For the past two centuries, students have had an enormous impact on foreign missions.  David Howard has said that, “On the North American continent the beginnings of overseas interest on the part of the church can be traced directly to student influence”.[1]  Beginning at the “Haystack Prayer Meeting” with students from Williams College, there has been a continuous stream of student mission movements that have raised up prayer warriors, organizers, missionaries, and an incredible amount of enthusiasm for sharing Christ to all the nations.  In fact, there are clear and tangible links that can be traced from the Haystack Meeting to today’s mammoth triennial missions conventions in Urbana, Illinois (This paper was written in 2003. The conference is now held in St. Louis. Also, please excuse some of the formatting issues that happened while I imported this Word document). 

The 19,000 students meeting for Urbana 2000 in December can look back to the last two centuries and be thankful for a common heritage and share in a common vision.  The focus of this paper is to discuss student missions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries while paying special attention to how these movements link together.  I recognize that, especially in the discussion of the late twentieth century, the paper is not entirely comprehensive.

INTRODUCING THE CONNECTIONS

            Samuel Mills, who led the Haystack Prayer Meeting in 1806, went on to have an influence in creating the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), which was the first indigenous American foreign missions sending board.  He also helped to found the Society of the Brethren at Andover Seminary which placed a continual emphasis on missions for decades to come.  In 1846, the ABCFM sent out

Royal G. Wilder to India for mission work.  His wife would eventually give birth to a son, Robert Wilder, who was one of the great leaders of the Student Volunteer Movement (SVM).  In 1877, Luther Wishard became secretary of the International Committee of the YMCA.  In the same year, he heard of Samuel Mills and the Haystack Prayer Meeting and became driven by the same vision to create a student missions movement that would send countless thousands to share Christ in all lands.  He would eventually work hand in hand with the Student Volunteer Movement, which was at times, seemingly inseparable from the YMCA. 

In 1886, the Student Volunteer Movement began at Mt. Hermon, Massachusetts, under the preaching of D.L. Moody, the vision of Robert Wilder, and the incredible organizational skills of John Mott.  The movement would eventually account for 20,000 volunteers sent to the ends of the earth. 

Beginning with World War I, the SVM’s vision for “the evangelization of the world in this generation” began to give way to greater focus on the social gospel.  During the quadrennial convention in Des Moine in 1920, became obvious that a new leadership was taking over and the task of world evangelization was not the top priority.

However, in 1936, mission-minded students and some dissenting members of the Student Volunteer Movement joined to create the Student Foreign Missions Fellowship (SFMF) in order to refocus on the original goals of the SVM.  This organization eventually merged with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), which was also greatly concerned with missions.  In 1946, IVCF held their first student missionary conference in Toronto and was a resounding success.  Two years later, they moved the convention to Urbana, where it is still held today.  These are the connections that we will trace.

PRE-HAYSTACK INFLUENCES AND PREDECESSORS

There are three main factors to be recognized that were at work preceding the Haystack Meeting that Mills led in 1806. First of all, we must consider the importance of the development of religious societies within colleges. Next to be recognized is the fact that there were other students who organized missions societies before them. Last, the importance of the revivals taking place across England and the United States in what was their recent past cannot be underestimated. These three subjects frequently overlap.

The first factor, the development of student religious societies, could be seen as a rather odd innovation in light of the fact that the universities were founded by churches primarily for religious education and were supposed to be a community of believers.  However, the moral and religious climate of many schools degenerated rather quickly.  Clarence Shedd writes, “At Dartmouth in 1798 – in contrast to 1775 – the state of religion was so far reduced that but a single member of the class of 1799 was publicly known as a professing Christian”.[2]  This condition, along with a general need for a less formal approach and more intimate approach to the spiritual life, helped lead to students forming their own societies.  Among the first such societies recorded can be found in a reference made by Cotton Mather in a funeral in 1706.  Shedd records the event in the following:

Mather in a funeral sermon preached on the death of a young schoolmaster, Recompense Wadsworth, said that when Wadsworth had been in college two years (1706) he made a covenant with God and that some of the students formed a society which, laying to the heart of general decay of serious piety, in the professors of it, resolved upon essays to speak to one another and in sweetest methods of brotherly love, watch over one another or carry on some suitable exercises of devotion together wherein they might prove blessings not only to one another but unto many more unto whom they might be concerned for (emphasis mine).[3]

The second factor, the previous student missionaries, began well before the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  Robert A. Fryling writes, “Ever since Daniel and his three friends were taken from their homeland and placed in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, students have had an active role in being missionary witnesses in foreign cultures.”[4]  Therefore, a brief history of other students’ influence on missions is necessary.

David Howard tells us that “Perhaps the earliest traceable instance in which students had a part in promoting a world outreach is found in Germany in the early seventeenth century”.[5]  It is here where we find that seven law students from Lubeck, Germany committed themselves to taking the gospel overseas while studying in Paris.  “At least three of them finally sailed for Africa. . . . the name of Peter Heiling has survived.  After a two-year stay in Egypt, he proceeded to Abyssinia in 1634.  He spent some twenty years in that land, where he translated the Bible into Amharic and finally died a martyr.”[6]

In addition, the great Moravian missionary movement, which preceeded William Carey, began with Count Nikolaus Von Zinzendorf as a student.  He formed the Order of

the Grain of Mustard Seed, “which had as one of its purposes to carry the gospel of Christ to those overseas who had never yet heard the message”.[7] Fryling goes on to say, “Much of modern worldwide missionary movement can be traced to the hearts of those students who gathered together to pray for world evangelism”.[8]

Last was the influence of the recent American and European revivals.  Fryling relates that “the First Great Awakening had its greatest impact chiefly among the young.  David Brainerd was one such young person at Yale who committed his life to the evangelization of Native Americans.”[9] There is evidence to suggest that David Brainerd was also in some form of a student religious society.  Shedd quotes Jonathan Edwards as saying, “there were several religious students that associated themselves with one another for mutual conversation and assistance in spiritual things, who were wont to open themselves to one another as special intimate friends: Brainerd was one of this company.[10]

“The 1787 revival at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia marked the beginning of the Second Great Awakening.”[11]  This revival began as the result of four young men meeting for prayer.  When their meeting became known among the students, a great controversy ensued.  The President, John Blair Smith, then invited the students to meet with him to pray.  This not only began a revival at Hampden-Sydney, but was one of many on college campuses for the following decades to come. It is this revivalistic atmosphere which brings us to Williams College.

