Letter from America

As an Englishman in New Haven, I couldn't help but notice last month's EN front page article about English preachers deserting England for America. I've met Ken Brownell once and know East London Tabernacle and was delighted with both experiences and interactions. I think Ken has a good point. Here's a different view.

The assertion, first popularised by Jim Packer, that American Christianity is a thousand miles wide but only two inches deep is intended as a perspective of the Bible belt. Actually, American Christianity as a whole is at least only 800 miles wide. That is, there are significant geographical and cultural pockets of America where gospel Christianity is a rarity. It's not that it's ephemeral or superficial; it doesn't exist. In particular, the North West of America and the North East of America are graveyards for gospel ministry.

New Haven is in the North East. It is also where Yale University is located. The other significant pocket of resistance to the gospel in America is not so much geographical as cultural. In the elite universities and in the hub centres of the cultural shapers of America, gospel Christianity has not made much of an impact. There are Christians around, they are just present in about the same proportions as you would find in England. And significantly less than you would find in Cambridge University (where I did student ministry for a good ten years) or, I believe, London as well.

A cushy ride?

Now to the idea that being a minister in America is a cushy ride. Obviously, I can't speak of other's experience, but here's mine.

We arrived in a church with 20-30 faithful people (and ten of them were from one family). In this church there were insufficient finances to pay for Rochelle and I to live. A couple of new families joined the church at our arrival and the combined finances, plus all the reserves (not a large amount) the church had amassed over its short life span, were together deposited at the feet of a 'make or break' gamble for one year. If, after one year, the church had failed to grow we would have to go home. There would be no money to pay us.

The church grew. But not without hardships. We moved home ten times in one year. We arrived in America staying in someone's home while they were away for Thanksgiving and with one week to find somewhere to rent. We were not paid very much. We are paid a little bit more now, but when you take the amount that goes to insurance (I mean health insurance - i.e. without it you don't get to have medical treatment), the amount we are paid is definitely commensurate with what we would have received in churches in England. We could not afford to rent a home big enough for our family, so we made a shrewd purchase of a house with flats in it to rent out so that we could afford to pay the mortgage. This is how we make do here in New England. It is not a grand manse with a large garden. There are drug dealers opposite. Our garden struggles to grow grass even (I like to use it as an illustration of what ministry in church revitalisations is like) and is a narrow strip at the back of the house bordered by barbed wire.

It certainly hasn't all been tears, but the idea that ministry in America is a cushy number is (in my experience at least) simply false.

Catching up?

So is the idea that Americans are all 'can-do' people. I have to be careful here (of course!), not least because Ken is an American and I'm not. But in New England, resistance to change is (again in my experience) at least as entrenched in England, if not rather more so. The fashion, for instance, is at least five if not ten years behind what it is in England. When I come back from holiday in England people here want to know what is being worn in England because they know it will be on the shelves here in due course.

So, you may ask, Josh, wouldn't you rather be in England? And I think the honest answer to that question is 'yes'. But I'm not here because of what I want but because of what God wants. At least I think that's the idea of ministry - serving God.

And it has been at times exciting. We have seen many students gather to hear the word expounded. We have seen a large number of believer baptisms. We have also seen inroads being made into the homeless community here in New Haven through various outreach ministries that we have partnered with, seeing previously hopeless people find hope in God. Last Easter service we were at 280 people in attendance. That's growth by a factor of ten in three-and-a-half years. Exciting? Definitely. Easy? Definitely not. If any doubt me, come and see my scars.

And, God, if you want me in England take me back!

Josh Moody,
Connecticut

© Evangelicals Now - August 2003
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