Fellowship focus 3 - July 1997
Letter from America
I was able to fulfil a long-term ambition in February and go to the USA for 2 weeks. Off I went in a jumbo jet to Philadelphia, where I stayed for 6 days - just north of the city in fact, in a suburb called Glenside, with people who had never met me but are members of the church that Bob Heppe comes from. I was particularly concerned to "check out" this church, called New Life Presbyterian Church, since I'd heard a lot about it. It was founded in the 1970s by the late Jack Miller, who preached in our church late in 1995.
I enjoyed the Sunday morning worship service there, which for all its differences from us in terms of size, leadership of the singing, etc, was not that different in many ways. But I was particualrly impressed with some of the prayer meetings and fellowship meetings I went to during my time there. There was an openness and enthusiasm that was very refreshing. The people generally were warm and kind, and at times remarkably honest.
After 6 days there - during which a few inches of snow fell, and I had some experience of driving on the wrong side of the road, on my own, in the snow, only half understanding the somewhat different rules of the road! - I flew down to the deep south, to Savannah in Georgia (where there was no need for coats or fires!), to stay for a week with my old theological-college-friend Terry Johnson, and his family (Emily his wife, and 5 children). Terry's a California boy, from L.A., but has been pastor of a church in the centre of town for about 10 years. I preached there on the Sunday evening. After Savannah I came home, spending one more night in Philly on the way.
Impressions? What a huge place America is! The streets and houses (generally) are bigger. I gather that England and Wales are about 13 times as crowded as the US. The standard of living for many is a lot higher than here: more money and nearly everything is cheaper, especially major items. There is a sort of optimistic spirit in the people in general: they feel more instinctively than most British people that it is good to be alive and to live in the country they do, and that it's worth trying hard in life. Many appear to work incredibly hard and to have almost superhuman energy levels. I suspect this is related to the general optimism. They are also a very pragmatic people: the great question is not "Is it pretty?" or "Is it tasteful?" or "Is this the normal way of doing it?" but "Does it work?" "Will it get the job done?"
These are general observations on the society, but they also bear some relationship to things in the churches. There is a vitality and expectancy that is truly encouraging. This may be related to the American temperament but I'm sure also stems from the whole state of the cause of Christ in the land: although many in the government and the media and higher echelons of education over there are not very favourable to Christianity, there are many, many more ordinary people who are either Christians or at least church-going, or at very least sympathetic and respectful towards the faith. It seems that the Holy Spriit is working far more obviously there at the moment than in Britain. In Terry's church, 175 people joined as members in the first 2 years he was there, and now they have started a new church about 8 miles east of Savannah, to which already about 125 are coming each Sunday! The church in Glenside was planted in the '70s and now has about 700 people attending on a Sunday, and I believe they have also started a few other churches in the wider area. The warmth of the reception I had in Savannah after preaching there seemed also a token not just of how outgoing Americans are but of a spiritual enthusiasm for the word of God that is rarer this side of the pond.
So? "Let's all go to America"? No! Let's pray for God to forgive us as a nation and also to forgive the church in the nation, and let's ask him for a greater outpouring of his Holy Spirit. And let's be open, not of course to every new idea that comes out of the American church (the very thought!), but to help from our brethren over there, whom God has blessed at present with an abundance of human and financial resouces, as well as with insights on how to do his work - not to mention the "vitality"!
Chris Bennett.