The Unyielding Spirit of Black Christian Leaders in Early America

What if the untold stories of black missionaries in early America could inspire your own spiritual journey? Join us as we unearth the incredible lives of George Lyle and the Silver Bluff Church, the first black church in the United States. Their rise from slavery to influential spiritual leaders amidst the American Revolutionary War reveals profound challenges and sacrifices. We also explore the significant role that white allies like Mr. Galpin and Pastor Palmer played in helping to establish this historic church, breaking racial and cultural barriers in the process.

Listen in as we celebrate the legacy of George Lyle, who spread the gospel in Jamaica despite immense adversity, growing his congregation from four to 500 members. From severe persecution to unimaginable hardships, these black Christian leaders exemplified resilience and unwavering faith. Their inspiring stories, including that of Andrew Bryan, serve as powerful reminders to remain steadfast in your own spiritual mission. Let their bravery and determination encourage you to overcome any obstacle in your path.

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Chapters

• 0:01 Forgotten Black Missionaries in America
• 12:25 The Sacrifice of Black Christian Leaders

Transcript

W Austin Gardner: 0:01

Well, this is Austin Gardner, welcoming you back to the World Evangelism Podcast, and I'm excited to be with you. I was preparing to bring this lesson to you and I was so excited. I wanted to talk to you about Lot Carey, a black missionary who had started out as a slave and God greatly used him. So I began studying, and there's so many missionaries that are never mentioned or at least I didn't hear of them Maybe you did, but I didn't and yet God used them in great ways. And so I was working on that and I was back to my hero, george Lyle, and if you've heard that story a little bit of it I'm going to share more of it with you today. I just want to challenge you to consider sometimes we think we have suffered a great deal of carrying the gospel, but our brothers, our black brothers, our slave brothers in those days paid a price beyond anything I think we'd ever acknowledge. So I may spend just a little bit of time and just really just blow my whole schedule for what I want to do on the podcast with you. So I'm going to share with you some things today. The first identifiable black church in America is the Silver Bluff Church in Aiken County, south Carolina. It was founded somewhere around 1773 to 1775 by a guy named George Lyle my hero, the guy I look up to so much. This is the first church of Negro Baptists, as far as they can prove with any authentic writings anything that's trustworthy from back then. Now they're not the first believers, but the first ones that organized themselves into a church or allowed to. There are other black people that were members of other churches, white churches, but these formed the first church and so it's considered the first and the oldest church in the United States of America. And a man named Galpin was a British man who owned these slaves and had a large settlement. They call it, and what I'm reading here, the notes that I've come from they call it, and what I'm reading here, the notes that I've come from, are similar to a plantation, but this man was willing to love and help people, and so he helped them get started. I want to tell you a little bit of that story Now. Silver Bluff is on the Savannah River between South Carolina and Georgia. It's 12 miles from Augusta and it's in Aiken County, and so the area is famous. Because this one man, the town has disappeared. Silver Bluff Now, david George, who wanted to become somebody great and famous in the work of God, was one of the first members of the church that's there in Silver Bluff and he will later become their pastor.

W Austin Gardner: 3:14

But what I really enjoy reading, there's just two or three things I really enjoy reading. Number one I enjoy reading about brave, valiant men who, though they were slaves and suffering, were willing to pay the price to be pastors and men of God and to reach souls and to win people. But then I value very much people like Galpin, who was willing to be a donor, who was willing to open the doors and assist. He might not have been called and it might not have been his ministry, but he financed that ministry unselfishly. He didn't try to take advantage of the preachers. He didn't try. It was at great expense to himself, in a selfish sense of the word.

