The Mays, natives to the area, planted the Evangelical Baptist Teaching and Worship Center in the heart of a town where most churches no longer preach about Jesus.

"OK, let's start from the beginning. Genesis," May says, once the Boston-area congregation has filtered in for the Thursday evening Bible study, some coming straight from work. Dick talks about creation, then the fall of man -— subjects lost on deaf ears in most parts of the region.

If doctors had been right a few years ago, this night of studying God's Word would never have come about.

"I was diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma," May says. "I was given a few months to live."

His dire prognosis only amplified the urgency of his task. But his overwhelming vision -- a true revival in New England -- is still a soul-by-soul process.

"This is the 'show-me, don't-tell-me region,'" May says. "And sometimes they don't want you to show them or tell them. They're 'all set.' It's like drilling down for oil. But here, instead of soft soil you have granite."

Though Boston and New England are historically the points of origin for much of the religious leaning of the United States, the area has in recent history leaned largely in the other direction. As a result, many of the picturesque church buildings there have iced over into museums of their former selves.

Before moving into "downtown" Winthrop, members of the small church plant began by meeting in May's modified garage nine years ago.

"I built it from the ground up," May, a retired construction contractor, says of a two-story building adjacent to his house. Up the winding iron staircase he salvaged from a junkyard are his study and workout room. Below is the garage-turned-chapel-turned-garage where he stores his Honda Shadow -- the motorcycle he rides into town for mid-week evangelism.

Grassroots ministries like Dick and Doreen May's -- where small groups gather and the Bible is taught faithfully -- are few and far between. But they are the hope of a region where church has become too much of an institution and not enough of a community. They've also become the hope for people like Pauline Delassandra.

Delassandra used to be a waitress at a diner frequented by the Mays. Over the course of months, Dick and Pauline became friends. They talked about her life, eventually about God and the prospect of Pauline attending the church Mays was leading.

But Pauline didn't give it all much serious thought until she was diagnosed with cancer and started on chemotherapy. The Mays began praying for her physical healing as well as for her salvation. One day in the diner, Pauline gave her life to Christ.

"It's like I was born again," says Pauline, echoing the words of Christ Himself. She now is cancer-free. Continued...