FROM THE HAYSTACK TO MOUNT HERMON

                Shortly after Williams College received its charter in 1793, the year Carey left for India, the spiritual condition of the students was anemic.  “Infidelity became rampant even to the point of persecution.  Ridicule and abuse were heaped upon any student who showed signs of turning toward Christianity.”[12]  Two students who had been influenced by the revival in nearby Litchfield County became instrumental in raising the level of spiritual interest at the school, which eventually erupted into a spiritual awakening by the year 1905-06.  Samuel J. Mills, Jr. entered the school during this revival. 

            Mills was heavily influenced by his parents.  His father was a pastor and his mother taught him early in his life about missions. This was a significant fact considering that there were no missions-sending organizations in the United States at the time.  Shedd writes that “She had taught him to think of the whole world as belonging to Christ and from her lips he had heart of Eliot, Brainerd, and other missionaries”.[13]  Consequently, Mills brought with him a missionary spirit that was able to flourish in the current spirit of revival.  Although being in appearance unimpressive and having an unclear voice, he was able to have a great influence on his fellow students and became a leader of the prayer group with whom he met regularly.  He also made world missions a regular topic of prayer within the group.  However, it was one particular day of prayer that cemented their commitment to missions and began a movement that has had an enormous impact on the worldwide commitment to spread the gospel. 

In one of these meetings, where the topic of discussion was ‘Asia,’ held one sultry afternoon in August, Mills gave vent to his enthusiasm for the conversion of the world.  Owing to the weather, only five men – Mills, Richards, Green, Loomis, and Robbins – were present.  Crouching under a near-by haystack as a partial protection against the storm that suddenly came upon them, they conversed with eagerness upon the subject of sending the Gospel to foreign lands.[14]

Shedd elaborates and describes how the meeting ended.

Bowed in prayer, these first American student volunteers for foreign missions willed that God should have their lives for service wherever He needed them and in that self-dedication really gave birth to the first student missionary society in America.[15]

This led a group of mission-minded students, Luther Rice included, to form the Society of the Brethren, with its stated goal being “to effect in the persons of its members a mission or missions to the heathen”.[16]  After their graduation, several of these same students went to Andover Seminary, where they joined other students, including Adoniram Judson in creating a Society of the Brethren there also.  During the next sixty years of this society, 527 people joined and approximately half of this number actually went out to foreign lands.[17]  It was directly due to the influence and petition of these students that, in 1810, the General Assembly of Congregational Churches approved the formation of the ABCFM.[18]  Finally, the United States had an indigenous missions board capable of sending and supporting missionaries.  Although Rice and Judson eventually left the ABCFM, its history is still highly significant for having sent them in the first place, along with many others.  At Judson’s death, there was a Burman church of seven thousand.  These were just the beginning of a great number of people who were able to look back and thank God for moving in the hearts of the men at the Haystack Prayer Meeting. 

In 1811, the members of the Society of the Brethren founded the Society of Inquiry on the Subject of Missions.  “Its purposes were primarily informative and educational – collecting and disseminating information on the needs of the world and the church’s responsibility to meet those needs.”[19]  The significance of this society can be found in the many groups formed afterwards, from 1811 to 1858, whose name began with “Society of Inquiry,” and laid an emphasis on missions.  Out of 156 colleges and 46 theological seminaries in existence in 1858, 49 of them had such societies.[20]  While many of these societies were not to be compared to Andover in zeal of effectiveness, their existence is highly significant in regards to the changed mindset of their generation.[21] 

The interest in missions spread throughout the first half of the nineteenth century had an influence in the creation of the intercollegiate YMCA.[22]  The YMCA was begun in 1844 in London by George Williams, who had been influenced by the writings of Charles G. Finney.  Latourette writes, “The Young Men’s Christian Associations, therefore, were an outgrowth of the Evangelical Awakening” and functioned to promote and teach evangelism.[23]  In 1851, YMCAs began to spread in North America largely as a movement focused on reaching the city.  In 1855, the World’s Alliance of YMCAs was organized in Paris.  At this time there were already nine countries represented, with 329 associations and approximately 30,000 members.[24] 

The Convergence of Student Societies and the YMCA   

            It was not until the influence of Luther Wishard that the YMCAs became a movement among college campuses.  Latourette writes,

Wishard took the lead in bringing together the student Young Men’s Christian Associations into an intercollegiate movement.  This was in 1877, at an International Convention in Louisville.  That body authorized the appointment by the International Committee of a secretary to take charge of the general work of the Associations in colleges and other higher educational institutions.  Wishard was induced to accept the post.

