Martin Ryan

Martin Lawrence Ryan was an early US Pentecostal minister and missionary who led the first group of Pentecostal missionaries to Japan. Born in Michigan in 1869, Ryan entered the Holiness ministry in the 1890s. By 1905, he was superintendent of the Pentecostal Mission and Pacific Holiness College in Salem, Oregon, where he also published a newspaper, Apostolic Light. Deeply interested in reports of the Azusa Street Revival, Ryan visited the Apostolic Faith Mission in Los Angeles in the fall of 1906. After several hours of prayer, he experienced what he understood to be the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Ryan subsequently moved to Spokane, Washington, where his Pentecostal ministry grew rapidly. In 1907, about one hundred people reportedly received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and Ryan organized the Apostolic Assembly of Spokane. The group had a strong missional emphasis, with approximately thirty-five people identified as missionaries.

On September 12, 1907, Ryan and a group of missionaries sailed from Seattle, Washington for Japan. They arrived in Yokohama on September 27 and proceeded to Tokyo, becoming the first Pentecostal missionary group to enter Japan. Most had little formal theological education, but they believed strongly in divine guidance, the imminent return of Christ, and God’s provision for their needs. They also expected that speaking in tongues would enable them to communicate miraculously in foreign languages. After discovering that their tongues were not understandable to Japanese people, however, they began studying Japanese and concentrated on teaching English and conducting Bible studies.

Their arrival was strongly criticized by Juji Nakada, an influential Japanese Holiness leader, who warned Japanese Christians against the new Pentecostal movement. Despite opposition and serious financial difficulties, Ryan and his colleagues continued their ministry. In 1908, the Ryan family moved to Yokohama, where they purchased a small boat called The Pentecost and used it for ministry around Tokyo Bay. Returning to Tokyo in 1909, Ryan worked among university students, including Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans. In September 1909, a Japanese man identified as "S. Ito" reportedly became the first Japanese person to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Ryan envisioned Tokyo as a center for Pentecostal missionary activity throughout Asia. His group published several multilingual issues of Apostolic Light in English, Japanese, and Korean, and provided temporary fellowship for Pentecostal missionaries traveling through Japan to other Asian countries. These included A. G. Garr, Lucy Leatherman, I. G. Hitch, and Thomas Hindle.

Members of Ryan’s missionary group gradually left Japan, and Ryan himself departed on November 19, 1910. After returning to the United States, he divorced in 1911 and later went alone to China, where he ministered until 1915.

Unlike several former associates who became Assemblies of God missionaries, Ryan remained independent. He later founded the Ecclesia of California and edited the New Age Herald. In 1922, he began another extended missionary period in Europe and the Near East, remaining abroad for more than twenty years. He returned to the United States in 1946 at age seventy-seven and died in California on October 3, 1963, at the age of ninety-four.

This article has been adapted from Masakazu Suzuki, "Ryan, Martin," in Brill's Encyclopedia of Global Pentecostalism, ed. Michael Wilkinson et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2021). Used with permission.

For Further Reading:

Fritsch, Homer and Alice. eds. Letters From Cora: Cora Fritsch, 1907-1912. N.p., 1987.
Shew, Paul Tsuchido. “History of the Early Pentecostal Movement in Japan: The Roots and Development of the Pre-War Pentecostal Movement in Japan (1907-1945).” Ph.D. diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 2003.
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.

Martin L. Ryan (1869–1963)

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