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by Marlene Gasdia-Cochrane, Editor
October/November 2006
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Farmlands dotted with rolled-up bales of hay are familiar sights across the state. But this Fall there was a more notable symbolic stack of hay in the Williamstown area. In September, Williamstown’s First Congregational Church UCC and Williams College celebrated the 200th anniversary of the “Haystack Prayer Meeting” – an event that inspired a movement to send American missionaries around the globe. The weekend-long Haystack Bicentennial celebration included worship, music, keynote speakers, panel discussions, workshops, meals and fellowship among an ecumenical group of Christians looking to celebrate and gain inspiration from that old “haystack” story.
According to The Rev. Dr. J. Ben Guess from the United Church of Christ Office of General Ministries, “It all happened on an August afternoon in 1806, when five Williams College students – all Congregationalists – met in a northwest Massachusetts field to talk and pray about issues of the day. On this occasion, the topic was the spiritual needs of those in Asian countries. A sudden thunderstorm sent the
students scurrying for cover near a haystack where, as the story goes, the students made promises to God and one another that they would carry their Christian faith “into all the world.”
“Today, in a world where building walls, maintaining fences and defending borders is often mistaken for absolute necessity, global partnerships engender abiding trust, build cross-cultural friendships and promote lasting security,” said Guess. “For me, it was during mission trips to Mexico and Colombia where I first glimpsed – in its fullness – that God’s love is something much bigger, broader and better than mere familiarity with my native land.”
The Rev. Carrie Bail, pastor of Williamstown’s First Congregational Church UCC, believes the passion and the commitment of the missionaries should be celebrated, while at the same time “their acts of cultural near-sightedness and their occasional complicity with western hegemony” should compel an appeal for forgiveness.
“Going out to do Christ’s work in the world ought to be about healing and teaching and proclaiming our nearness to God,” Bail said. “I think that the ‘original’ missionaries did a lot of those three things. You can read innumerable accounts of them being the first ones to create an orthography and write down a language, to print the Bible and other material in the printing presses they brought with them, to create schools for children, to teach principles of hygiene and medicine and create hospitals, to begin scientific work on agriculture in addition to preaching the nearness of God’s Kingdom. They were very creative and hard-working folk, there’s no doubt.
“We can debate about whether all those ‘good works’ were simply a by-product of their desire to ‘save souls,’” she continues. “Some folk on the conservative end of mission in the present time will argue that conversion was their primary purpose then and should continue to be the primary focus today as well. But in many ways the original missionaries showed a remarkable ability to enter into a culture – enough to understand it and learn the language and the customs.”
“The passion to send out is the real message,” said Peter Wells, Associate Conference Minister of the Massachusetts Conference. “In the present time, we try to convey more respect and appreciation for other faiths and cultures and communities than may have been exhibited during those first years when the group was trying to convert non-Christians. We want to learn from others in the world as well as them learn from us. But no matter where you stand theologically, one of the main goals of mission work is to bring relief and economic justice to the world. When people are moved by the spirit, lives can change.”
“We ought to celebrate the teaching and the preaching and the healing that they did in imitation of Christ, and stand in awe of their intelligence and determination,” said Bail.
“The Haystack reality invites us, once again, to consider the importance and value of mission,” said Guess. “To whom – thanks be to God – does this ‘mission’ belong? And how shall we, as global Christians, continue to be about God’s work in the world?”