New York to Glasgow: Why would you do that?
Church planter Michael Davis tells us what brought his family to their new home.
Since our move to Scotland in May 2021, I have been asked at least a score of times in typical Glaswegian language while walking in nearby parks or talking with business owners, “Why in the *** did you move to Glasgow from New York?” The short answer is this: people in the schemes of Glasgow (‘schemes’ are council estates) need Jesus, and there are few to no people bringing them the gospel. The long answer is a bit more detailed. Let me tell you why I moved.
“People in the schemes of Glasgow need Jesus, and there are few to no people bringing them the gospel.”
My name is Michael Davis and I am a church planter with 20schemes in Glasgow, Scotland. Myself and my wife Lindsay and my four children moved from Syracuse, New York, to a small scheme in Glasgow called Barlanark. Since being here as part of Hope Community Church Barlanark (HCCB), I have been tasked with creating a church plant team from the members of HCCB, and planting a new church in a nearby area called Baillieston. Baillieston is full of lively and kind people but also, just like every other community, broken and depressed people searching for hope in the typical wrong places.
Before moving to Glasgow, I had been an associate pastor in New York for 10 years in middle class America. From high school, I had always thought I was meant to go to a different place to share the gospel and build Christ’s church where there was no witness. Fortunately for me, this was also my wife’s desire. After college and seminary, I went right into my first internship which in the end, turned into a position as one of the pastors of the church. I never would have dreamed then that one day I would be taking my wife and 4 children to a scheme in the West of Scotland.
I must admit we had to get used to many changes moving from middle-class USA to the middle of a working-class scheme in Scotland. Where we lived in the USA, most families had two cars, a decent-sized house with a big garden for kids to play in, somewhere to be or something to do; shops were always open, and people always drove to where they needed to go. Now we live in a place where families maybe have one car, live in cramped flats with small gardens, always have time to chat with a friend; shops close early and hardly anything is open after 10pm, and people almost always walk to where they need to be if it’s within a mile (which it usually is). Some of these changes I have really have loved and cherished, and some are honestly still hard. But what we gave things up for was worth it.
I have never experienced a closer, deeper, more fun-loving, active, and unified community than in my church, HCCB. We have also experienced genuine kindness from our new neighbours. (I understand this is not the case in other schemes or even other parts of this scheme.) I wasn’t expecting to be given bikes by one neighbour and a scooter by another all in the first week of moving in! Have I mentioned the food? Potato fritters with salt and vinegar and Gregg’s Steak Bakes are 2 good reasons to come to Glasgow! But good as all those things are, that’s not why it was worth it to come.
“For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion, that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.” 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (CSB)
It comes back to that simple reason – the gospel. Someone brought the gospel to us…whether it was a Bible, a tract, a family member, the gospel website or video maker, or maybe even some loud guy with a megaphone – you heard it from someone. You were completely dependent on the hands and feet of Christ, his church, to reach you.
Yet today, we rarely find someone from the UK – not to mention the rest of the world – willing to give up their middle-class life to reach the “least of these” (Matt. 25:31-45) in the schemes of Glasgow. Our experience here has been good and bad, depressing and full of joy. Our feelings fade but the work of glorifying God is eternal and lasts forever, so we moved to Scotland.
Our feelings fade but the work of glorifying God is eternal and lasts forever, so we moved to Scotland.
But it can’t stop there. The schemes of Scotland need local churches that are training men and women to serve in Christ’s church, and Scottish men to be equipped to lead these churches. And someone needs to equip them. Are you willing to go? Maybe someday, someone will be able to ask you, “Why in the *** did you move to …?” By God’s grace, I hope so.
Our desire grows more and more as we recognise the mercy that our King has shown to us. Our desire grows more and more as we understand the suffering that Jesus went through when He died on that cross and the miracle of him coming back to life three days later.
Our desire grows when we are humbled by His choosing of us because of His goodness.
And our desire grows as we come to recognise that God has given us gifts to build up His body and He wants us to go.
It is all these things and more that compelled Lindsay and me to take who God has made us to be and use it to spread the message of the Gospel by planting churches in the middle of Scotland’s schemes, and to train up Scottish men and women to lead and serve these churches. God is glorified as we use His gifts with His power to point people to Him, and that is worth giving up everything for.
The sad reality is that Glasgow’s schemes are in desperate need of people to “be compelled” and to come. I urge you to think prayerfully about coming if you have also been uniquely gifted by God with a pastoral gifting or even a gifting to serve. It’s worth it.
I urge you to think prayerfully about coming if you have also been uniquely gifted by God with a pastoral gifting or even a gifting to serve. It’s worth it.
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