W Austin Gardner: 3:57

And then there was Pastor Palmer. He pastored a little ways off from Silver Bluff and he came and preached to a large congregation of Mr Galpin's place and then he begged the master, mr Galpin, and he told Brother Lyle, I want you all to beg for us to have an opportunity to come and preach to you. I want you all to beg for us to have an opportunity to come and preach to you. And out of this big congregation that listened, eight were saved and eight surrendered their lives to the Lord, including George Lyle and his wife, and they all became part of the church. And Brother Palmer I know we're talking about David George and Brother Palmer baptized them in the meal stream and he founded the church and, as David George says, and he gave us the Lord's Supper at Silver Bluff what a thrill that this man would cross racial boundaries, cross cultural boundaries and share the gospel. David George learned how to sing and began to teach the people how to sing, and Brother Palmer became his advisor to teach him. And then Brother Palmer gave him instructions on what it meant, as they assigned him the office of an elder and he taught him how to proceed. And it was pretty hard to be in the ministry back then because the people who owned slaves were very much afraid of this and so they didn't want white people to come preach amongst them and they didn't want the black people to. But Brother Palmer taught and trained David George and helped him. The church reached an attendance of 30 or more before the city fell, before all that went down with the war, the church had been under the charge of Brother Palmer and George Lyle. Now David George was going to take up that charge and I'll probably mention this to you again because, just to be honest with you, I'm just full up with loving these people and loving what God's doing. George Lau paid $850, which is about $22,000 in our time to get he and a couple of of his family members their freedom, working as a slave and preaching and doing everything else he had to do. He was so industrious and he saved his money so well that he was able to buy their freedom. And now that he's a free man, he's no longer welcome at Silver Bluff, not by Brother Galpin. Brother Galpin wasn't that kind of man, but it was because of all. The other slave owners were like, wait a minute, if our slaves find out he got his freedom, they might get their freedom, and so they won't do that. And so now the war is starting to break out and Britain begins to offer Great Britain begins to offer the slaves their freedom if they will go on the side of Great Britain, if they will be against the colonies and against the United States. And so many, many hundreds of them deserted to Tobby Island. It got down to the point that the president of the Council of Safety from Charleston, south Carolina, wrote a letter and said if the Negroes desert and you can't catch them, they should be shot. They should just be killed. That was to let them know no more deserting of the black people running away, abandoning their masters. It had literally become a threat to the revolution. Now, george Lyle he was not a runaway slave, but he went to Tybee River and he took up a boat there and he had been working with Mr Henry Sharp. He actually got I may have messed up and not made it clear he paid his $850 to Henry Sharp and so he goes there and is Lau. and he is working in the Savannah area trying to get the gospel out. And LauL great man, george Galpin, who's a very giving man, a very kind man, who has great talents, who is full of justice and kindness, and he's kind to the red man, he's kind to the black man, he was a kindly person, he was David George's master and David George said no one can do anything but praise him and thank the Lord for how good he is. He was an anti-loyalist, he was a patriot, according to Brother George and he said he was a very humane master but without him there would have been no church Because the slaves were under the leadership and the protection and the brutal ownership of these other men. But he made it possible. They ordained David George to become the pastor of the church and Galpin helped with everything getting them a house of worship, a place to baptize and everything that was going on. But then the war happened and the church kind of disappears. And after the war the church comes back together and they're was going on. But then the war happened and the church kind of disappears. And after the war the church comes back together and they're bigger than ever and the church at Silver Bluff basically disappears and they move to Savannah, georgia. Mr Galpin has gone to Savannah and he takes David George with him and David George goes to Nova Scotia with a whole bunch of other white people and on to Sierra Leone and is doing a great work of God. So I just think it's interesting for you to know that all these times we talk about the Revolutionary War, there were slaves that were actually carrying the gospel message of Jesus Christ to other people. Now the Silver Bluff Church gets revived and before they ever moved to Savannah, jesse Peter is the pastor and he is the guy that's helping them and guiding them. He's taken over from Reverend David George and God is greatly using him. And after the war and after they have to run over to Savannah, jesse is still the pastor.

W Austin Gardner: 10:28

They said it was kind of funny because a lot of the guys you know, george Law, will go to Jamaica and David George will go to Sierra Leone, but Jesse didn't want to leave. He stayed there in his place. Jesse Peter, they said maybe just because he liked where he lived, maybe it was because he had an indulgent master and he only had nominal slavery, or maybe he was just willing to be there and suffer for Jesus. That's what the history books say. Hard to know what was really going on, but he became their pastor and the church was running 60. On. But he became their pastor and the church was running 60. So God was doing a work saving people in the most harsh conditions of our country and they were beginning to follow Jesus and serve Jesus. It's just so exciting to watch all that's happening. So that church at Silver Bluff, there just outside of Augusta, then the church will be over in Savannah and the things will just continue on and things are happening in big ways.

W Austin Gardner: 11:28

And I kind of said all that to get back to my buddy, george Lyle. He's the first American Baptist foreign missionary. He goes to the mission field 15 years, at least 15 years, before William Carey does. Now I was headed today to talk about Lot Carey and I'll get to him and I know that I'm supposed to be talking to you about a book and I just am so full of how God used these men. I think it can teach us so much. Those of us that have a little money ought to be giving and not selfish and let other people do the work and help them do the work. And those of us who have a little more knowledge and maybe come from the more cultured side ought to be teaching and training like the preacher did. And those of us that are nationals ought to be paying the price. Everybody ought to be going against the social norms to get the gospel out.

W Austin Gardner: 12:25

George Lyle I love how they put it in this history book about him. Handicapped by the chains of human slavery, hampered by law-enforced ignorance, incurring penalties of being a Negro, rose above all those degrading circumstances and became a chief factor in the human salvation of Jamaica. That's where God's going to take him to start a church. When he first gets to Jamaica he preaches at the horse racetracks, he preaches on the street. Later on he hires a room at his own expense and, believe this or not, he started a church with four people in the church but it wasn't long. Eight years later, 500 people in the church. He built a chapel.

W Austin Gardner: 13:11

Later on he gets put in jail. He gets placed in the stocks. They put him on trial for his life because they said, instead of preaching the gospel, he was teaching the slaves how to rebel and they didn't want him talking to any more slaves. And they even hung the man because of the preaching that was going on there. But George Lyle would not quit George Lyle by now.

