What if the least reached region in the US was at your front door?
by Robert Krumrey
We live in a mission field. That’s true of every Christian. Every Christian is supposed to think about their neighborhood, workplace, and school, as a mission field. No matter how churched a place may be, there are people who have not yet heard the gospel and the only way that is going to happen is a gospel witness from a faithful Christian. This is especially true in New England. We reside in one of, if not the most, unchurched region in the United States. In 2019, Christianity Today wrote an article about the most unchurched places in the US based on research by the Barna Research Institute. The article stated this in paragraph 2:
“The Springfield-Holyoke area in western Massachusetts, came in at the top of the post-Christian rankings in 2019, with a majority of residents saying they had never made a commitment to Jesus (60%), hadn’t gone to church recently (65%), and hadn’t read a Bible that week (87%). A significant minority—four in ten residents—said they did not consider faith as an important part of their lives.”
You read it right. Little ole Western Mass made it in the headlines of a major Christian publication and it wasn’t for our fall foliage. The research was done in urban settings which is why Springfield made the list. I would say with confidence if this kind of research was done in our area, we would find an even lower percentage of people who believe in Jesus. If we were to add up all of the Bible believing, gospel preaching churches in the five college area, we would be hard pressed to come up with more than 2% of the population. Did i mention we live in a mission field?
This is why I moved my family 2000 miles in 1999 to start MERCYhouse. Gospel poverty in this region is great and the number of churches who preach the gospel and are on mission to reach the campuses and communities in this area is small. We live in a mission field and it is part of the calling of our church to participate in the mission to make disciples who make disciples right here in Western Mass.
This mission can so easily be forgotten. We’re busy. We’re busy with work and school and kids. Heck, we are even busy with church! Mission creep, as they call it in the business world, is a real thing. Of course, we need to do all of these other things. Jobs and kids and school are an important part of our lives and have been given to us by God. These things also determine where we will be most effective as missionaries at our doorstep.
The easiest way for us busy Christians to reach others with the gospel is to talk about Jesus to the nonChristians that we encounter in our daily activities. The barista at the cafe. Our child’s teacher. A coworker. The neighbor across the street. Many of these do not know the gospel and we have been strategically placed in their lives by God to lovingly demonstrate and proclaim the gospel to them.
The Bible describes this in Colossians:
“Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”
Notice how Paul describes the evangelism of the ordinary Christian. No street evangelism, no bull horns, no gospel tracts. Instead, he describes wisdom. Walking daily in a wisdom that is given by God resulting in a wise engagement with “outsiders” or nonChristians. The NIV translation of the Bible says we should “make the most of every opportunity”. This is the life of the ordinary evangelist. Their eyes are wide open for opportunities, and when the opportunity presents itself, they offer a gracious, truth-filled conversation about Jesus.
You can do this! And we want to help. During the week of March 14, we are facilitating what we are calling “Mission Week”. There are no additional services to attend or workbooks to fill out. Just a brief, daily reflection and prayer time (written by our own Meghan Berry) that we hope all of our church will prayerfully read each day of the week. These meditations will take you through both biblical content that informs our evangelism and action steps related to that content to be taken in our own mission field. Please join us as we all engage afresh in the mission field that God has placed at our front door.