The Southern Baptist Home Mission Board, 1845

Oct 20, 2009
By JERRY WINDSOR
Special to Florida Baptist Witness

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The first Southern Baptist Home Mission Board was begun in 1845. It started in the May 8-12, 1845, organizational meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention at First Baptist Church, Augusta, Ga. There were 236 delegates from eight states and the District of Columbia. They represented 165 churches and it is of note that the delegates included representatives of nine associations, a state convention, a ministerial conference, the board of a state convention, Mercer University, Furman Institute, the Pennfield Young Men’s Missionary Society and Isaac McCoy. It is the presence of McCoy, the lone delegate from Kentucky that unravels the thread that goes to the heart of the origin of the Home Mission Board.

When Roger Williams and his family left Bristol, England, in 1631, they settled in Nantasket, Mass. Williams immediately befriended the Indians and set about learning their language. When he and his family were banished from Massachusetts in 1635 part of the problem was his outspoken convictions that the Indians should be treated fairly in business and land dealings. It is no wonder that upon his banishment Williams and his family ended up in Providence where land was purchased from the Narragansett Indians.

William Owen Carver (1868-1954) taught missions at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for 43 years. He was a missions and church history scholar. He once stated that “the Baptist denomination was a direct product of the missionary interest.” The Southern Baptist Convention began with only two organizational boards and both of them involved missions. The Foreign Mission board had offices in Richmond, Virginia and the Board of Domestic Missions was established at Marion, Alabama. Mission outreach was originally intended for only 14 southern states, but needs in Delaware and California found the board reaching out to new fields of work.

In the 1855 Southern Baptist Convention meeting, the American Indian Mission Association, begun in 1842 by Isaac McCoy, was placed under the auspices of Southern Baptists. The home board became the Domestic and Indian Mission Board. This is the same Isaac McCoy of Kentucky who was a delegate at the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845.

The very roots of the Home Mission board go back to the concern of men like Roger Williams, Luther Rice and Isaac McCoy. There was a genuine belief that “the least of these” should always be at the forefront of domestic missions. This erased geographical, theological and organizational disputes on many occasions.

TICHENOR

The Home Mission board had to endure the criticism of Landmarkism, Calvinism, sectionalism, and economic strife in the first 40 years of its existence. The coming of Isaac Taylor Tichenor (1825-1902) as leader of the board gave much needed statesmanship, experience and passion for home mission causes.

The work of the Home Mission Board has always been cutting edge. Involvement in work with Indians, Blacks, crisis centers, other religions, urban centers and student internships produced a string of controversies. Pushing the missions envelope has always been a purpose and appeal of the board.

In 1997 the Southern Baptist Convention changed the name of the Home Mission Board to the North American Mission Board and gave the entity additional assignments as part of a denominational restructuring. The NAMB presidency is currently vacant and there are over 5,000 missionaries and 2,875 chaplains serving through the board.

Jerry Windsor is executive secretary of the Florida Baptist Historical Society and retired professor of preaching at The Baptist College of Florida in Graceville.

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