The leader of the Haystack Prayer Meeting was Samuel J. Mills, Jr. Born in 1783, Samuel grew up in a minister’s home in Torringford, Connecticut, the youngest of four living children born to Samuel and Esther Mills. His father, Samuel Mills, Sr., pastored the same church for 64 years.
As a thunderstorm rolled in overhead, lightning and rain forced the students to run and take shelter in a haystack. As the storm raged, the students prayed that God would send them across the seas to share the good news of Jesus Christ with a lost world. God heard their prayer.
Haystack Monument, Williams College, 1806. The Haystack Prayer Meeting, held in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in August 1806, is viewed by many scholars as the seminal event for the development of American Protestant missions in the subsequent decades and century. Missions are still supported today by American churches.
In 1808 the Haystack Prayer group and other Williams students began a group called “ The Brethren .”. This group was organized to “effect, in the persons of its members, a mission to” those who were not Christians. In 1812, the ABCFM sent its first missionaries – to the Indian subcontinent. Samuel Mills became the Haystack person with ...
The History of the Haystack Prayer Meeting. On a Saturday afternoon in August, 1806, five Williams College students, Congregationalists in background, gathered in a field to discuss the spiritual needs of those living in Asian countries.
As well as being the first documented resolution ever made by Americans to begin foreign missionary work, the 1806 Haystack meeting has been credited with leading to the formation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM).
Five Williams College students met in the summer of 1806, in a grove of trees near the Hoosack River, then known as Sloan’s Meadow, and debated the theology of missionary service. Their meeting was suddenly interrupted by a thunderstorm and the students: Samuel J. Mills, James Richards, Francis L. Robbins, Harvey Loomis, and Byram Green took shelter under a haystack until the sky cleared. “The brevity of the shower, the strangeness of the place of refuge, and the peculiarity of their topic of prayer and conference all took hold of their imaginations and their memories.”
Within a few years, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was formed and sent some of the first American Protestant missionaries to other lands.
Samuel Mills became the Haystack person with the greatest influence on the modern mission movement. He played a role in the founding of the American Bible Society and the United Foreign Missionary Society. Through the work of Byram Green, a monument was erected in Mission Park in Williamstown, MA in 1867 to honor the five men involved in ...
They built educational systems in their lands of ministry and were often called upon to advise foreign governments. Missionary reports were printed in the Missionary Herald, the magazine of the American Board established in 1821. For many Christians in America, the Missionary Herald was their window to the world.
In 1808 the Haystack Prayer group and other Williams students began a group called "The Brethren.". This group was organized to "effect, in the persons of its members, a mission to" those who were not Christians. In 1812, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (created in 1810) sent its first missionaries to ...
The Haystack Prayer Meeting, held in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in August 1806, is viewed by many scholars as the seminal event for the development of American Protestant missions in the subsequent decades and century. Missions are still supported today by American churches. Five Williams College students gathered in a field to discuss ...
Few were affluent, but most were trained in colleges where they had received a classical education, which included Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. When they reached the mission field, they worked to translate the Bible into new languages, some yet without a system of writing.
Williams College students Samuel Mills, James Richards, Francis LeBaron Robbins, Harvey Loomis, and Byram Green, met in the summer of 1806 in a grove of trees near the Hoosic River, in what was then known as Sloan's Meadow, and debated the theology of missionary service. Their meeting was interrupted by a thunderstorm and the students took shelter under a haystack until the sky cleared. "The brevity of the shower, the strangeness of the place of refuge, and the peculiarity of their topic of prayer and conference all took hold of their imaginations and their memories."
The ABCFM gave students an opportunity to go abroad and evangelize Christianity. In its first fifty years, the ABCFM sent out more than 1250 missionaries.
The leader of the Haystack Prayer Meeting was Samuel J. Mills, J r. Born in 1783, Samuel grew up in a minister’s home in Torringford, Connecticut, the youngest of four living children born to Samuel and Esther Mills. His father, Samuel Mills, Sr., pastored the same church for 64 years.
What happened to those students who completely sold out to God in the summer of 1806 was simply this: they experienced the presence of God. In the presence of God, the students at the haystack took personal responsibility for the lost souls of their generation.
By Don Pucik In Missions, Prayer, Revival. It was on a Saturday afternoon during the month of August 1806 that five young men from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, met together to pray near a grove of maple trees north of the campus. As a thunderstorm rolled in overhead, lightning and rain forced the students to run ...
In 1805, revival broke out at the congregational church in Williamstown pastored by Seth Swift, deeply affecting a number of students, including a junior named Algernon Bailey. Bailey was repeatedly threatened and harassed by his fellow students for his faith, but his patient endurance only served to draw other students to Christ.