W Austin Gardner: 13:37

Because of Galpin and others, some British people are beginning to find out great things about him. And so George Rippon in Great Britain gets a letter from George Lyle and George Lyle basically writes the following I'm 40 years old I'm not sure because I don't know when I was born. He said my wife's about my age. I believe my oldest son's 19 years old and then 17, then 14. And I have a little girl that's 11. They're all members of my church and he says I'm a farmer but you know, sometimes farming seasons aren't the best, so I have a team of horses and a wagon so I can truck goods back and forth for people. I do the best I can to keep a good testimony. I only have a few good books by some good authors and a few sermons and one large Bible that a gentleman gave me. I'm so thankful to have a few books to read on Sundays and other days. There's no other Baptist church in all of our land but ours.

W Austin Gardner: 14:36

He built a church building. It was 57 feet long and 37 feet wide. He got the walls up to eight feet high. He told George Rippon. He said you know what? I have tried my best to set a good example of hard work and paying my bills and doing the things I was supposed to do as a preacher and as a man of God to all of our people here. But I'll be honest with you, I can't keep everything up. I can't do it all. He said we've read your letter. Everything you write to us, brother Rippon, it's read in our church and we are so blessed and so excited to see what God has done. I'd just like to take maybe the next five minutes and just really kind of go over some other things.

W Austin Gardner: 15:22

I don't know how much you know about what they suffered. I know you see TV shows about slavery and there was definitely abuse and things were bad. But do you know that many of them suffered that way because they were preachers, because they were men of God? Andrew Bryan and his brother Samson, who got saved about a year after him, were imprisoned two times. Fifty others got put in jail with him. He was severely whipped, inhumanely cut, bled abundantly under all the lashes and as they whipped him he said he would freely suffer for the cause of Jesus Christ. They tried to say that it was because he was trying to cause rebellion among the black people, but that wasn't the case at all. All they wanted to do was share the gospel of Jesus Christ and tell people they could be saved. They call these churches that the black guys had colored churches because no white people would go there. And I might pause just a moment to say what a crying shame that is. That is, that our brothers were ignored and pressed over to the side, beaten, abused, mistreated, worked 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week, 18-hour days, still studied their Bibles and still preached to get the gospel message of Jesus Christ out.

W Austin Gardner: 16:50

I just want you to know you hear a lot of hero stories about William Carey and you hear a lot of hero stories about Adonai and Judson and other white guys. I'm white and I'm not woke, but I tell you what it is amazing to me when I consider all that my brothers and sisters went through for the cause of Jesus Christ. I'm thrilled beyond measure when I think about what happened for them. I want to challenge you to get a hold of the books that you can read. If you have Logos Bible Program, you can get a hold of them there in Logos. You need to look up books about black heroes. You need to look up books that tell you about what our brothers and sisters did.

W Austin Gardner: 17:40

I think that maybe, just maybe, these black men Andrew Byram and George Lyle we may all take a backseat to them. Our greatest heroes may take a backseat to them. Our guys went with money and education and support and respect. I know they got mistreated by the enemy, but these people got mistreated by their brothers, the white Christian leaders in their day. So I come to the thought where I just want to challenge you that maybe we need to stop being so easily discouraged and so quick to run away from doing the work of God. Maybe we should look at things and say others have paid a tremendous price, and I'll pay a price too.

W Austin Gardner: 18:37

I understand George Lyle bought his freedom and then sold himself back into slavery indentured servanthood, which is another form of slavery so he could get to Jamaica and get out of America where he wouldn't be put back into slavery. I just question it every time I hear it. I haven't suffered anything for the cause. Things have happened in my life. But the truth of the matter is these people were abused and mistreated beyond anything we could ever dream of. And now I believe that there are other people, maybe of other races, in other parts of the world and speaking other languages, that are doing a great job in suffering for Jesus. There are Christians, probably in Nigeria, in China, in India, that pay a price we've never dreamed of paying. I had a pastor friend I have a pastor friend in Mexico who was making about I don't know $6,000 American dollars a month in Mexican money, pesos, and he was fired because he loved Jesus and he said that's all right. I'll pastor a church where they pay him about $200 a month.

W Austin Gardner: 20:00

All I can say, brethren, is there's a world to be reached with the gospel. I'm so excited about our heroes. I may have pretty blown it. This podcast may not be. I just got too excited to study it. I got to hearing about my brothers and got excited about who they are, so I hope that you'll enjoy it and share it. This is the World Evangelism Podcast. I am so honored to be your host. I just want to inspire you for world evangelism and I want to empower you that you could do all that God has called you to do. God has big plans for you, big plans for you, and there's no reason you shouldn't reach out and take them, surrender to be who God wants you to be and be willing to pay a price. And I know there'll be discouragements and I know people will go back on you, but it's okay. We have not yet resisted under blood, though I know some who have, or I don't know them, but I've read about them. God bless each of you. Thank you for listening. I'll see you soon.