Reflections on Southern Baptist Missions Efforts North of the Mason-Dixon Line
Part One of Stories as Told to or Experienced by George Bullard
Reflections on Southern Baptist Missions Efforts North of the Mason-Dixon Line
“Where is your hog jowl?”
While pushing my mother’s shopping cart through a grocery store north of Philadelphia during the week after Christmas 1965, I saw her ring the bell at the meat counter to call a butcher. When the man slid open the window, she made her request.
“Ma’am,” he replied, “what part of the South are you from?”
She said North Carolina, but that we had lived in Baltimore for the past eight years. “They had hog jowl in Baltimore. What about here?”
“No, we do not save and sell that part of the pig. We can get you some fatback, would that do?”
That would suffice and she was glad to get it. It was time to cook beans, peas, and greens for New Year’s Day. She needed hog jowl or something similar.
Apparently, Southern Baptists and the northeast states from Pennsylvania to Maine did not go together. At least concerning food preferences.
Doing Church North of the Mason-Dixon Line
For readers who are geographically challenged, the Mason-Dixon Line is that state line that runs west to east separating Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.
Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon surveyed and defined the line in the 1760s to settle a border dispute between these colonies.
It is also the line that separated Southern Baptists and Northern/American Baptists regarding the organization of new churches. A long-standing agreement between the two denominations had existed for more than 100 years.
Some people date it back to 1845 when the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) formed and separated from the Baptists in the north. But the agreement not to cross that line to plant churches could not always control the autonomy of Baptist churches or efforts by groups of families.
By 1958 a dozen or more churches who considered themselves Southern Baptist existed in the northeast part of the country. Some formally affiliated with the SBC denomination, and others did not.
Intentional efforts began to support existing churches and to plant new churches in northeastern states.
Manhattan Baptist Church and Others
A widely told story is that in 1957 when a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade was held at the Madison Square Garden—as churches were brought together to organize for the crusade—several dozen families who were formerly members of SBC churches in the South found one another.
Education, work, military service, and other motivations brought them to the New York City area. Out of their Christian and church commitment, they found capable churches with which to connect. None, however, were like the churches they loved in the South.
Following the crusade, a group of families organized Manhattan Baptist Church. A church like they experienced back home. They sought help from pastors and churches in the South. The SBC Home Mission Board and a couple of state conventions began to interact with them.
By 1958 they were underway. As were other churches in various locations throughout the northeast. Soon congregations around Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Boston, and many other locations launched. Also, intentional church planting through SBC missions efforts began in a significant way.
Philadelphia Drew My Family
When a cluster of churches emerged in various locations. The SBC local denominational organization known as Baptist associations began to be organized. Church planter strategists who also served as the associational missionary were recruited and supported by the Home Mission Board `.
My family was drawn to southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey in 1965 for my father to serve as the missionary for the Delaware Valley Baptist Association. It was five churches and two missions when we arrived.
It was that first year when my mother went on a hunt for hog jowl. I was 15 and the only child still at home when we moved from a pastorate in Baltimore to a missionary role in Philadelphia.
Seems like northern organizing of Southern Baptist churches started in the 1950’s. I’ll be interested to see if your experience in PA was similar to mine in MI, George.