God's Call to New England
Fall 2022
When we think about mission stations, our minds normally go to parts of the 10/40 window: Africa, Latin and South America. While these places need the gospel, and we must pray for men to go there, there is a mission field right under our nose in America. Within this mission field live eighteen million people in an area that was once a bastion for the gospel. White steeples point toward the heavens in their cities. Great preachers of the past once graced their pulpits like John Cotton, Increase Mather, Isaac Backus, and Jonathan Edwards. But now these same churches fly rainbow flags and social justice propaganda on their buildings. These church buildings have become condos, bars, and daycares. The mainline denominations have abandoned the fundamentals of the faith and embraced liberalism. This mission field is New England.
New England has the least churched states in the union according to recent polls. The most religious state is Mississippi deemed 61% “religious.” But four of the New England states rank as the least religious in the union: #4 is Massachusetts at 28%; #3 Maine at 27%; #2 New Hampshire at 24%; and #1 Vermont at 22% “religious.” New England has become a post-Christian region, according to NETS (New England Training and Sending Center for Church Planting and Revitalization): “Roughly 2-4% of New Englanders attend an evangelical church. And with just one church for every 4000-8000 people, it's home to many of America's most churchless cities. Along with Mormon Utah, the Northeast is the most gospel-parched region of the nation.” If these stats are true, out of the 18 million in New England, just over half a million attend an evangelical church, but are not necessarily born again. So, there are still over 17 million that need to be reached with the gospel.
Why do I want to go to New England? I am a child of New England, having been raised there. I know firsthand the needs in these places. I grew up with friends in school who never once opened a Bible. They had never heard of Jonah, let alone the gospel of Christ. The millennial generation in New England is a generation that does not know God. And now millennials have given birth to Generation Z with even less knowledge of God. The foundations of Christianity have crumbled in New England. The voice of the church lies silent in the grave. This area must experience awakening! There needs to be a shaking and a rattling of the dry bones, as Spirit-blessed preaching of the gospel blows across this barren land once again. May the cords that are broken vibrate once more to offer praise to our God.
These are my people! These cities are my cities! When I view the destruction that sin, Satan, and self has wrought in the northeast, I know that God’s grace is able to super-abound over it all. For where sin abounds, grace does much more abound! (Romans 5:20) God delights to save sinners and delights to shine His light in the darkest and most hopeless areas. Many see New England as a lost cause, but when New England was deep in her sin in the 1700’s and 1800’s, God sovereignly sent revival and awakening. Is God’s arm shortened and His ear deaf in our century? God is still a God of revival and awakening! By God’s grace, I will lay hold on His promise and trust by faith that He will build His church in New England!
Here is the situation in New England. There are cities in Connecticut and Massachusetts of 30,000-plus without any gospel witness. But the further pressing need is the small, scattered New England towns. There are literally hundreds of little towns with no witness for Christ. I know this firsthand having been a church planter in remote northern Maine.
Vermont is the state with the greatest need for small towns to be reached. The state has a total population of 645,000. Approximately 61.3% of Vermont’s population live in towns of 2,500 people or less (395,000 people). It is not realistic to go to a big city, because there are no big cities in Vermont. These small towns must be reached! You could literally take out a map of Vermont, close your eyes, and point anywhere on the map and there would be the need of a church to be planted. I was recently in Vermont and surveyed an area north of Montpelier. Within a 30-minute radius of where I was, there were 30,000 people and not a single church that preached the gospel! Our hearts break at such a condition. For the knowledge of God to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea these small towns must be reached! I fear there has been such an emphasis on reaching the urban centers that our rural communities have been left in the dust. Are not the souls in Johnson, VT (pop. 3,500) as valuable as those in Boston, MA (pop. 4.8 million)?
Also, there is a pressing need on the islands off the coast of Maine, mostly inhabited by lobstermen and unreached with the gospel. One such island is Matinicus Isle, twenty miles off the coast, with a population of 53 people, uninterested in the gospel. On their town website they boast of their ungodliness. And while they boast, there is an unused Congregational church building on the island just waiting for someone to go and preach Christ to the people. Can we say that to go to 53 people is an unworthy endeavor? We need men to pray and believe God that the whole island would come to Christ.
Another island in great need is Peaks Island, ME. With a population of about one thousand, this island is near Maine’s largest city, Portland, and lacks any gospel witness. The churches that are on the island are liberal and do not preach the biblical gospel. This island must be reached for Christ! Who will go?
When I see this great need in New England I cannot stay down south where there is so much light. Everywhere I drive in the Southern states I see churches and many of them preach the gospel of grace. I drive through towns of 8,000 that have more than 10 Baptist churches and a couple of reformed churches. But then I see towns in New England the same size with nothing. Why would a person not want to go to a town of 2,500 people and pour their lives into a community and die there? You could go to one of these small towns and be the first to speak to them about the gospel.
To reach this vast mission field, there needs to be a pioneering spirit and a holy ambition in men to preach Christ where He is not named, trusting that the Lord will convert sinners (Romans 15:20,21). In these towns, there are likely no believers and to start a church, there needs to be much evangelism. There needs to be a word publicly spoken for Christ door-to-door and on the street. One cannot simply put a shingle sign up over a door and expect people to come. We must “go” with the gospel. We must go out and beat the bushes, investing our lives and pouring ourselves into the work. There must be the cultivating of relationships with others. The Lord builds His churches, but He uses means to accomplish His sovereign purposes in the earth.
The Lord has directed my family and me to go to New England. As we go, I ask you to pray. Pray for the conversion of sinners. Pray for churches to be established. Pray that the Lord would have you come alongside such a work to help. I echo the words of the Macedonian call, “Come over and help us!” (Acts 16:9) I long within my lifetime to see multiple churches planted all over New England for Christ, but I cannot do this alone. I first need the help and strength of God, and we also need others to come and labor in the fields that are white already to harvest.
“The reapers in the field are few,
With willing hearts, and brave and true;
Help must be summoned speedily;
My Father’s work is pressing me.” (William Sleeper)
Rev. John Kelly
Licentiate of the FPCNA