During the first year, in a seminary lecture, he heard of the haystack meeting.  That and contact with his roommate, who was dedicated to missions in China, led Wishard to decide to become a missionary to that country.  After two years, Wishard was induced to give full time to the student secretaryship.[25]

The vision of Mills and the others at the Haystack Prayer Meeting translated for Wishard into a dream of seeing YMCAs working in conjunction with missions on college campuses worldwide. Wishard even made a visit to the Haystack Monument where “he knelt down in the snow and made an unreserved surrender to the great Leader of those earlier volunteers”.[26]  He made an oath, saying, “I am willing to go anywhere at any time to do anything for Jesus”.[27]  Shedd writes,

Believing the time was ripe for the fullment of the desires of Mills, Wishard said: ‘Let the students in these closing years of the century consummate what our fellow students in the early part of the century attempted.  Let us engraft a missionary department upon this Intercollegiate Movement.  We are their lineal spiritual descendants and successors; what they had begun is ours to complete.  They had willed, but our wills must now be brought into the plan to consummate their daring purpose.[28]

Before Wishard had his visions, Royal G. Wilder left as a missionary to India under the ABCFM in 1846 and became the father to Robert P. Wilder in 1863 while still on the mission field.  Ill health forced them to move back to the United States and they settled down in Princeton.  For the following years, father and son worked together for the cause of missions on the Princeton campus.  Robert’s sister, Grace Wilder, was instrumental in helping him develop his vision.  Grace was involved in the Mount Holyoke Missionary Association, established in 1878 by Marian Holbrook.[29]  This Association was to be a predecessor to Mount Hermon.  Supported by father and sister,  “He (Robert) was instrumental in the formation of the Princeton Foreign Missionary Society in the fall of 1883.”[30]  Through the leadership of Wilder, this Association declared their purpose by vowing “We are willing and desirous, God permitting, to become foreign missionaries.”[31]

In 1885, Wishard and Charles Ober tried to convince evangelist and lifelong YMCA worker D.L. Moody to host a lengthy, unhurried student missions conference.  “The somewhat reluctant Moody was persuaded to undertake it, and Wishard and Ober went through the colleges recruiting delegates.”[32]  Among the delegates recruited would be Robert Wilder and John R. Mott. 

MOUNT HERMON TO TORONTO

            In the Summer of 1886, 251 delegates from eighty-nine different colleges and universities from Canada and the United States came to Mount Hermon, Massachusetts to spend twenty-six unstructured days of listening to Moody and spending intense time in prayer, Bible study, and worship.  In the lives of the people attending, the result would be the equivalent of the Haystack Prayer Meeting.  In terms of a movement and organization for missions, the result would be much greater. 

            It was not the first student convention to meet the purpose of focusing on foreign missions.  In October of 1880, one such meeting occurred in New Brunswick.  The New Brunswick Convention was the first national meeting of students, whether from colleges or seminaries, centering wholly upon the home and foreign missionary obligations of the Church and of the schools and colleges.  It was also the largest national student religious meeting held up to this time.  In a very real sense it stands out as the forerunner of the later series of quadrennial conventions of the Student Volunteer Movement which brought together both college and seminary students.[33]

This meeting brought about the organization of the American Inter-Seminary Alliance, which would later be a channel for the SVM.  It also was responsible for creating an interest in foreign missions in seminaries and, consequently, helped provide delegates for the conference at Mount Hermon. 

            Another significant event preceeding the Summer of 1886 was Moody’s trip to England in what resulted in his preaching to the famed “Cambridge Seven”.  In 1883 Moody was asked to conduct evangelism at Oxford and Cambridge.  Despite ridicule from many who considered themselves intellectually superior, Moody was to have a great impact. It was during one of these meeting that two famous Cambridge athletes, C.T. Studd and Stanley Smith, were converted.[34]  “These two students later were the center of the Cambridge Missionary Seven, and the story of their decision to go to China started a wave of missionary enthusiasm among English university students like that which later started in American colleges by the Mt. Hermon Missionary Band.”[35]  C.T. Studd’s brother, J.E.K. Studd, who was also a very popular Cambridge athlete, visited the United States to conduct evangelism and spread the missionary enthusiasm.  In 1885 he made a crucial visit to Cornell to tell about the Cambridge Seven and subsequently had an impact upon the life of a young man named John R. Mott.  Having been led into a life-changing  religious experience by Studd, Mott eventually changed the religious life of Cornell dramatically. 

            It was after this experience that Wishard and Ober secured the presence of Mott and Wilder for the Mt. Hermon meeting.  Shedd writes, “It staggers one’s imagination to picture the significance to the religious and missionary life of the world of the persistance of both Wishard and Ober in securing the attendance of these two students from Cornell and Princeton to this first summer student conference”.[36]

The Mount Hermon Conference

            With the vision shared, a meeting place procured, and the delegates secured, Moody was ready to lead the conference that would launch the SVM.  Unlike the following student missionary conferences, the Mt. Hermon Convention allowed for almost an entire month of reflection, recreation, prayer, fellowship, and the passionate preaching of Moody.  Because the conference was not tightly structured, there was time for students to spend casual time together in prayer and discussion about their spiritual lives and missions.  Howard describes the early period of the conference as follows:

During the first two weeks there was no formal missionary emphasis.  But throughout this time Robert Wilder and a group of twenty-one students were meeting regularly, in leisure hours or in the evenings, to pray that God would raise up from this conference a great host of missionary volunteers.  One by one these students signed the Princeton Declaration stating that they were ‘desirous and willing, God permitting, to go to the unevangelized portions of the world’.[37]

This created a momentum for a missions emphasis which led to this same group asking Dr. A.T. Pierson, editor of The Missionary Review, to give an address on missions.  Included in Pierson’s speech was the proposition that “all should go, and go to all”.  This later developed into the watchword of SVM, which was “the evangelization of the world in this generation”.[38]  Pierson became known as its originator.

