An America First Missionary

In terms of missions, my personal motto is “America first.”

Let me explain…

I got really into the missionary James Hudson Taylor in late high school and early college.

That's why I took two years of Mandarin at NKU, named my firstborn Hudson, and seriously considered moving overseas to continue his work.

In preparation, I studied a lot of missiology by guys like Roland Allen, Lesslie Newbigin, and Darrell Guder.

While doing all that reading, I kept thinking that these guys assumed a Christian homeland. That didn’t resonate.

Even back then, in the late 90s, it was clear to me that the American church was emaciated, and much of the country had lapsed into functional paganism. My own life was evidence of that. There was little Christian influence in my community. I never heard the gospel clearly articulated until my sophomore year of high school. After I converted, I had to drive across the Ohio River into Kentucky to find a decent church.

As I reflected on that reality, my personal interest in foreign missions faded. The church I attended in Kentucky was a Calvary Chapel, which had a strong culture of church planting. There, I started to cultivate an “America first” mindset that thought of missions in terms of regional church planting. That remains my commitment.

I’m happy to support the work of like-minded brothers overseas, but my heart is for America. Specifically, my heart is for Midwestern semi-rural and rural America. These are my people, and thank God someone brought the gospel to me. I simply want to return the favor, so to speak. They need solid churches that bring the glories of historic biblical Christianity into their vernacular. That’s the work of East River Church and, to a degree, Boniface Fellowship.

We have a beautiful country with an incredible heritage, and we can’t surrender it to pagans and secularists. We need to make America Christian again, and that starts by building up the church through local missions.