Praying for Massachusetts
I grew up in metro Boston in the 1970’s, the son of devout Irish Catholics from Jamaica Plain. All my friends seemed to be either Irish or Italian and Roman Catholic. We all had some sense of God, some sense of the truth of the gospel, but little or no depth to what it meant that he died for our sins on the cross. It was just normal to party and carouse on Saturday nights and go to church on Sunday mornings. When I heard about “born-again” Christians, I thought they were just religious people who wanted to bring us back to the moral norms of the 1950’s. I knew no one who identified as a Bible-believing follower of Jesus. I knew no one who could explain what it really meant to believe and follow Jesus. No one.
My wife and I came to Christ in our late teens. I heard the gospel through television. Peg heard it through the faithful witness of friends in college. We grew in faith through a campus ministry at UMass, Amherst, and settled in with an inner-city church in the same neighborhood of my parent’s youth. Back in the early 90’s, we would gather to pray with other churches in the city regularly, asking God to bring renewal and revival to Boston and New England. There were probably 5-10 churches involved. We could easily name the paltry number of Bible-believing, English-speaking churches in the city. We felt like a miniscule remnant, but we were believing God to bring reinforcements and change the spiritual landscape.
Fast forward 30 years, there has been massive change in our region.[1],[2] Today, many towns and cities of Massachusetts and all New England have one or more gospel-loving churches.[3] Most sections of Boston are within walking distance to a church that proclaims Christ and models missional gospel community.[4] Although still very secularized, New England is experiencing a spiritual renewal appropriately termed a “Quiet Revival.”[5]
Our work is far from over. New England still has the most secular population in the country.[6] We are at the forefront of much of the post-Christian cultural change. Currently, we need another 10,000 churches if every New Englander would have a chance to meet another a bible-believing Christian in their town or village.[7]
This hits home again and again as I minister in my native New England. I continue to encounter too many people without knowledge of the gospel and without true hope. I performed a funeral for the sister of my friend. Her son got up to share a tribute for his mom. It was heart-wrenching and still is, to hear him try to say goodbye with a life full of regret and no real hope for the future. He likely has no exposure to a close friend or workmate who could love him, share Jesus, and show him what it looks like to trust and follow Christ. And this is multiplied by the millions here. We know them as our friends, our neighbors, our family members, our workmates. And far too many are without Christ. With an evangelical population density comparable to an under-reached foreign country like Egypt, most New Englanders are unlikely to have regular contact with a bible-believing Christian who can show them the way.[8]
That’s why we must take up the cause of those “remnant” churches of the 90’s. We must continue to ask God to bring renewal and revival to our land. We must seek God together, grounded on the finished work of Christ, trusting him to answer for the sake of his name in New England. We must pray and trust that as we co-labor alongside many others here in New England, we will see within our lifetime a major shift in what was once known as the “graveyard of pastors.” We already see much change, and we still have lots to learn and lots to do. Let’s unite in faithful prayer and ask God, ask again, and not stop asking him, to pour out his Spirit on our region until the knowledge of Christ and passion for his mission pervades every neighborhood of our land. God has done great things in our time. May his name be praised! May he do more than we could ask or imagine!
Written by Paul Buckley
Restore: New England Board Member
Pastor of King of Grace
Join us for our next Night of Prayer and Evangelism Training May 2-3, 2025 at Charles River Church in Boston.
[1] Data from Association of Religion Data Archives (thearda.com) show almost 1000 churches added in New England from 1980-2010 among Evangelical and Black Protestant Traditions.
[2] Vermont has currently the fasting growing evangelical population in the country. Five of the top ten fasting growing states are New England states. See thearda.com .
[3] Data from Association of Religion Data Archives (thearda.com) show an Evangelical or Black Protestant church for about every 4,000 people in New England.
[4] The Boston Church Directory, Emmanuel Gospel Center, Boston, http://egcboston.force.com/bcd
[5] “Boston’s ‘Quiet Revival’ Since the 1960s” Thomas Kidd, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/evangelical-history/bostons-quiet-revival-since-1960s/
[6] See "Frequent Church Attendance Highest in Utah, Lowest in Vermont". Gallup.com. February 17, 2015 or “Religious Landscape Study” at https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/
[7] Based on one bible-believing church per 1000 people. Compare the church density in Alabama where there is an evangelical church for about every 700 people. Data obtained from Association of Religion Data Archives (thearda.com).
[8] Many evangelical church leaders in New England would estimate the evangelical population in most towns as 1-4%, despite more optimistic numbers often reported by national polling organizations. The percent of evangelical believers in Egypt is reported as 4.28%, according to the Joshua Project, https://joshuaproject.net/countries/EG.