Young People's Missionary Movement

It soon became evident that a parallel movement or missionary quickening would be necessary among the Christian ministry and laity if the Church were to respond to the opportunity of sending these young men and women into the fields to which they had been called.[3]

There arose about this time, beginning in 1881, the great mass movement among the young people of the Churches which, within a few years, enrolled nearly 5,000,000 members in the various young people's societies, leagues, unions, brotherhoods, and similar organizations. But in many instances, these young people's societies were, or soon became, little more than an enrollment of the eager young life of the Church organized, ready for action, but awaiting a commanding objective and intelligent direction of their energy. It was felt by many leaders that nothing could constitute a stronger appeal or more worthily draw forth the latent power of these 5,000,000 young people than a presentation of the needs and the claims of the non-Christian world. Moreover, it was believed that the personal contact and work on the part of detained and other student volunteers with the young people in the Churches would prove a mighty factor in increasing missionary intelligence, interest, and a sense of responsibility.[3]

Accordingly, there was organized first in Canada in March, 1895, under the leadership of Dr. F. C. Stephenson, of Trinity Medical College, Toronto, a movement known in the early days as The Student Missionary Campaign for an Exodus of Missionaries. Enough work was accomplished in Canada during the first summer of 1895 to demonstrate the value of the propaganda. In the summer of 1896, after a winter of careful preparation, 70 campaigners were engaged in the work, reporting 517 meetings, attended by 35,000 people. Between 1895 and 1902, a total of more than 300 students were engaged in the campaign work in Canada, holding upwards of 3,000 meetings and organizing work in more than 1,100 centers. During that period, the annual missionary contributions from the young people's societies of the churches visited, increased steadily from $1,600 in 1895-96, to $30,226 in 1902-03, and at the end of the year 1902-03, 38 missionaries had been assigned to young people's societies for support over and above regular contributions through the Church treasury. While this work was going forward in Canada, there was the beginning of a similar Churches movement in the United States. As early as 1894, a group of Baptist student volunteers from Denison University devoted their summer vacation to a missionary campaign among the Baptist churches of Ohio; and during the three succeeding vacation periods, from five to seven students visited each year about 200 churches in Ohio and West Virginia.[3]

In 1897, eight volunteers from Northwestern University and Lawrence University visited some of the Epworth Leagues of Wisconsin. During the summer of 189, Willis W. Cooper, an interested layman who was directing and supporting this experimental work in Wisconsin, and Fletcher S. Brockman, one of the secretaries of the Student Volunteer Movement, went to Toronto to study the principles and methods of the Canadian work. The result was, that during the spring of 1898, Brockman visited 30 American colleges, enlisting and training 160 students for the summer campaign work. Through the generosity of Cooper, a central office was opened in Chicago, with S. Earl Taylor as secretary. During the five summers, from 1898-1902 inclusive, under Taylor's direction, more than 300 students from 30 colleges and 25 states visited and organized work in more than 2,000 churches, reaching directly with their message over 200,000 Church members. The significance of this work was striking when considering the fact that at the beginning of the campaign in 1898, only 4.5% of the Epworth Leagues, among which this campaign was conducted, had a nominal missionary committee. By 1906, largely as a result of the student campaign work, nearly all of the more than 21,000 Epworth Leagues of the Methodist Episcopal Church had missionary departments.[3]

The work thus somewhat extensively launched in one denomination was quickly adopted by other Churches, until in 1903, there were not less than 13 denominations using their student volunteers and other college students in the missionary campaign among their young people's societies. The work of the college students, however, being confined to the summer months, naturally reached largely the smaller towns and rural communities. It was apparent that to reach adequately the churches of the larger towns and cities, a carefully prepared plan of campaign would be required, extending through the winter months, and that the services of graduate rather than under-graduate students would be needed. For this work five Yale University men in the spring of 1898, offered their services without compensation for one year. This group of men, known as the Yale Missionary Band, visited during the year 1898-99 not less than 95 of the leading cities and towns, from the Missouri River to the Atlantic seaboard, addressed 900 meetings attended by 200,000 people, and held 364 conferences on practical methods of missionary work, attended by officers, committeemen, and official representatives of more than 2,000 young people's societies.[3]

