The Baptist Missionary Society’s Home Mission Contribution, 1792–1810

ABSTRACT The Baptist Missionary Society’s participation in home mission efforts from 1792 to 1810 sheds light on an often overlooked segment of the BMS’s history. In 1795, the BMS began to conduct home mission with the desire to inspire additional domestic efforts. To achieve this goal, the BMS sponsored village preaching in the UK through both direct and indirect methods. By 1810, the BMS withdrew its direct support of home mission in order to focus on its primary goal of carrying the gospel abroad, while the growing success of organisations like the The Baptist Society in London for the Encouragement and Support of Itinerant Preaching and the improving Particular Baptist condition may have contributed to this decision. Consequently, the BMS’s early role in home mission deserves a more prominent place in its history, especially given the renewed attention the BMS has given to domestic mission in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.