The Message from Milton

Milton is located on the north side of the greater Stoke-on-Trent area in Staffordshire, England. That is about 155 miles north of London. It is part of what is known as "the Potteries." This area is historically where the Royal Doulton and Wedgwood factories have been turning out the finest China over the last two hundred years or more.

On Saturday, 19 June 2004, local history was made when the Milton Free Baptist Church called its first British pastor, David Moore and his wife Hazel. BIMI for years played an active role in bringing the congregation to the place where it would be indigenous, that is, self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating.

Church leader Brian Ecclestone remembers when Bob Vaughn and Farrell Kearney (BIMI) held meetings in the Smallthorne Community Hall in the 1970's. A few miles away in Milton, there was an old Congregation Church, established in 1828, which had closed and became a billiard hall. Here is where a well-known local preacher named Bob Bolton-Lear came to preach to a little group called the Full Gospel Church (not Charismatic).

In 1981, the two fellowships joined informally until Brant Holladay (BIMI) was called two years later to form what became the Milton Free Baptist Church on June 11, 1986, with thirty-one members. When the Holladays left, Bob Davis and family came to labor for four years. BIMI church planter Michael Schrimshire followed Davis in 1997, and remained until David Moore was called this last June.

The message from Milton tells how God's people first came together for worship, accepted some missionary assistance until they were able to stand on their own feet, called their own pastor, and provided the pastor's family with adequate salary and home. The focus of Baptist International Missions must remain the establishing of Baptist Churches where the need is the greatest.