A Revival in Student Mobilization?

Great hope in the face of great challenges

Yesterday I hosted a CEO Thought Leader Briefing with Mark Matlock, the recently appointed Executive Director of the Urbana Missions Conference. Mark did a superb job telling our community about the future of Urbana, as well as fielding some fairly pointed questions about Urbana’s recent past.

In the scope of this discussion, Mark shared 10 observations about why student missions mobilization has failed. He sent me that list, and here it is (I shortened and edited it a little):

1. Changes in leadership broke the continuity of its life and left the subtle impression of a sinking ship from which they were fleeing.

2. There was increasing difficulty in financing its program.

3. The program tended to become top-heavy.

4. Its emphasis upon foreign missions seemed to overlook the glaring needs in America, and so the movement appeared to be specialized rather than comprehensive.

5. When the interest of students veered away from missions, it left the movement in a dilemma as to which interest to follow—student or missionary.

6. There was a great decline in missionary education.

7. Their emphasis shifted away from Bible study, evangelism, lifework decision, and foreign-mission obligation. Instead, they now emphasized new issues such as race relations, economic injustice, and imperialism.

8. The rise of indigenous leaders reduced the need for Western personnel.

9. The rise of the social gospel.

10. Revivalism had given way to basic uncertainty as to the validity of the Christian faith, especially of its claim to exclusive supremacy.

Take a few seconds and look over that list again. Does it capture well what many of us in missions leadership are feeling about this generation?

Now, I have a little surprise for you.

That list was written about the Student Volunteer Movement (SVM) in a 1941 dissertation by William H. Beahm. 1941. The SVM was a startling outpouring of missionary mobilization that began in the late 1800s. Its flame burned for about 40 years. At one point, more than two out of every three deployed missionaries had been influenced by it.

When Beahm was writing his dissertation, he was trying to understand why this flame had burned itself out. The SVM, like any successful movement, institutionalized as it met with success. Cultural challenges had made its mission appear irrelevant. It must have felt rather bleak writing those words in 1941.

In just a few short years, however, the post-World War 2 generation would rekindle a missions movement that was even larger than the SVM had been. Whereas the original SVM had sent around 20,000 missionaries, returning soldiers, having been exposed to the needs of the world, would send some hundreds of thousands.

Today, Beahm’s 1941 list could be used almost verbatim. I cannot speak to things like “the program tended to be top heavy.” I would probably exchange the word “imperialism” for “colonialism” and add “gender dysphoria” to his list of “new issues.” Other than that, the list is very close to the same observations most of us would make about the current mobilization environment.

This should give us great hope. We must press on to pray for a new student missions movement.

This list is helping shape Mark’s efforts to revitalize and breathe new life into Urbana. Yet the message is much broader, something all who care about the Great Commission should take to heart.

The recruitment and deployment of young people is the lifeblood of both past and future missions mobilization movements. We might be poised on the doorstep of a new student volunteer movement.

This might be our own 1941 moment.