            While this missionary enthusiasm was growing, the students convinced Moody to let them hold a “Meeting of the Ten Nations”.  This was designed to let ten different students speak on behalf of different nations in order to describe their needs and share a vision for reaching them for Christ.  They later returned to their rooms and various places to continue to pray.  By the end of the conference there was a total of one hundred who had signed the declaration to commit to missions.  “Robert Wilder returned to Princeton with great joy to tell his sister Grace that their prayers had been answered.”[39] 

            In order to continue the momentum for missions created by the conference, it was decided that someone should be appointed to travel to campuses across the country to spread enthusiasm and commitment.  Robert Wilder and John Forman, another Princeton graduate, were selected.  “During the school year of 1886-87, Wilder and Forman traveled to 162 institutions in the United States and Canada. . . . By the end of the year, they had seen 2,106 students sign the volunteer declaration, of whom about five hundred were women.”[40]

The Student Volunteer Movement is Officially Launched

            The need for organization became quickly apparent.  In 1888, there was another conference at Northfield, which would be the beginning of the quadrennial conventions that would meet there.  This resulted in the formation of a committee. 

The result was that an executive committee was formed with representatives from several cooperating movements.  John Mott was chosen to represent the YMCA, Miss Nettie Dunn the YWCA, and Robert Wilder the Inter-Seminary Missionary Alliance.  Mott was unanimously chosen as chairman, and Wilder was named traveling secretary.[41]

They took the official name of the Student Volunteer Movement in New York City in December of 1888.  Their fivefold purpose was as follows:

To lead students to a thorough consideration of the claims of foreign missions upon them personally as a lifework; to foster this purpose by guiding students who become volunteers in their study and activity for missions until they come under the immediate direction of the Mission Boards; to unite all volunteers in a common, organized aggressive movement; to secure a sufficient number of well-qualified volunteers to meet the demands of the various Mission Boards; and to create and maintain an intelligent sympathetic and active interest in foreign missions on the part of students who are to remain at home in order to ensure the strong backing of the missionary enterprise by their advocacy, their gifts and their prayers.[42]

            The following years witnessed a great expansion of the SVM under the leadership of several key figures.  J. Herbert Kane writes that “much of its early success was due to the missionary vision of Robert P. Wilder, a graduate of Princeton University; the spiritual power of D.L. Moody, the greatest evangelist of the nineteenth century; and the organizing genius of John R. Mott”.[43] 

Patterson concurs, but places an emphasis on Wilder by saying that “Indeed, it was Wilder who channeled the raw enthusiasm of Mount Hermon into something durable, not only because he was a visionary, but also because he threw himself into the recruitment efforts and personal work that sustained the SVM in its initial stages”.[44]  In 1892, he returned to India with his newlywed wife only to return in 1897 at the behest of Mott to accept a traveling secretaryship with the SVM.[45]  In 1919 Wilder became General Secretary of SVM, cementing his mark on the history of the movement.  Along with the uncanny organizational skills of Mott came a strong pre-existing relationship with the YMCA.  C. Howard Hopkins gives a brief summary of this relationship.

         “As President of Cornell University Christian Association, he built it into the largest and most active student YMCA – a preparation for his career.  Upon graduation in 1888 he took a one-year assignment as traveling secretary with the Inter-collegiate YMCA.  He was an immediate success: as evangelist to and organizer of students, charisma emerged at once, people he had never met sent contributions, he early revealed an uncanny facility to appraise men whom he drew into the movement as leaders, and such were his administrative and diplomatic gifts that the student groups grew by leaps and bounds.[46]

As Chairman of the Executive Committee of the SVM, Mott did more than anyone to ensure the connection between this movement and the YMCA.  Indeed, the SVM became “the missionary department of the student YM-YWCAs, and for three decades, Mott inspired, funded, and directed it, making it coeducational in spite of the male chauvinism of the YMCA leadership”.[47]  This leads us to one of Mott’s more significant achievements: the creation of the World Student Christian Federation.

The World Student Christian Federation

            The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) was born of the idea to create a unity among Christian students within the YMCAs around the globe.  Loosely defined, Wishard had begun working toward this goal before Mott.  In 1888, Wishard began a trip around the world that would last for four years conducting evangelism, organizing YMCAs, and laying the groundwork for the future work of the YMCA.[48]  Mott, however, had a different plan for the same general vision.  “Wishard had thought to reproduce everywhere the American model in which student associations were university branches of the Y.M.C.A.  It was part of Mott’s genius to conceive of a more flexible federation, more adapted to diverse national traditions, and more acceptable to existing organizations.”[49]  The three primary purposes of the WSCF were written as follows:

1. To unite student Christian movements or organizations throughout the world.
2. To collect information regarding the religious condition of the students of all lands.
3. To promote the following lines of activity:
4. To lead students to become disciples of Jesus Christ as only Savior and as God.
5. To deepen the spiritual life of students.
6. To enlist students in the work of extending the kingdom of Christ throughout the whole world.[50]

Given the similarities of these stated goals, the fivefold purpose of the SVM, and the common personalities involved, the WSCF should be seen as a development of SVM as well as the YMCA. 

            The YMCAs spread to thirty-one countries and carried with them a witness of evangelism and a social aspect that focused on social ills and physical exercise.  It provided a Christian answer, in many places, to the Marxist accusations that Christianity did not care about social problems.  Latourette writes, however, that “We must frankly recognize that in no land had more than small minorities been enrolled in the membership of the Association.  Conversions to the Christian faith had been still fewer.  Even in China, where conversions through the agency of the YMCA had been far more numerous than in any other country, they had totaled only a few thousand.[51]  Regardless, he still adds that they had a great impact in creating a unity among Christians that went beyond race and nation, and consequently, bore a good witness to the world.[52]

            In addition, the tireless work of Mott with the SVM and YMCA led to his ecumenical spirit that included Catholics and the Orthodox Church.  This background helped him to contribute to the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910, the International Missionary Council, and the World Council of Churches.[53]

