“The smell of urine—and worse—was there to greet us. Number 4 was to our right. The door opened easily with a turn of the key, and the stench was eager to rush out to greet us; it left us gasping for breath, a foretaste of what we would find inside.”
What Michael and Pam Toogood did find in their basement flat in Soho, London, was a 10 foot by 10 foot sitting room with little daylight, blood spattered up the wall, a toilet without a door, a kitchen big enough for only one person at a time, one cold tap, no hot water, no bathroom, a bedroom in which an ordinary-sized double bed touched three walls and an 11 foot by 6 foot box room. This was not some Dickensian landlord’s scandalous offering but part of the housing stock of Westminster Council in 1982. Church-planting can demand a strong stomach as well as a strong faith.
Having left a well-paid job in commercial design to become a full-time evangelist and then pastor in Bexleyheath, followed that with pastoring a large church in New Cross and planting a thriving church in newly-built Thamesmead, Michael Toogood had accepted the call to plant a church in Soho. There, among all the seedy premises, 5000 people lived hidden away, with no evangelical church. Who would take their family to live in such a place? Only someone sensing the call of God to do so.
It asked a lot of his wife, Pam, and of their two teen-aged children, a boy and a girl, who would have to share a bedroom, which doubled as Michael’s study during the day. (Almost all his books had to go into storage, as there was only room for seven of the most essential on the windowsill.) Looking back, none of them had any complaints but recognised that God had grown their faith and taught them precious lessons through it all.
Most of ‘Mission to Soho’ is given to recounting the highs and lows of nearly 20 years of church planting in such a daunting area and seeing a church established with converts drawn from the local community. Sometimes Michael stepped cautiously and prayerfully in where others would fear to tread. He acknowledges that not all would have done as he did. Yet he sought to follow his Master in living not only among the people but as one of them, breaking down barriers with sheer, unrelenting love and kindness. He set out to reach with the good news of Jesus Christ all who lived and worked in Soho.
Michael would be quick to say that this is no how-to book for church planters. Few now would recommend sending one man and his wife with a young family into such a situation. Nevertheless, church planters would do well to read it, for it is a remarkable example of persevering in faith in the most trying of circumstances and against seemingly insurmountable obstacles; of seeing God’s hand at work, saving sinners and building his Church among the outcasts of society.
The last three chapters are more autobiographical and cover the trials and difficulties faced in retirement. Some of them were heart-wrenching and seemingly more daunting than anything that came before. This is a challenging and heart-warming record of humble, faithful service, of hope in degradation and despair, and of a God who is no man’s debtor. Highly recommended!
