What Do Early Scottish Settlers and Internationals Have in Common

I have recently been doing some reading on early Canadian Presbyterianism, mixing several of my favorite topics (dangerous I know). Something has stood out to me and that is the general struggle that early settlers to Canada had in forming churches and finding pastors to lead them. You see the Scottish were coming in droves, Nova Scotia virtually had no Presbyterian ministers, and really no Christian pastors to oversee there spiritual needs, the Canadian colonies were a spiritual wasteland. They petitioned Churches in Scotland to send ministers to combat what seemed like a spiritual famine. The motherland often replied no, but most often simple would not even reply back. In their mind they had to worry about Scotland, Nova Scotia the colonies was not there problem. Few if any responded to the call, one stands out James MacGregor a Presbyterian pastor who arrived in Nova Scotia in 1786 after being sent by the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland. MacGregor become known as the Apostle of Nova Scotia. He traveled when roads had not yet even been considered. Originally visiting Scottish families, this quickly changed as he saw that the need was felt by all regardless of where they originated. It was not until the Glasgow Missionary Society was formed in 1796 by the efforts of Lord Dalhousie who had previously been Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia that the Church of Scotland really even turned an eye to the need to send minister and establish churches in the colonies.

This bit of information stood out to me because it reminded me in some ways of the current status of internationals who find themselves overseas. I spoke more at length about this in my post "Strangers in a Strange Land: A Plea for the Planting of International Churches Overseas" Much like these early settlers people who find themselves living in China, Japan, Thailand, Germany etc. are in spiritual wasteland where there is no option for Church and then options they do have are questionable at best. In some ways North American churches can have an attitude much like Scotland to the early settlers, thinking they might be there but, we are concerned with reaching our people in North America not reaching our own people in Asia, or Europe. The truth is that as the world becomes more global the need to reach out to these Global Wanderers will only become more. Statistics show that this group of people is on the rise. I truly believe that people often called Internationals, expats, or Global Nomads are one of the most unreached people groups. Now I know that is a weighty statement. What I mean simple is that the need is great, the need is increasing but the knowledge is little to none and there is a certain amount of apathy. But just like the needs of the early settlers did not go away they simply became greater. So too the spiritual needs of the international looms over the Western Church. The question is will we turn a blind eye like the Church of Scotland or start doing something about it.