Other Prominent Figures of the SVM

            Robert E. Speer was also one of the great leaders of the SVM and was its second traveling secretary.  He had a passion for preaching and was very persuasive in his call for volunteers.  Speer was greatly influenced by A.T. Pierson the year before the Mount Hermon conference, where he became one of the original hundred volunteers.  John F. Piper, Jr. relates that after hearing Pierson speak, Speer publicly acknowledged Christ for the first time.[54]  He, like Mott, did not actually move to another land to be a missionary, but was found to be more effective in recruiting others.  Piper elaborates:

The first time a person heard Speer’s version of A Missionary Call he could be devastated.  The future missionary and historian of missions, Kenneth Scott Latourette, was struck down by it.  He reported that he read the pamphlet one summer while he was in college and the argument unsettled him. . . . That next summer at a student conference he signed the SVM declaration. . . . Speer announced that . . . the call to be a Christian was the call to foreign missions. ‘The whole thing’, he said, ‘reduces itself to this simple proposition.  There is a general obligation resting upon Christian men to see that the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached to the world.  You and I need no special call to apply that general call to our lives.’[55]

Speer’s preaching did much to advance the SVM and the Kingdom of God. 

            Another greatly influential figure was Miss Ruth Rouse from England.  She attended her first student conference in 1894 at Keswick, where she first met Mott and Speer.  This began a lifelong relationship with SVM.  She would only spend two years on the mission field in India, where she organized work among schoolgirls and women students, but like others mentioned above, she found her calling in working tirelessly for missions from the home base.[56]  Mott exercised great judgment and lack of prejudice when he asked Rouse to become a traveling secretary with the SVM.  She was also a prominent leader within the WSCF.  Ruth Franzen tells us that “(Rouse’s) own contribution was to direct the attention of the national leaders of the YWCA to the student field, to help them understand the importance of their student departments, and to make valuable links with some new, very important colleges”.[57] 

            Like Rouse, there were many other women who played important roles with the SVM.  Having been moved themselves by the current revivals and missions movements, women were looking for an outlet for ministry and, in some cases, a career.  While there was little opportunity for ministry in their homeland, the opportunities on the mission field were abundant.  This coupled with their desire to see the women in other nations have a raised status.  While there were a few women on executive committees, women like Rouse were in the minority.  “The majority, however, were invited to serve in three areas: medical, evangelistic, or educational missions.”[58] 

The Decline of SVM

            World War I, in many respects, began the decline of the SVM.  The Great War presented a dilemma to the SVM and the Christian missionary enterprise in general.  At first, the war was seen to be almost an extension of the fight for the Kingdom of God itself.  Soon, however, after incredible devestation and loss of life, a different perspective emerged. 

In the call sent out to the colleges from the American SVM missionary conference in 1918, the war was said to be ‘a summons to penitent recognition that there has been something amiss with Christian civilization.’ This was Christendom’s war.  Christian nations were partners ‘in the sins that so sharply antagonized us one against the other and that at last ran their shears through the fabric of international society.’ Christians were at fault that war was even allowed to survive, and were also culpable for the spirit of hate in which the war was being carried out.[59]

Another factor that came into play was the exposure of many for the first time to people belonging to other religions.  Because these religions had always been presented in such a negative and prejudiced light, the young Westerners were surprised to see that they were not the fundamentally immoral and corrupt people as they had been taught.  “Many began to doubt whether Christianity was the ‘one true religion’.”[60]  Simultaneously, Walter Rauschenbusch’s “social gospel”, which focused on meeting tangible human needs, to the exclusion of evangelism, began to gain an audience.  

            While the 1920 SVM Convention in Des Moine marked their greatest attendance, it could also be said that it marked the beginning of the end.  Not only was there no great missionary focus in the convention, but many who attended were not even professing Christians.  The problems of race relations, economic ills, and world peace were of greater importance, to the exclusion of world evangelization.[61]  By 1940, the purpose of SVM had become so blurred that it no longer was a significant factor in the promotion of missions.  In 1959, the SVM merged with several organizations that eventually formed the University Christian Movement.  In 1969, the UCM disbanded.[62]

Contributions of the SVM

            Despite the eventual termination of the SVM, the movement had an enormous impact on world missions.  Over a twenty-five year period, starting from the beginning of the SVM, there was an educational program focused on missions which grew to 40,000 in 2,700 classes in 700 institutions.  These efforts on the campuses were combined with the quadrennial conventions, literature distribution, speaking tours, and other recruiting activities.  By 1945, there were over 20,500 missionaries who were called by the SVM and eventually reached the foreign mission field.[63]  “The movement more than tripled the number of missionaries from North America.  They served primarily under the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Congregational churches.[64]  The decline of the organization of the SVM, however, did not mark the end of its influence.  Their vision and passion inspired a new generation after them.

TORONTO, URBANA, AND BEYOND

            Amidst the discouraging atmosphere following World War I and during the Great Depression of the 1930s, there began to be reawakened in North America a sense of urgency and passion for missions.  However, it was not due to a revival of the SVM, but rather was the result of God moving two separate organizations together – Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) and the Student Foreign Missions Fellowship (SFMF) – to restore the original vision of the SVM.  Both of these organizations had direct historical roots and connections to the latter.

Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship

            The IVCF actually began in Britain before the official launching of the SVM.  “The Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, founded in 1877, was the progenitor of the IVCF.”[65]  It was Moody’s famous visit to Cambridge and the subsequent missionary calling of the “Cambridge 7” that prompted the visit of C.E.K. Studd to the United States.  As mentioned previously, this led several key figures to attend the Mount Hermon Conference.  It also had a great impact on British students.  Given the time frame in which the SVM followed the founding of IVCF, H. Wilbert Norton proclaims, “Clearly, a direct historical relationship exists through the Cambridge evangelistic ministry of D.L. Moody, the response of the Cambridge students, the Mount Hermon Conference, the founding of the Student Volunteer Movement, and subsequent establishment of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship”.[66]

The Student Foreign Missions Fellowship

            If it is the case that all missions movements are sparked by revival, then the founding of the SFMF is no exception.  In 1936, there was a series of chapel services at Wheaton College that would prove to be of historical significance.  Early in the week, Don Hillis substituted for the expected speaker, Dr. Robert C. McQuilkin, who was the President of Columbia Bible College.  At the conclusion of his sermon, he asked the question, “What should a student who loves Christ do to receive the fullness of the Spirit’s power?  In the hours that followed, students responded by confessing their sins and asking forgiveness of their peers, faculty, adminstration, and God”.[67]  Dr. McQuilkin recovered in time to conclude the week’s services and included a strong missionary emphasis.  “At the end of the week, scores of students stood in holy silence before God as they publicly committed themselves to missionary ministry overseas.”[68] 

            Because theological liberalism was so pervasive with the SVM, this new wave of missionary fervor would require a new organization through which to channel students into missions.  Dr. McQuilkin worked together with students from the Wheaton revival, current members of the SVM who desired a change, and others to officially form the SFMF in June of 1936 at a student conference at Keswick, New Jersey.  “Many dedicated career missionaries, including numerous Wheaton graduates, were raised up from the SFMF.”[69]

The Merger

            In 1934, Stacey Woods became the general secretary of the IVCF in Toronto, thus, becoming the first in North America.  In October of 1939, Stacey Woods and Herbert Taylor began working together to establish an IVCF in the United States.  In April of 1940, they opened offices in Chicago.

    The IVCF had three declared purposes, the third of which focused specifically on foreign missions.[70] 

Since this third purpose of IVCF overlapped directly with the purposes of SFMF, it was not long before talks of cooperation began to develop.  Careful study was given for several years to the possibilities and implications of a merger.  When both groups were satisfied that a merger could help them to fulfill more effectively their mission from God on the campuses, it was formally consummated in November, 1945.  The SFMF now became the missionary arm of the IVCF.[71]

One of their first orders of business was to establish a student missions conference to recreate the passion and energy for world missions that the SVM had so clearly lost.  The first conference was held in Toronto in 1946 and was directed by Christy Wilson, the son of missionaries to Persia who had been active in the SVM during their days as students.  “Samuel M. Zwemer, ‘Apostle to Islam’, and pioneer missionary to Arabia, provided continuity with the nineteenth-century SVM era as senior speaker at Toronto.”[72]  Two years later they moved the conference to Urbana, Illinois, where it is still held today (This paper was written in 2003. The conference is now in St. Louis).

 Not only were Zwemer and others who had been active in the SVM also involved in IVCF, but “(Robert) Wilder himself, in the 1930s, passed the SVM torch to Inter-Varsity Fellowship and thus indirectly to the Student Foreign Missions Fellowship and the Urbana triennial missionary conventions.”[73]

In attempting to link the missionary wave of the early Urbana conferences to today, we not only have the existence of the triennial meeting itself, but also the story of two more Wheaton revivals.  In 1950, Wheaton College experienced a revival that had a profound impact on the local chapter of SMFM.  Howard writes,

This chapter was led by Jim Eliot as president, who was later to die as a martyr among the Auca Indians of Ecuador in 1956.  His influence on the campus as an outstanding scholar (graduated with highest honor), athlete (champion wrestler) and all-around spiritual leader was incalculable.  More students went from that campus to the mission field during this period than in any other period in the history of the college.[74]

This leads us to the Wheaton Revival of 1995.  During this revival, a graduate student from Indonesia, Leo Sumule, had an experience that impacted not only himself, but many others as well.  Dorsett records the event as follows:

Led by the Holy Spirit, (Leo) went into Blanchard Hall, where he prayed in front of the names of Wheaton graduates, listed by class year, who had gone into full-time, cross-cultural missions.  As he prayed and studied the names, he counted 127 men and women from the class of 1950 – the last class that had experienced a powerful, multi-day revival.[75]

After observing the contrast between the number of that class to every other since and noticing that there were only two other classes, both in the 1970s, that had even come close, he decided to challenge his fellow students. 

With passion in his voice and tears streaming down his face, Leo noted that he was here today because American missionaries went to Indonesia years ago and led his grandfather and father into a life-changing relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.  The articulate graduate student then challenged the students to go and finish the task in world evangelism that their predecessors had begun.[76]

His challenge was answered.  Fryling, in the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, found it noteworthy to mention that “The Wheaton revival in 1995 has had a significant impact on students praying for greater involvement in world missions”.[77]

Importance of Urbana

The Urbana student missionary conventions continued to influence missions throughout the rest of the twentieth century.  Today’s conferences average 19,000 in attendance for worship, Bible Study, missions workshops, and a constant focus of considering joining in global missions.  Dan Harrison, director of missions for IVCF, estimated in 1991 that approximately 140,000 people around the globe had participated in Urbana.  He also says that “Perhaps as many as 30 to 40 percent of them have been called into cross-cultural missionary service”.[78]  While it is recognized that Urbana was not the only factor in the sending of those missionaries, it is still believed to have made a major contribution.  “It is probably safe to say that in the second half of the twentieth century the Urbana conferences were the single greatest factor challenging students in North America to commit themselves to world missions.”[79]

CONCLUSION

I agree with the sentiments of Fryling when he says “It is difficult to assess all of the dimensions of student mission work.  However, it is not difficult to observe that students have had and will continue to have a significant role in world missions” (emphasis mine).[80]  While nations that have been traditionally mission fields are becoming mission-senders, the students are playing an active role.  It can be seen in events such as the 1973 All-Asia Student Missionary Convention in the Philippines. “Urbana has also become an international movement as God has raised up similar conventions for students in fifteen countries around the world”.[81]

