the United States in 1939 and remained there during World War II. He founded Emmanuel Church and International Bible College in San Antonio, Texas. Returning to Japan in 1950, initially as a United Pentecostal Church missionary, he reopened his Bible school and established Osaka Tabernacle. He also renewed his ministry in Korea, opening the South Korean Central Bible School and Taejŏn Evangelist Tabernacle in 1958.

Coote’s influence extended beyond his own organizations. Numerous missionaries and students associated with him later founded independent Pentecostal churches and movements in Japan and Korea. After nearly five decades of involvement with Asian Pentecostalism, Coote left Japan in 1967. He died in San Antonio, Texas on February 22, 1969.

This article is the author's abridged version of Masakazu Suzuki, "Coote, Leonard," in Brill's Encyclopedia of Global Pentecostalism, ed. Michael Wilkinson et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2021).

For Further Reading:

Coote, Leonard W. Impossibilities Become Challenges, 5th ed. San Antonio, TX: Church Alive! Press, 1991.
Aoki, Yasunori. “Coote Family: The History of Oneness Pentecostalism ‘United Pentecostal Church in Japan’ and Pentecostal Mission Board ‘Next Towns Crusade’." Paper presented at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Memphis, TN, March 10-12, 2011.
Choi, Jay Woong. “The Origins And Development Of Korean Classical Pentecostalism (1930-1962).” Ph.D. diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 2017.
Shew, Paul Tsuchido. “Leonard Coote and Early Pentecostal Missions in Japan.” Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, March 11-13, 2004.
Suzuki, Masakazu. “The Origins and the Development of the Japan Assemblies of God: The Foreign and Japanese Workers and Their Ministries (1907 to 1975).” Ph.D. diss., Bangor University, 2011.

Leonard Coote (1891–1969)

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