Haystack Reloaded: Could a Haystack Change the World Again?

Twice in the last two hundred years God has used a haystack to change the world.

Haystack 1.0: The Haystack Prayer Meeting (1806)

In 1806, five students gathered in a field just outside the Williams College campus in Williamstown, Massachusetts, for their weekly prayer meeting. Caught in a thunderstorm, the five found shelter under a large haystack and continued their prayers. Freshman Samuel Mills directed the discussion and prayer toward their missionary obligation.

The students specifically discussed the needs in Asia. One of the men suggested that it was too dangerous and that they should wait to go until Asia was safe and “civilized.” They decided to commit the matter to prayer and willed that God should have their lives for service, wherever he needed them.

Seeing their own responsibility to reach their world, Mills catalyzed their faith and prayers by exclaiming, “We can do this if we will!”

That self-dedication gave birth to the first student mission society. Within five years, through the influence of these and other students, an early mission-sending organization in America was founded, and seven student volunteers set sail for India in 1812. Over the following years, mission societies were founded on campuses throughout the United States and more missionaries were sent through new sending boards.

Haystack 2.0: The Student Volunteer Movement (1886)

About eighty years after the Haystack Prayer Meeting, a young man in his twenties, Luther Wishard, learned the story of the five students. His work centered on encouraging Christian commitment among students. Wishard visited the Haystack Prayer monument, erected near the place where the five had prayed, and recognized a connection between their moment and his own generation.

“What they had done was ours to complete,” he said. Kneeling in the snow by the monument, Wishard pleaded with God to do it again: “Where water once flowed, may it flow again.” Recognizing that his own surrender to Christ must be the first step, Wishard prayed, “I am willing to go anywhere, at any time, to do anything for Jesus.”

Although he desired to go to the mission field, Wishard believed he could be more effective by raising mission awareness and sending others. He organized the Mt. Hermon Mission Conference in 1886, where one hundred students volunteered their lives for missionary service. This helped spark the Student Volunteer Movement.

Over the next generation, students on campuses across the United States committed themselves to the “evangelization of the world in this generation.” More than twenty thousand individuals sailed to overseas mission fields, while many others committed themselves to prayer and practical support.

Haystack 3.0: A Movement in 2006

God had already used the Haystack story in the birth of two student mission movements. Could it happen again? Each generation of believers has a choice: surrender themselves and seek God’s global purpose, or live for something smaller.

Today’s students are longing for something more. They know there is more to life than material possessions and shallow purposes. Will students commit themselves to prayer and personal involvement in what God is doing globally? The technology and connectedness of the age present possibilities that earlier generations could scarcely imagine.

Archive note: This article was published in August 2006. Its invitation to an event scheduled for that month has been omitted because the event has passed. The historical argument and prayer have been retained for reference.