Dan Nichols, his sister, Cynthia, and friends Seth Maine and Tim Walker — all single, all in their 20s — had signed the lease. Together, the church planters schlepped their cardboard moving boxes and cheap furniture into a row house in inner-city Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

It was a situation calling to mind the quote from evangelist C.T. Studd: “I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” The four shared thin walls with a felon, someone involved in witchcraft, a drug dealer, a prostitute and a trafficking victim. The sounds of profanity penetrated the walls at all hours.

Next door seemed the perfect place to begin cultivating relationships. 

On Thursday nights, the group invited all in the vicinity for Little Caesars pizza and Cynthia’s barbecued chicken. One young woman, living under a bridge, would bring her current fling in a cycle of boyfriends. Anyone in attendance would progress verse by verse through Colossians — a letter to a fledgling church. 

There were “very intense discussions about the gospel,” Nichols recalls. 

One night, the sex offender had joined in what was essentially a discussion of original sin. “I don’t believe that. That’s crap,” he said. 

“I wasn’t going to grab a theological book off the shelf,” Nichols grins, recalling that night, and admits, “He didn’t change his mind.” But night after night, Nichols and his co-planters learned “lessons on how to not shut people down and let them share what they believe.” 

The Northeast: God’s Not Done Yet

In an area where Puritan Pilgrims first landed — “for the glory of God and advancements of the Christian faith and honour of our king and country” — you’ll now find the least religious part of the nation. 

By the numbers: 

• Eight out of the top 10 post-Christian cities lie in the Northeast, as well as 
• the top five states of the lowest belief in God, 
• five of the top six states for lowest church attendance, and 
• 20 of the top 30 least Bible-minded U.S. cities.
• Only 4% of New Englanders attend an evangelical church, while 48% of people consider themselves “not religious.”

Throwing out the red tape and formalization for the sake of effectiveness, they’re essentially “an Aflac network in a Geico world” of church networks that can grow large, bureaucratic and impersonal. Instead, the Collaborative works hard to build trust among the fractured relationships between regional pastors. 

Nichols, now pastor at a church founded during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, knows the Church’s unity forms a powerful tool in the awakening of the Northeast: “[T]hat they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21). The Collaborative cites a 2018 study by Thom Rainer of over 2000 pastors citing their greatest needs as evangelism/outreach.

Currently, Northeast Collaborative connects and resources approximately 50 churches of all sizes, while partnering with Converge Northeast to achieve a greater kingdom impact in the Northeast region.

Back to the Beginning

And Nichols has yet to lose his love for church planting, which allows missionary-minded leaders to get back to the basics of simply making disciples who make disciples. Serving as an assessor at Converge’s recent Church Planters Assessment Center felt like a full-circle moment, bringing back those simple, energizing days when Nichols shared Jesus with so many in desperate need of the Lord.

Recently, in his full-circle moment, Nichols walked into the same Orlando building where he and Tim Walker had traveled overnight from Scranton, Pennsylvania, for their first church-planting conference 13 years ago. But this time, Nichols would serve on the assessment team with Converge Northeast, assessing 17 church-planting couples — seven from the Northeastern U.S. 

His Facebook post says it all. 

Can’t wait to send our own planters here from Grace Christian Fellowship in due time. God can do WAY more with our “2 fish & 5 loaves” than we’d ever imagine…