February 11, 2022
Why are there Presbyterians in Mississippi? The answer might surprise you: New Yorkers. Yes, Yankees were the first to plant Presbyterianism in Dixie. On March 21, 1799, the New York Missionary Society for Propagating the Gospel Among the Heathen (a group of Presbyterians) sent the Reverend Joseph Bullen down to Mississippi to minister among the Chickasaw Indians in northern Mississippi. Bullen was born in Massachusetts in 1750, and after graduating from Yale he pastored a Congregational Church in Vermont. He soon became interested in the missionary efforts of the Presbyterians, and the rest is history (history that unfortunately very few remember!). Bullen set out with his seventeen-year-old son, arriving in north Mississippi in May of 1799. He stayed until August, and then went back to New York to report on his labors.
In March, 1801, Bullen returned with his wife Hannah and five children, along with an assistant, settling near Pontotoc. At the end of 1802, he was preparing to head back up to New York, when three missionaries from the Synod of the Carolinas happened to pass through Pontotoc on their way to Natchez. They convinced him not to return north, but to go with them further south. Eventually, in 1804, Bullen organized the first Presbyterian Church in the Mississippi Territory in Uniontown, MS, some twenty-two miles northeast of Natchez (near what is now known as Cannonsburg, MS - if you ever travel down Highway 61 toward Natchez, look out for a historical marker noting Bullen's grave near Cannonsburg Road). Bullen went on to plant churches in Bayou Pierre and in Union Church, and his work was foundational to Presbyterianism in Mississippi.
I share the story of Joseph Bullen because the work of planting churches and spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ is not over - not even in Mississippi! If you haven't been able to be with us this past Sunday or Wednesday to hear from Tito Padilla and Mark Horn, please find their sermons on our website or YouTube channel. You will be richly encouraged and challenged in your own ministries of evangelism and discipleship. The Lord has His people scattered throughout the cities of this globe (see Acts 18:10), and it is our responsibility and privilege to go forth preaching the good news, so that His elect might hear and respond in faith and repentance unto salvation. God has sovereignly ordained not only the end (the salvation of the elect) but also the means (the preached word of the gospel). As Paul puts it in Romans 10:14ff., "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?"
Each one of us is sent into the world to be the light of the world, speaking the word of life to the dead. But some are sent farther away than others, or are sent to focus the whole of their energies on ministering to the lost. Thus we consider the possibility that we ourselves might be called to go further away than we are now, or to commit our lives in a particular way to gospel ministry. Thus we raise money to give to missionaries and ministries around the corner and around the world. Thus we pray the Lord to raise up and send out laborers in His harvest field. To this end, please don't forget to be praying and considering how much your family might commit to pray for and give to missions in 2022, and turn in a commitment card this Sunday!
If New York Presbyterians could send out missionaries to Mississippi, then we Mississippi Presbyterians can and should continue to send out missionaries to all the places where the gospel is needed, near and far. The work of missions will continue until Jesus comes again, so let us be diligently committed to His glory