I have always had a love for studying (and even more being a part of) movements of God, from my childhood when our small church erupted in the Jesus Movement to teaching courses on the subject today. Santyana said those that do not learn from history are doomed to relive it. I think those who do learn from history can best deal with culture today.
This month I begin my 12th year teaching at SEBTS, and my 15th teaching fulltime (3 years at Houston Baptist University). This month, 200 years ago, an event happened that still affects the students I teach today. That is whay happens when God moves. Let me give just a snapshot of what God did two centuries ago:
Samuel Mills’ father was a pastor in Torrington, Connecticut. A revival there in 1798 made a strong impact on young Mills as a teen. Williams College in Massachusetts experienced an awakening (as did many campuses about that time–Yale, Hampden-Sydney, etc) in 1804-06. Samuel Mills came as a student, and not a very good one, during that season. Mills began to meet with a group of students twice weekly for prayer. On a warm August day in 1806, a rainstorm drove the group to seek shelter at a large stack of hay. Sheltered from the wind and rain at the side of the great haystack, the men continued in prayer. While there Mills proposed a mission to India. Subsequent historians have referred to the meeting as the “Haystack Revival.” In 1808 the group organized to study and pray for missions. After seminary graduation, Mills and others of the “Brethren” (their group’s name) asked the General Association of Massachusetts to send them to India as missionaries. This Association formed the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions on June 28, 1810. This was the first official foreign missions organization in the United States. The first missionaries include familiar names: Adoniram Judson, Samuel Nott, Luther Rice, Gordon Hall, and Samuel Newell. Mills stayed behind in part because of his ability to promote the cause of world missions in America.
Just a bunch of college students. Mills was such a poor student he was not allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies! Interestingly, the valedictorian, also named Samuel, missed his speech because he was drunk. God took a mediocre student with a radical passion for the nations, and we are debtors to him. This year, 2006, there are more teenagers than at any point in US history. Colleges are about to swell like never before in numbers, and the most rapid growth is in private schools including evangelical colleges. Do we believe God could take a handful of students and change the world? I do. And that is one reason I teach.
The next time you see a raindrop fall this month, take a moment and thank God for the haystack revival, and for young leaders who would risk all, not for fame or influence, but for the gospel. May God give us more like that!