Something of an evangelical role reversal has brought an American minister to a Baptist church little changed since the 18th century.

GETTING on 400 years after the Pilgrim Fathers upped and offed on the Mayflower, American missionaries are heading in the opposite direction to serve and to save churches in England.

Gregg Trickett has left the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, population around 400,000, to minister at the Baptist church in Hamsterley, Co Durham, where the population is probably around 400.

Barely all he knew about the place, he learned from the Internet. While it may not be said that he saw not the wood for the trees, most of that concerned Hamsterley's vast forest.

"I just thought that God had a heart for this place and for this community, " he says. "I still do."

Gregg - tall, bearded, personable, single and much mothered - now works for a programme called American Interim Ministries, which over a three-year period recruits and finances six different ministers for churches under threat.

Thornaby, on Teesside, has just "graduated" - as they call it - and is hoping to appoint its own minister. Hamsterley is halfway through, and enjoying the education.

In 1995, the church had but a single member. When Gregg arrived there were three members and an average congregation of around five. Now there are around 15, drawn from as far as Newcastle, Cumbria and Hartlepool.

"Gregg, " says Ann Brown, one of the elders, "has been simply wonderful."

"I have a lot of favourite grandmothers, " says Gregg.

The Baptist church, one of three in that small village, was built in 1774, is a Grade II* listed building, and remains little changed inside or out.

In the early days it had 300 members and could be filled three times every Sunday, congregations augmented by the Borstal sea scouts, smart as captive carrots, camped across the fields nearby.

The overnight rain has been so heavy, last Sunday's Baptist congregation could be in at the deep end; the heating's been on all night. Hot gospellers they may be, very warm they are most certainly.

"Consider yourselves at home, it's a wonderful time to be alive, " says Gregg, by way of introduction.

For all its ancient appeal, the church employs modern technology, 11-year-old Matthew Henderson there to work the bells and whistles of visual aids and music machines.

A pony-tailed young chap's in a band from Crook - known as the Crooks - Del Quinn, head teacher of a school in Bishop Auckland, has returned the previous evening from a week in Bulgaria, providing shoes for children in the many orphanages.

"It was one of the most emotional weeks I've ever been through. The first night I just cried my eyes out, " she says.

"I've never seen such abject poverty or experienced such feelings of helplessness."

In Bulgaria there's a 45 per cent abortion rate and the population is plummeting, mothers have 30 days to decide whether to keep their babies - no matter how physically healthy - and children never see a doctor until they do.

Vegetables lie rotting in the fields.

Del's multi-national little team visited 14 orphanages in five days, between them shoeing (and cuddling) 800 children. "Poor little mites, the orphanages ranged from OK to absolutely appalling, " she says.

Gregg preaches what he reckons will be the first of eight or ten sermons on the Epistle to the Philippians, says they could spend months there. "You will forgive me for my tears sometimes, " he says, and explains that they are tears of rejoicing.

Though tending towards the charismatic, worship is open and friendly, informal enough for everyone to laugh when the singing goes wrong (and probably to blame me. ) It's what happens next that's most extraordinary of all.

Service over, everyone repairs to the manse next door for a splendid meal, provided by different members of the congregation.

It's what the Methodists call a love feast, so what do the Baptists call it?

"Sunday lunch, " says Ann.

It's immediately preceded by an appropriate bible reading and by the solemn sharing of bread and wine, holy communion in the manse dining room.

"I can't imagine anything better than sharing a meal with fellow Christians.

"If I had my way, we'd do this every week, " says Gregg. In the event, they do it once a month.

The atmosphere's wholly convivial, sometimes jokey, right down to the lady who really does find a spider in her glass of water and wonders what it's doing there.

"The breast stroke, probably, " they reply, almost as one. Someone else asks what's blue and fluffy, but we'll keep that one for the Eating Owt column.

Gregg has to leave early to preach at the afternoon service in Wolsingham Baptist Church - "It gets me out of washing up, " he says. No one else rushes away.

The interim minister returns to America on September 6. They'll miss him no end, all agree over lunch.

Outside, the rain has given way to a lovely Spring afternoon; Hamsterley is May flowering, too.

Hamsterley Baptish church meets at 10.30am on Sundays, 7pm on Wednesdays and 7.30pm on Thursdays.

Bulgarian Child Inc, which organised Del Quinn's visit, can be contacted at www.BulgarianChild. com