Much might be said of the influence of this student campaign work, not only in the way of increased missionary intelligence, interest, prayer, and giving, but in the more important deepening of the spiritual life and devotion of the young people and of the entire church membership. Hardly less noticeable than the results in the churches has been the reflex influence upon the lives of the campaigners themselves and upon the general student body. Many of the campaigners were not volunteers when they began their work, but a person cannot prepare a missionary address and make an appeal in behalf of missions night after night to other people, without becoming increasingly impressed with his own personal responsibility to meet the need. Thus not a few of the campaigners, who had expected to spend their lives in the ministry or in business in the homeland, before the completion of their campaign work, had declared their purpose to respond to their own appeal for the mission field. Scores of others, influenced by their appeals but prevented from offering for foreign service, have become earnest missionary pastors or strong lay workers in the home field, as a result of their close study of the missionary problem.[3]

Soon after its organization, the Movement acquired the publication rights of the Forward Mission Study Courses and of the Missionary Campaign Libraries, which had been published originally to meet the demands created by the student missionary campaign or deputation work. In addition to these it published reference libraries, text-books, maps, charts, mission study helps, Sunday-school programs and accessories to meet the rapidly growing demand for suitable missionary literature for young people.[3]

This literature was not distributed direct to the church or young people's society, but through the offices of the missionary boards. It was the policy of the Movement to avoid any communication with a local church that would tend to divert the correspondence or support of the congregation from the established Church boards. On all the publications of the Movement, and especially on the textbooks and mission study helps, there was placed, whenever possible, the imprint of the missionary board which sold the books to its constituency. On the mission study helps was also printed the name and address of the board secretary to whom correspondence should be directed. In this way, the Movement was able to fulfill its mission of serving merely as the official clearinghouse for the regular missionary boards.[3]

The output of literature controlled by the Movement, including sales before and after the formal organization of the Publication Department, comprised seven mission study textbooks with an aggregate sale of 192,731 volumes; six uniformly bound libraries or sets of reference books of from seven to twenty volumes in each library; Mission Study Class Manuals, Helps for Leaders, announcements, and other accessories for mission study class work; maps, wall charts, programs, and other literature on the Sunday-school and missions; besides several pamphlet publications of a general missionary character.[3]

A considerable percentage of the delegates at the Summer Conferences of the Movement were college graduates. The membership of the mission study classes of the churches was composed in no small measure college graduates, and an increasing number of young persons were going from the study classes to college, favorably disposed toward missions. With an army of millions of more or less inexperienced Christian young people to be organized and intelligently directed in missionary effort, it was evident that one of the first demands was for trained leaders. Therefore, it was the policy of the Movement to hold each year, in different sections of the U.S. and Canada, missionary conferences or training schools for the better equipment of leaders in young people's work. The conferences were about ten days' duration.[3]

An extension of the work of the summer conferences was found in the Metropolitan Missionary Institutes which were held in important centers during the fall and winter months. These institutes had for their special purpose the training of the large number of workers in local churches who were prevented from coming in contact with the more extended program that was presented at the summer conferences. The first of these institutes was held at Dayton, Ohio, in October, 1904. They were in a sense miniature summer conferences bringing together for three consecutive days, the important missionary leaders and committeemen of the churches of a city and surrounding towns.[3]

The organization and conduct of mission study classes was rapidly becoming a science to which an increasing number of leaders were devoting themselves. In some metropolitan centers, a carefully prepared campaign was inaugurated in the early spring, for the organization and supervision of classes during the following winter. During the spring months, a normal class was organized for the advance instruction of those who would agree to teach other normal classes in the early autumn. Several of the best leaders and organizers were sent as delegates to the summer conferences. These delegates and others taught a series of normal classes during the early autumn, preparing and training leaders for classes in the churches during the winter. In this way, well-trained and experienced teachers were provided for classes that were conducted in one city during a single season.[3]