Fryling lists several factors that make students uniquely effective in the work of worldwide missions: “In our current ‘information age’, student status provides access to all parts of the world.  The most endearing qualities of students, though, are their spiritual

commitment and zeal for the kingdom of God.  They are not yet entrenched in institutions and genuinely share the freshness of their faith with those who do not yet know Jesus.  They accept multicultural realities of the world without the prejudice of previous generations.  They have great passion and compassion for those in need and are ready for a full commitment to career missionary service.”[82]  Also, given the fact that over half of the world’s population is under the age of twenty-five, they will be an important resource to reach people their own age and the subsequent generations as well.[83]

In this paper we have explored the continuity of the work of God in nineteenth and twentieth century students from The Haystack Prayer Meeting to Urbana.  The passion of those involved and the enormous results achieved are inspiring.  The way in which their stories are interwoven highlights the hand of God and His passion for using young people for His service.  We need to learn from this history and have the vision to place a high priority on reaching students and teaching them to reach others.  May we pray that the chain of student missions movements remains unbroken and act accordingly.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Beougher, Timothy K. and Lyle W. Dorsett. Accounts of a Campus Revival: Wheaton College 1995. Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw, 1995.

College 1995. Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw, 1995.

Dietrich, Suzanne de. World Student Christian Federation: 50 Years of History. Translated by Audrey Aubrecht. Switzerland: WSCF, 1993.

Eddy, Sherwood. A Century With Youth: A History of the Y.M.C.A. from 1844 to

         1944. New York: Association Press, 1944.

Harrison, Dan and Maria Henderson. Hope for the World. Downers Grove, IL: Inter-

         Varsity, 1991.

Howard, David. Student Power in World Missions. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity,

         1979.

Kane, J. Herbert. A Concise History of the Christian World Mission: A Panoramic View

         of Missions from Pentecost to the Present. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978.

Latourette, Kenneth Scott. World Service: A History of the Foreign Work and World

         Service of the Young Men’s Christian Associations of the United States and

         Canada. New York: Association Press, 1957.

Parker, Michael. The Kingdom of Character: The Student Volunteer Movement for

         Foreign Missions (1886-1926). New York: University Press of America, 1998.

Rouse, Ruth. The World’s Student Christian Federation: A History of the First Thirty

         Years. London: S.C.M. Press, 1948.

Selles, Johanna M. Women’s Role in the History of the World Student Christian

         Federation, 1895-1945. New Haven, CN: Yale Divinity School Library,

         Occasional Publication No. 6, 1995.

Shedd, Clarence P. History of the World’s Alliance of Young Men’s Christian

         Associations. London: S.P.C.K., 1955.

_______. Two Centuries of Student Christian Movements: Their Origin and

         Intercollegiate Life. New York: Association Press, 1934.

Wallstrom, Timothy C. The Creation of a Student Movement to Evangelize the

         World: A History and Analysis of the Early Stages of the Student Volunteer

         Movement for Foreign Missions. Pasadena, CA: William Carey International

         Press, 1980.

Articles

Beach. Harlan P. “Sketch of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions”

         The Intercollegian, 28 (October, 1905): 50-51.

Borthwick, Paul. “We’ve Got to Win the Younger World” Evangelical Missions

         Quarterly, (July, 1992): 244-252.

Covell, Ralph R. “Haystack Meeting” in the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions,

                ed., A. Scott Moreau (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000): 425.

Escobar, Samuel. Mary Fisher, and J. Christy Wilson, “Urbana ’90 – A Student

         Missionary Convention and Missiological Event” Missiology, 19 (July 1991):

         333-345.

Franzen, Ruth. “The Legacy of Ruth Rouse” International Bulletin of Missionary

         Research, 17 (October, 1993): 154-157.

Fryling, Robert A. “Student Mission Work” in Evangelical Dictionary of World

         Missions, ed., A. Scott Moreau (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000): 912-914.

Hopkins, C. Howard. “The Legacy of John R. Mott” International Bulletin of Missionary

         Research, 5 (April, 1981): 70-73.

Howard, David M. “The Rise and Fall of SVM” Christianity Today, 15 (November 6,

         1970): 119-121.

_______. “Urbana” in the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, ed., A. Scott

         Moreau (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000): 991-991.

 Kennedy, John W. “Urbana ’93: Mission Force Looking More Asian in the Future”

         Christianity Today, 38 (February 7, 1994): 48-49.

Norton, H. Wilbert, Sr. “The Student Foreign Missions Fellowship over Fifty-Five

         Years” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 17 (January, 1993): 17-21.

Patterson, James A. “The Legacy of Robert P. Wilder” International Bulletin of

         Missionary Research, 14 (January, 1991): 26-31.

Piper, John F., Jr. “Robert E. Speer: His Call and the Missionary Impulse” American

         Presbyterians, 65 (Summer, 1987): 97-107.

Robert, Dana L. “The Legacy of Arthur Tappan Pierson” International Bulletin of

         Missionary Research, 9 (July, 1994): 120-124.

Russell, Thomas. “Can the Story Be Told Without Them? The Role of Women in the

         Student Volunteer Movement” Missiology, 17 (April, 1989): 159-175.

Shelley, Bruce. “The Rise of Evangelical Youth Movements” Fides Et Historia, 18

         (January, 1986): 47-61.

Showalter, Nathan D. “Crusade or Catastrophe? The Student Missions Movement and the

         First World War” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 17 (January,

         1993): 13-15.

Slack, Frank V. “The Haystack Centennial” The Intercollegian, 29 (November, 1906):

         26-30.

---

[1]David Howard, Student Power in World Missions, 2^nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity, 1979) 73.

[2]Clarence P. Shedd, Two Centuries of Student Christian Movements: Their Origin and Intercollegiate Life, (New York: Association Press, 1934), 36.

 

[3]Ibid., 2.

 

[4]Robert A. Fryling, “Student Mission Work”, in the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, ed., A. Scott Moreau (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 912. 

