It Started with a Haystack: An Evolution of Ministry Around the World

In 1806, a prayer meeting of five students at Williams College in Massachusetts was interrupted by a sudden thunderstorm. They scrambled to find shelter under a haystack, and when they emerged from their meeting after the storm had passed, the five of them had declared their call to be missionaries.

Those same students all eventually ended up at Andover Divinity School, where their sense of call to serve globally had not dimmed. In 1810, joined by three other divinity students who were similarly eager to serve in ‘foreign missions’, they prepared the first constitution of ABCFM, and presented their proposal for the organization to the General Association of Congregational Churches that same year. Two years later, the newly formed ABCFM sent its first eight “missionaries” to serve in what is now India.

Rev. Dr. Mary Schaller Blaufuss, in her book Experiments in Mutuality: The United Church of Christ in Global Mission, describes the attitudes and theological perspectives prevalent in the United States in the beginning of the 19^th century that impacted the shape of global missions in its earliest forms: “Christian leaders of the time often referred to America’s ‘errand to the world’ as its responsibility to cross boundaries and go into other lands and cultures to claim and transform them.”  It was understood then that the Church in the still young United States had an obligation to go to other lands to “promote the gospel in heathen lands”. Missionaries like those first 8 divinity students were considered essential to realizing that stated purpose.

Thankfully, a lot has changed since the early 1800’s.

Today, the global work of our denomination is joyfully undertaken in full collaboration with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) through “Global Ministries”, which celebrates 30 years of shared witness this year. Last week, several of our staff convened in Indianapolis for our annual Mission Conference, an event that invites returning global mission personnel, newly appointed mission personnel, and individuals discerning a call to global service to convene for training, worship, and sharing of experiences.

Mindful of the historical ‘baggage’ the term “missionary” carries, we now refer to our mission personnel as “mission co-workers”. The new terminology reflects a deeper transformation than just a simple word change, though. It signals an evolved approach to the global ministries of our churches more broadly. “Mutuality” is now front and center to our training of mission co-workers and to our daily work as Global Ministries.

What does “mutuality” mean in practice? It means we understand that mutually respectful, authentic relationships are essential to all we do. We come to the work with a deep sense of humility, mindful that the 250 partners with whom we have relationships around the world have wisdom and gifts that we need, that our work together must never be premised on what we alone can offer them. We have dismissed the idea that we send mission personnel to ‘bring the Gospel’ to places that need it, because we know that faith is already present in those places and the Church there is already doing amazing ministry. Our task is to accompany, to walk alongside, to journey together as siblings in Christ. We soundly reject the colonizing mentality that once fueled global mission, that imperialistic intent to ‘claim and transform’ others. We don’t enter into this work in order to make them more like us. We engage in this life-giving work because it represents the unity we are called to –in all the world, with all the world—humbly joining hands  and voices together with our global partners to build peace with justice, multiply mercy, and share the extravagant love of God with intention and joy.

It’s been 220 years since those 5 students huddled during a rainstorm and sparked the formation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Much has changed since then. Our language, our theologies, and our approaches to our ministries alongside others around the globe have all (mercifully) evolved. This much remains: God still calls us to be the Body of Christ — from east to west and south to north — and to remember that every part has need of all the other parts. None of us can accomplish alone the kind of world that God so deeply desires for all.

The Reverend Shari Prestemon began her service with the national ministries of the United Church of Christ in January 2024. As the Associate General Minister & Co-Executive for Global Ministries she has the privilege of overseeing several teams: Global Ministries, Global H.O.P.E., Public Policy & Advocacy Team (Washington, D.C.), and our staff representative to the United Nations. She previously served as pastor to local UCC congregations in Illinois and Wisconsin; the Executive Director at the UCC’s Back Bay Mission in Biloxi, Mississippi; and as Conference Minister in Minnesota.