Mt. Salem-Wyaconda Southern Baptist Association
E-mail MissionsMission Park -- Williamstown, MA
A ten-acre park commemorating the "BIrthplace of American Foreign Missions." Mission Park and the Haystack Monument are located a short walk north of the First Congregational Church and Chapin Hall, on the Williams College Campus.
"On a sultry Saturday afternoon in August, 1806, Samuel Mills [a twenty-three year old freshman college student] and four other students gathered as usual in the maple grove of Sloan's Meadow for one of their twice-weekly prayer meetings. Thunderclouds broke open the sky, driving the students to seek shelter from the rain on the lee side of a great haystack. With thought turned toward their classroom studies of Asia and the East India Company, Mills shared his burden that Christianity be sent abroad. With the exception of Harvey Loomis, who felt that missionary efforts should first be concentrated domestically, Mills, Byram Green, Francis L. Robbins, and James Richards prayed that American missions would spread Christianity through the East." [Thus began the great American missionary movement. The photograph depicts the monument that was erected to commemorate the "Haystack Prayer Meeting" of these 5 dedicated young men in 1806]
Southern Baptists have a legacy and passion of missions that have its roots in this bedrock event of spiritual awakening in America around the beginning of the 19th century. The event, though not particularly made up of Baptists, sounded a clarion call for Christian men and women to act upon the directive given by Jesus Christ in the Great Commandment found in Acts 1:8 . . . "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." [HCSB]
