After moving around a lot over the past few years, most recently landing at a church in Nashville, Tennessee, Jonathan Worsley decided to come home last year.
Prompted by a longing for England and a conviction of the spiritual need in the UK, Worsley and his family joined with other Christians from Exeter and beyond to plant an FIEC church in the South West.
“In God’s kindness, everything kind of came together,” said Worsley, who previously pastored a church in south-west London and was also editor of en.
“If you look at a map, I think the South West is really under-represented,” he said, noting the need for more healthy churches in a particularly secular area of the UK. “We’d love to see ministry growing across Devon and I think there is a real need.”
Emmanuel Baptist Church met for the first time last year and is steadily growing, celebrating three baptisms – in a feeding trough from a local Devonshire farm – since the church was planted.
Currently meeting at a community centre in Exeter, the church represents a diverse group of people, Worsley said. “It’s a really great mix and I think that’s one of the things that’s beautiful about it,” he explained. “We’re a really unique church in that way. I want to stay like that. I want us to feel like a family.”
However, reaching students and welcoming them into the life of the church will certainly be a focus of the ministry as it continues to grow, with students from the University of Exeter making up a fifth of the city’s population. Three students have already joined Emmanuel since planting.
“We want students to see that it’s being part of a family,” Worsley said. “You just get a better perspective on life.
“One of the things I think students need is to get out of that bubble a little bit and understand what it’s like to be unemployed or a single mum… I think students can grow in maturity through that.”
After serving a church in Nashville, a city he describes as having a “veneer of Christianity”, Worsley is grateful to be back in his home country, partnering with other pastors and churches to see the gospel reaching the lost. “It’s a real joy to be back on the frontlines of evangelism,” he said. “I’m hopeful here. The darker it gets, the brighter the light shines.”
As for being back in England – that’s just an added perk. “Ministry’s always hard but sometimes, in God’s kindness, He places us where we love to minister,” Worsley said. “I love it here. I feel at home.”
The church’s website says: “Exeter is … a city that has seen rapid expansion in the last few years and is thriving financially. Exeter is predicted to have one of the fastest-growing economies in the country in the coming years. A number of new housing developments have cropped up all across the city. Consequently, the need for more gospel-preaching churches is pronounced. One local pastor in Exeter put it to us plainly: ‘I rejoice that you are coming to central Exeter. Exeter is a very needy, growing city and, although it has a number of Evangelical churches already, there are plenty of [lost] souls here.’”
