It was a unique mixture of the past and the present, a celebration of what God did in New England in the early days of settlement and a prayer for all that needs to be done there today.
At Providence, R.I., 33 Alabama Baptists who made the Sept. 28–Oct. 4 pilgrimage to New England visited the First Baptist Church in America. That is the name of the congregation founded by Roger Williams in 1638. The white frame building that houses the congregation dates from 1765. It is a large building seating about 1,500 people. Behind it is Brown University, founded to train ministers for the Baptist faith.
Today the congregation numbers fewer than 150. Brown University no longer promotes its religious roots nor its Baptist heritage. The church tour guide — an Episcopalian — told the Alabama group that Rhode Island is the most Catholic state in the nation. Baptists of any denomination are few, the guide said. Thankfully, that is changing. Rafael Hernandez, director of missions for the Rhode Island and Eastern Connecticut Association, stood in the famous Providence church and shared how the number of Baptist missions doubled in the last year. The 11 missions now equal the number of Southern Baptist related churches in the association. Many of the new missions are ethnic, but Hernandez said plans for the next two years also include missions aimed at the 80 percent of the population which is Anglo.
At Williamstown, Mass., the group paused around the monument to the Haystack Revival, the beginning point of international missions in the United States. Five young men from Williams College — no relationship to Roger Williams — sought shelter from an afternoon rain under a haystack. The group gathered for prayer regularly. On this day, the Lord burdened their hearts for sharing the gospel across the seas.
From the meeting came the slogan, “The field is the world.” Also coming from this meeting four years later was the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the first international missions organization in America. Adoniram Judson, an early graduate of Brown, and Luther Rice, a Williams graduate, were among the initial group of international missionaries appointed by this mission society of the Congregational denomination.
Baptists who know their history know that Judson and Rice became convinced of the Baptist understanding of baptism as they studied their Bibles while crossing the seas to India. Eventually both became Baptists. Because the Judsons could not get permission to stay in India, they moved to Burma and became the first Baptist international missionaries from the United States. Rice returned home to seek support among the Baptists for foreign missions.
The irony of the moment was not about Congregationalists becoming Baptists. The irony was that once the fervor to take the gospel to the world burned brightly in New England. Today, the world has literally come to New England, but the evangelistic message is not aflame in that part of the nation.
There are more than 281 colleges and universities in the greater Boston area with more than 250,000 students, we were told. Studies show that about one in five present world leaders or those likely to become world leaders study in New England at some time during their educational life. More than 100 languages and cultures are represented in the region.
What an opportunity to reach those who will shape the future of the world. What an opportunity to reach the world for Christ though them. Yet the Baptist witness in New England is dim in numbers and resources. There are 236 Baptist congregations in all of New England for more than 14 million people. On any given Sunday, only 11,000–12,000 people gather for worship in Baptist settings.
What resources New England Baptists have are used wisely. For example, the Hellenic Gospel Mission, a Baptist group, owns a church building where five separate Baptist congregations meet on Sunday — Anglo, Greek, African, Chinese and Filipino. The building itself is an architectural marvel — a required visit for Harvard architectural design students — complete with a Tiffany stained glass window valued at more than $250,000. The building was sold to its present owners for the grand sum of one dollar.
Luther Rice, mentioned earlier, is the father of organized Baptist life in America. It was his tireless efforts to raise support for international missions that resulted in the first national convention of Baptists, the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States for Foreign Missions formed in 1814. Rice founded the first Baptist newspaper, The Columbia Star, which lives on as The Christian Index of Georgia. He also founded Columbia College in Washington, D.C., which became a part of George Washington University.
The Alabama Baptist group visited the home place of Luther Rice in Northborough, Mass. Only the blacksmith shop remains from the original buildings, and that has been converted into a small lodge. The Rice Memorial Baptist Church meets nearby. It is ironic that the home place of the man who worked to organize Baptists in America into a denomination focused on international missions is now a missions field as challenging as most foreign fields anywhere in the world.
On the first full day our group was in New England, we worshiped at the Seacoast Community Church. The church was founded in 1960 as the Screvens Memorial Baptist Church, Southern Baptists’ first work in New England in modern times. Yet, the first Baptist church in the South began less than 10 miles from the Seacoast Church in Kittery, Maine.
First Baptist Church, Charleston, S.C., lists its founding date as 1682, the date William Screvens founded the Kittery, Maine, Baptist Church with 17 members. Fourteen years later, 28 members joined Screvens to migrate to Charleston where their congregation became the first Baptist church in the South.
Today the South is dotted with Baptist churches, and Baptists are the dominant religious group in the region. Not so in New England. Most of the Baptist congregations average fewer than 100 in attendance, many fewer than 50. Astronomical land prices make it next to impossible for congregations to own buildings, for pastors to own homes. Most pastors are bivocational, and most spouses work just to live in the area. In the place where Baptists began in this nation, Baptists are generally viewed as a cult, we were told.
Certainly, New England is a missions challenge.
The pilgrimage had other highlights — Plymouth Rock, the Mayflower, the Freedom Trail in Boston, the Battle Road between Lexington and Concord, the Old North Bridge where the shot for democracy was fired that was heard ’round the world. There were walks in the woods, swift-flowing streams, picturesque villages and more.
But the overriding impression of the experience was the need and the opportunity for ministry in the birthplace of Baptists. If you would like information about how you or a volunteer group can minister in New England, write to the Baptist Convention of New England, 87 Lincoln Street, Northborough, MA 01532 or call 508-393-6013.
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