Haystack Prayer Meeting
We’ve all heard the old cliché “like finding a needle in a haystack.” It’s a phrase many of us use regularly when searching for something that seems impossible to find. Despite the fact that many of us live lives that have seen us become less and less acquainted with what the normal contents of a haystack should be, we can all picture the arduous task that the phrase describes. You just don’t assume that you’re going see a needle in the middle of a haystack. Oddly enough, however, God once orchestrated an even more unusual event that centered around a haystack. Today, let’s take a look at the Haystack Prayer Meeting of 1806 and its place in the American church and missions’ movement.
The story of the Haystack Prayer Meeting centers around Samuel Mills, Jr. from the state of Connecticut. In 1806 Mills was a student at Williams College during a hard time to be a Christian in the university. That’s right, much of the resistance we see to Christianity in academia today finds its roots back in the late 18th and early 19th century. Ideas from movements like the Enlightenment and French Revolution had begun to shift the mindset of people away from belief in God. Skeptics had come to believe that human and scientific advancements had moved humanity past the need to believe in archaic notions like God and ancient texts like the Bible. Mills and his fellow Christian students faced ridicule and harassment from other students accusing them of being judgmental, simple-minded, or not with the times. (Like I said, sounds fairly familiar) In a strange dichotomy that proves the providence of God, however, the New England region also experienced numerous spiritual revivals. Two large scale revivals happened within 10 years of Mills enrolling at Williams college claiming almost 2,000 new converts being reached by the local churches. So, while the general demeanor of many college students and faculty of the time was skepticism, there was a remnant of students that wanted to see the Gospel continue to spread in their region and across the world.
Mills and around a dozen other students began to hold prayer and Bible study meetings twice a week. Similar to the small groups that many churches and campus ministries have today, these meetings allowed the men to encourage each other, learn the truth of God’s Word together, and pray not only for their own spiritual well-being and needs but also for those of their fellow students and other non-believers. It was during these meetings when Mills’ focus for Gospel expansion moved from local revival to international, pioneer missions. During one of their lesser attended outdoor prayer meetings (likely due to impending bad weather that would certainly come to play a major role in the story), Mills began to strongly petition four of his friends to commit to being among the first American missionaries to focus on hard-to-reach people in Asia and the Middle East. As they discussed and prayed for this mission, they were interrupted by a severe thunderstorm. Typically, a distraction like this would send the participants running for shelter and squash any momentum that built up before the storm, but that wasn’t the case that night. The five men found shelter in an unlikely place. They all got under a haystack to ride out the storm and the fervent prayer meeting went on.
The unusual night proved to be a seminal moment for Mills and his fellow haystack members. They would prove to be the driving catalyst for the modern American missions’ movement to Asia and the Middle East. Only four years later in 1810 they were pivotal in the founding of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the first international mission board in the young United States. And in 1812 their efforts led to the sending out of the first American missionaries to India, including famous missionaries Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice. It’s crazy to think that everything that followed can credibly be linked back to the dedicated efforts of five men that found their connection to God and commitment to His mission in, of all places, a haystack.
Byram Green, one of the other four with Mills under the haystack, said something profound when recalling the prayer meeting and its eventual impact. “The subject of conversation under the stack, before and during the shower, was the moral darkness of Asia. Mills proposed to send the gospel to that dark and heathen land; and said that we could do it if we would.” Many of us resist the call of God to spread the Gospel while believing the excuse that we are not equipped or empowered to do so. But the Bible clearly teaches that we are able and equipped, what we lack is the zeal and obedience to follow through on it. In the Great Commission in Matthew 28, Jesus sandwiches the call to go and make disciples with encouragement and equipping. He tells any that would believe in Him that, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and earth…And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt. 28:18 &20) So, the needle that many of us are trying to find is not the power to spread the Gospel, but the desire and obedience.