 

[5]Howard, Student Power for World Missions, 63.

 

[6]Ibid., 64.

 

[7]Fryling, The Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions,  913

 

[8]Ibid.

 

[9]Ibid.  

 

[10]Shedd, Two Centuries of Student Christian Movements, 16.

 

[11]Accounts of a Campus Revival: Wheaton College 1995, ed. by Timothy K. Beougher and Lyle W. Dorsett (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1995), 35.

[12]Shedd, Two Centuries of Student Christian Movements, 48.

 

[13]Ibid., 49.

 

[14]Endicott Peabody, “The Haystack Centennial”, The Intercollegian 29 (November, 1906) 28.

 

[15]Shedd, Two Centuries of Student Christian Movements, 52.

 

[16]Ibid.  

 

[17]Howard, Student Power in World Missions,  81.

 

[18]Ralph R. Covell, “Haystack Meeting”, in the Evangelical Dictionary for World Missions, 425.

[19]Howard, Student Power in World Missions, 82. 

 

[20]Shedd, Two Centuries of Student Christian movements, 69, 73.

 

[21]Ibid., 73-74.

 

[22]Howard, Student Power in World Missions, 81.

 

[23]Kenneth Scott Latourette, World Service: A History of the Foreign Work and World Service of the Young Men’s Christian Associations of the United States and Canada, (New York: Stratford Press, 1957), 21.

 

[24]Latourette, World Service, 22.

 

[25]Ibid., 36.

 

[26]Howard, Student Power in World Missions, 85.

 

[27]Ibid.

 

[28]Shedd, Two Centuries of Student Christian Movements, 157.

 

[29]Johanna M. Selles, Women’s Role in the History of the World Student Christian Federation, (New Haven: Yale Divinity School Library), 5.

 

[30]James A. Patterson, “The Legacy of Robert P. Wilder”, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 14 (January, 1991), 26.

 

[31]Latourette, World Service, 37.

 

[32]Ibid.

 

[33]Shedd, Two Centuries of Student Christian Movements, 219.

 

[34]Ibid., 235.

 

[35]Ibid.

 

[36]Ibid., 247.

 

[37]Howard, Student Power in World Missions, 91.

 

[38]Ibid.

 

[39]Ibid., 92.

 

[40]Ibid., 92-93.

[41]Ibid., 93-94.

 

[42]David Howard, “The Rise and Fall of SVM”, Christianity Today, 15 (November 6, 1979) 119.

 

[43]J. Herbert Kane, A Concise History of the Christian World Mission: A Panoramic View of Missions from Pentecost to the Present, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1978.

 

[44]James A. Patterson, “The Legacy of Robert P. Wilder”,  30.

 

[45]Ibid., 26-28.

 

[46]C. Howard Hopkins, “The Legacy of John R. Mott”, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 5 (April 1981), 70.

 

[47]Ibid., 71.

 

[48]Sherwood Eddy, A Century With Youth: A History of the Y.M.C.A from 1844-1944, (New York: Association Press, 1944), 90.

 

[49]Suzanne Dietrich, Fifty Years of History: The World Student Christian Federation (1895-1945), no. 2 in History Series of World Student Christian Fellowship, trans. By Audrey Abrecht, 1995, 24.

 

[50]Ibid., 24-25.

 

[51]Latourette, World Service, 445.

 

[52]Ibid., 446.

 

[53]  Hopkins, “The Legacy of John R. Mott”, 71.

 

[54]John F. Piper, Jr., “Robert Speer: His Call and the Missionary Impulse”, American Presbyterians, 65 (Summer 1987), 97.

 

[55]Ibid., 103.

 

[56]Ruth Franzen, “The Legacy of Ruth Rouse”, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 17 (October 1993), 155.

 

[57]Ibid.

 

[58]Thomas Russell, “Can the Story Be Told Without Them? The Role of Women in the Student Volunteer Movement”, Missiology: An International Review 17 (April, 1989), 168.

 

[59]Nathan D. Showalter, “Crusade or Catastrophe? The Student Missions Movement and the First World War”, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 17 (January, 93), 14.

 

[60]Ibid., 15.

 

[61]David Howard, Student Power in Missions, 100.

 

[62]Ibid., 103.

 

[63]Ibid., 97-98.

 

[64]Paul E. Pierson, “The Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions”, in the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, 914.

[65]H. Wilbert Norton, Sr., “The Student Foreign Missions Fellowship over Fifty-five Years”, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 17 (January 1993), 20.

 

[66]Ibid.

 

[67]Ibid., 18.

 

[68]Ibid.

 

[69]Beougher and Dorsett, Accounts, 55.

 

[70]Howard, Student Power in World Missions, 109.

 

[71]Ibid., 109-110.

 

[72]Norton, SFMF Over Fifty-Five Years, 20.

 

[73]Samuel, Escobar, Mary Fisher, and J. Christy Wilson, “Urbana ’90 – A Student Missionary Convention and Missiological Event”, Missiology,  19 (July, 1991), 334.

 

[74]Howard, Student Power in World Missions, 113.

 

[75]Beougher and Dorsett, Accounts, 82.

 

[76]Ibid.

 

[77]Fryling, “Student Mission Work”, in the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, 913.

 

[78]Dan Harrison and Maria Henderson, Hope for the World, (Downers Grove, Ill: Inter-Varsity Press, 1991), 8.

 

[79]David Howard, “Urbana”, in the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, 992.

 

[80]Fryling, “Student Mission Work”, in the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, 913.

 

[81]Harrison and Henderson, Hope for the World, 8.

 

[82]Fryling, “Student Mission Work”, in the Evangelical Dictionary for World Missions, 914.

 

[83]Paul Borthwick, “We’ve Got to Win the Younger World”, Evangelical Missions Quarterly, (July, 1992), 245.