Pastor Winslow, I interviewed you and your wife, Suzanne, as part of my series of interviews with Pastors and Pastor’s Wives for Pastor Appreciation Month two years ago.You were missionaries to Mexico for 27 years and pioneered and planted churches there. Can you please bring us up to date on the church in Mexico what you’re doing currently?
My son is now pastoring the church in Mexico. There was a little bit of turbulence there with us leaving, but my son has done an exceptional job and it’s going well. We’re providing some oversight, some input, but I don’t want to be controlling it. My son and his wife just had their second baby, by the way. 🙂
My wife and I are currently serving God at Goffstown Harvest Christian Church in New 
Hampshire until the Lord calls us elsewhere, which we are open to.
Suzanne and I and another couple started a prayer walk on Saturday mornings. We meet at 6:30 a.m. and pray for an hour. A team of intercessors from our church and elsewhere help. Our pastor supports what we are doing. People have come from an hour and a half away to join in on the prayer walk.
We are also hosting the, If My People Night of Prayer and Intercession for New England event at the SNHU Arena in Manchester NH on Sunday October 28th. We are expecting people from all six New England states so far. It’s open to all and free to register at ifmypeoplene.org
To download flyers and promote this event click here: http://www.ifmypeoplene.org/promote
For more information or to register for this event click here: http://www.ifmypeoplene.org/
We are facing an epidemic of opioid addiction, suicide and fatherlessness in our nation. What do you believe brought us to this place?
I don’t want to say this is the only thing that brought us here, but I think an apathetic view, or let me say a passive view from the church regarding outreach and evangelism and its role in general of being a church of power.
Anytime you see the church get comfortable, you’re going to see the enemy creep in. This opioid and suicide crisis came in on our watch and we’re also the ones who can get rid of it if we want.
As we walked Manchester we saw the need. According to the Center for Disease Control, New England has 5 states in the top eleven for the highest drug overdose death rates in the nation (New Hampshire 3rd at 39%; Massachusetts 7th at 33%; Rhode Island 9th at 30.8%; and Maine 10th at 28.7%), Connecticut (11th 27.4%) and Vermont (20th 22.2%).
Cari, a friend of Suzanne Winslow’s shared the following:
Manchester is a melting pot of people from many nations and several states across the USA, which is a good thing. However, a police officer friend of mine shared with me that crime in the Manchester area had escalated because many US cities and other nations were sending some of their most troubled people here, even paying their way—plane tickets, bus tickets, visas etc..
One day recently when I was praying, I felt rising up in my spirit that this was not by coincidence, but that the Lord had brought these people from afar for the purpose of saving and transforming them by His love, and sending them back all over the world to take His gospel and wonder-working power to their communities, families and friends!
Greg Winslow:
It, [drug abuse, and related crime, fatherlessness and suicide], is very prevalent here in Manchester. But I will say this, Rachael, in February we began gathering Saturday mornings and doing prayer walks around Manchester. It works. A study came out that since January all major crime is down.
Do you think fatherlessness is a major contributor to the crises we are facing in the USA?
Absolutely, yes. I teach Driver’s Ed now and kids don’t know their left-hand from the right-hand—that’s the biggest problem. We say take a left, and they go right. This is a generation adrift, calling good evil, and evil good.
The state has determined that parents are the greatest influence in teaching children how to drive right, and that’s the same with many aspects. Parents are the greatest influence in showing children how to do things right. Kids want someone to direct them. They just really want someone to talk to.
What do you believe are some steps the Church needs to take to help meet the need and remedy this?
Prayer and evangelism. Financially supporting the work, volunteering, spreading the word. Get involved with boots on the ground ministries. Praying obviously makes the process a lot easier but then help get the boots on the ground ministry moving forward in a more aggressive and productive way by actively working to make the process of walking someone through coming out of addiction easier. Also get involved with ministries fighting sex-trafficking and homelessness and helping at-risk youth and children in need.
At the If My People Night of Prayer and Intercession for New England event we will also provide access to practical ministries for you to participate in after the event. It’s an opportunity to make the church of New England aware of how they can get involved in local ministries and churches that are working to bring societal change.
Christians are called to be Light bearers. It is easy to say what a mess our country, or the world is, but the responsibility of moving God’s heart on our behalf rests squarely on the shoulders of the Christian. Before we can effectively pray for our nation we must first get ourselves right with God. Judgement, repentance, and revival begin in the Church.
Were you surprised at the spiritual state of our Nation when you returned to live in the USA?
In some respects, yes. It seems like the church has become uninvolved. It has become inward focused—More focusing on efficiency of services as opposed to efficiency of outreach and any outreaching toward the lost. I really don’t see a lot of emphasis on going to the lost and bringing them into the Church, helping and praying for them. There is still an underlying desire for that in the churches, but it’s almost like they’ve become accustomed to not really focusing on that aspect of what we’re supposed be doing.
What are your thoughts on the current racial tensions in America?
When we become afraid of preaching the gospel, the opposing forces are just going to maneuver us to conform to what they want.
The church can’t be ashamed to preach the gospel because it’s the solution.
What do you hope to accomplish with this prayer event?
When we were missionaries in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, we saw a violence epidemic and we had nobody to turn to as at the time, much of the city’s police, military and government were involved in the drug cartels and related crimes. We got together with pastors and members from other churches and said if anything is going to be done it’s going to be because we’re doing it. So, we gathered in the largest Arena we could find down there and joined together in prayer. As a result, we saw big a push back from violence into a time of peace in the area.
As we prayer walk up here we see Manchester has an epidemic. It’s not violence like it was in Mexico―here it’s drugs. But the same results can happen if God’s people come together and pray on the basis of birthright, not denomination. We can push back to where this drug thing moves out of here. So the goal is to push back the crisis that is plaguing New England and see what I like to call climate change—where we change the climate from cold toward the Gospel, to warmed up and receptive to the Gospel.
Susanne:
Someone gave me a word at a recent conference:
“What God is about to do in Manchester NH will shake the nation!” Then a pastor from another New Hampshire church told me today that he heard New England is where revival will start, and Manchester is the epicenter!
Greg:
The church, by birthright can come together and pray against the epidemic that is affecting all of us. We believe God has called us to take a stand and reverse these statistics.
Join Us!
If My People Night of Prayer and Intercession for New England
Sunday October 28th. (Doors open at 5pm.)
SNHU Arena in Manchester NH
It’s open to all and free to REGISTER at
ifmypeoplenene.org
*We are also encouraging churches from other regions or those who cannot attend to participate by standing with us in prayer on October 28th.
Check our Pastor Greg & Suzanne Winslow’s book here: The Two Shall Become One: A 31-Day Devotional for a Stronger Marriage
This is the first article in my 2018 series of interviews with pastors and Pastor’s wives from around the country. I will be posting articles throughout October in honor of Pastor Appreciation Month.
You can read part 1 of my 2016 series Shepherd Princes & Sarah’s Daughters HERE and my 2017 series, Dragon Slayer, Disciple Maker, HERE.
It would bless these pastors and pastor’s wives, myself, and others, if you would please share these articles. Thank you for joining me on my journey.
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