When I pastored in Holland, Michigan, life was full.
Every week, my calendar filled quickly. Early morning breakfasts with men who needed Christ or needed to grow. Counseling appointments. Sermon preparation. Leadership meetings. Hospital visits. Conversations that couldn’t wait.
It was good, meaningful work—the kind that leaves you tired in the best way. If you had asked me at the time if I would consider leaving to serve somewhere else, I would have said without hesitation, “There is plenty to do right here.”
I didn’t feel like I was avoiding anything. I felt faithful. But pastoring a local congregation has a way of narrowing your field of vision.
It’s not because you don’t care about the world, but because the needs right in front of you are so immediate. A struggling marriage doesn’t feel theoretical. A man wrestling with sin doesn’t feel abstract. A neighbor without Christ doesn’t feel distant. They are right there: names, faces, stories. And so you lean in and work hard. But over time, it becomes easy to believe that what you see is the whole picture.
Holland, Michigan, is a beautiful place. Ottawa County, where Holland sits, is one of the most religiously connected regions in the country. Roughly four out of every 10 people are already affiliated with a church. Entire neighborhoods are within minutes of multiple gospel-preaching congregations. There are dozens upon dozens of churches. There are networks of pastors, generations of believers, deep theological traditions, and resources that many parts of the world have never known.
If people in Holland want to find a church, they don’t have to search very hard. If they want to grow spiritually, there are countless opportunities. If they need help, there are pastors and mature believers nearby.
None of that makes the work there unimportant. But it does shape the kind and depth of need that exists.
When I look back, one thing stands out to me. I was busy. But I was not alone. There were many other faithful pastors within a few miles who loved their people and preached the gospel. There were churches full of believers capable of discipling others. There were structures in place that made long-term care possible.
The work mattered. But it was shared. And that’s different than being somewhere where it isn’t.
There are places, peoples, and entire nations in the world where the situation is very different. There are cities where a person cannot decide to go to church next Sunday because there is no church to go to. There are towns where there are no pastors to call and no believers nearby with whom to open the Scriptures—in fact, the Bible does not even exist in their language!
These are not places with less access; they are places with almost none: no churches, no Bibles, no believers.
In Romans 15:20-21, Paul said, “and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, ‘Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.;”
He had a passion to preach where others hadn’t. His declaration is eye-catching when you’ve spent most of your life surrounded by Christianity.
Once you begin to see the disparity of gospel witness around the world, it begins to press in on you. It may not be all at once or dramatically, but steadily—and it caught my attention.
The very things that once made ministry in Holland feel so fruitful now revealed something deeper: we were operating in a place of extraordinary gospel access, while there were vast parts of the world where gospel access of any kind simply didn’t exist.
That calculus began to reshape how my wife and I thought about our lives.
We weren’t running from pastoral ministry. We loved it—and we still do. But we couldn’t shake the growing sense that if we were willing to give our lives to gospel work, we needed to at least ask where that investment might be most needed. Could we really move the needle of lostness in the world?
That question is what ultimately led us to change direction and leave the community we loved to serve in missions with ABWE. It wasn’t because the work in Holland didn’t matter, but because the imbalance in gospel access did.
If you are thinking about ministry, this question matters. Serving somewhere like Holland isn’t wrong. God is honored by faithful pastors, disciplers, and evangelists in places like Holland.
But the question is deeper than, “Is there work to do here?” Of course there is! But perhaps ask yourself instead, “Where in the world would my life make the greatest difference for the gospel?”
[T]he question is deeper than, “Is there work to do here?” Of course there is! But perhaps ask yourself instead, “Where in the world would my life make the greatest difference for the gospel?”
That’s not always an easy question to answer. It requires lifting your eyes beyond what is familiar. It requires letting the needs, peoples, and places you don’t naturally see begin to weigh on you.
It means beginning to see the contrast and wondering, Am I really where I am most needed? You base your evaluation not on guilt or pressure but on giftedness, needs, and opportunities.
You can serve God here. That’s true.
But for some, the most faithful step forward is not doing more where you are but being willing to go where you are most needed.
“And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then I said, ‘Here I am! Send me.’” (Isaiah 6:8)
