Biographical Sketch on George Lisle, Essay Example

George Lisle:  His Contributions to Christian Missionary Work and Legacy

Within the history of Christian missionary work, African-American George Lisle, born in 1750 in the Commonwealth of Virginia as a slave to Baptist deacon Henry Sharpe who set Lisle free to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ sometime around 1775, is considered as the first Baptist minister to travel outside of the American Colonies as a missionary. Lisle is also considered as the first African-American Baptist minister and for establishing one of the earliest black churches, being the African Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia. Thus, as an African-American missionary pioneer, George Lisle, even though he lacked a proper theological education, “blazed a path that would shape American foreign and cross-cultural missions, church planting, and the contextualizing of the Gospels for decades to come.” ¹

Lisle’s first excursion beyond the physical borders of the American Colonies as a Baptist missionary occurred shortly after Henry Sharp’s death during the War for Independence from Great Britain. Afraid that he might end up back as a slave under the dominion of a harsh Master, Lisle became the servant of a high-ranking British officer and with his assistance and some good fortune managed to borrow enough funds to pack up his growing family and move to the island nation of Jamaica. Within two short years, Lisle, after paying back what he had borrowed as a form of financial release from his indenture as a former slave, devoted every waking moment to preaching to the people of ____________

1. “George Lisle (1750-1820),” last modified 2014, accessed February 1, 2014,

http://www.faith2share.net/Mission/Missionaries/GeorgeLisle/tabid/284/language/en-GB/Default.aspx.

Jamaica. ² So successful was this devotion that four former American slaves joined in with Lisle to create the Jamaican version of the First African Baptist Church in the capital city of Kingston. Within ten years, the church’s congregation expanded to more than five hundred converts to the Baptist faith. As Kenneth Davis notes, Lisle’s success as the first black Baptist missionary in Jamaica helped to “establish at least three new congregations, a remarkable achievement for a largely self-taught preacher” who always exhibited “solid evangelical faith” and taught that true security lies in the hands of the Almighty. ³

However, while in Jamaica, Lisle and his converts encountered a number of problems related to the white missionaries who were “quick to find evidence of heathenism in the unsupervised embrace of Christianity by black flocks,” an indication that Lisle was having to content with strident racism, even in a nation comprised of mostly black citizens with French backgrounds. To make matters worse, Lisle began to refer to his congregation as the Native Baptists ⁴ which infuriated the white missionaries to the point where they attempted to discredit Lisle and his Jamaican flock of Baptist converts. It appears that Lisle’s relationship with other American missionaries, most of whom were white, was quite stable and rewarding; however, the British missionaries in Jamaica felt differently toward Lisle, so in order to congeal his relationship with them, Lisle “sent urgent appeals to the British Baptists to send missionaries to Jamaica.” ⁵

____________

2. M.G. Potter, “In Honor of Black History Month: George Lisle,” last modified 2011, accessed February 1, 2014, e.com/blog/2011/02/28/in-honor-of-black-history-month-rev-george-lisle.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. “Pioneer Black Baptist Missionaries: George Lisle and Lott Cary,” last modified 2009, accessed February 1, 2014, nsbeyond.blogspot.com/2009/04/pioneer-black- baptist-missionaries.html.

Thirteen years after Lisle’s death in 1820, Jamaica experienced a slave revolt which concluded with the emancipation of all Jamaican slaves from the clutches of the mighty British Empire. This event can be directly linked to Lisle’s missionary work in Jamaica over the course of almost fifty years; it can also be “directly correlated to another later Baptist missionary in Jamaica, William Knibb” who carried on Lisle’s work well into the 19th century. ⁶

One of George Lisle’s greatest contributions to the history of black Baptist missionaries was his contextualization of the Gospels. In other words, Lisle preached the Gospel in ways that were understandable to the Jamaican people; however, some of the American and British missionaries charged Lisle with being contradictive or not adhering to the Word of God as found in the Holy Scriptures, especially concerning the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Lisle also attempted to insert African distinctions and cultural traits into his preaching, due to believing that his Jamaican converts would more fully understand and appreciate the Gospels via their African heritage. ⁷

As to his legacy, although George Lisle is not as well-known nor recognized as other celebrated figures in the history of the church, such as Martin Luther who initiated the Protestant Movement and John Calvin, he nonetheless helped to bring the Gospels to the Caribbean during a time when the British Empire ruled with an iron fist under the monarchy of King George III. Overall, today’s American missionaries, especially ____________

6. Ibid.
7. M.G. Potter, “In Honor of Black History Month: George Lisle,” last modified 2011, accessed February 1, 2014, e.com/blog/2011/02/28/in-honor-of-black-history-month-rev-george-lisle.

African-American missionaries, owe a great deal to the efforts of George Lisle. As M.G.

Potter sees it, modern-day American missionaries and the religious institutions that support missionary work around the globe “are only building upon a foundation laid two hundred years ago by an uneducated, freed slave named George Lisle” ⁸ who clearly understood the power of the Gospel and what it could do to better the lives of those willing to believe by faith.

Bibliography

“George Lisle (1750-1820).” Last modified 2014. Accessed February 1, 2014. http://www.faith2share.net/Mission/Missionaries/GeorgeLisle/tabid/284/language /en-GB/Default.aspx.

“Pioneer Black Baptist Missionaries: George Lisle and Lott Cary.” Last modified 2009.  Accessed February 1, 2014. nsbeyond.blogspot.com/2009/04/pioneer-black-baptist-missionaries.html.

Potter, M.G. “In Honor of Black History Month: George Lisle.” Last modified 2011. Accessed February 1, 2014. e.com/blog/2011/02/28/in-honor-of-black-history-month-rev-george-lisle.