discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 48
48 Christian Mission
Morrison was traveling found out why Morrison was going to China, he asked,
“Now, Mr. Morrison, do you really expect that you will make an impression on
the idolatry of the Chinese Empire?”
“No, sir,” replied Morrison, “but I expect God will.” 16
The London Missionary Society, which had been founded in 1795, sent
Robert Moffat to Africa in 1816. It was Moffat’s report of seeing “the smoke of
a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been” that inspired David
Livingstone to go to Africa in 1840.
Across the Atlantic, Samuel Mills of Connecticut felt a call to missionary
service. In 1806, Mills enrolled in Williams College in western Massachusetts.
One day he and five other students who had gathered for an outdoor prayer
meeting took refuge from a rainstorm in the lee of a haystack. While that
group normally prayed for the spiritual renewal of their campus, during that
Haystack Prayer Meeting they found themselves praying for the spiritual
needs of people around the world. That prayer meeting ignited a missions passion
in their souls that never dissipated. On June 28, 1810, Mills, joined by
Adoniram Judson and others, pleaded with the “Reverend Fathers” of Congregationalism
to do something about fulfilling the Great Commission among the
unreached. Thus, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
was born and by February of 1812 it had sent out its first eight missionaries,
including Adoniram and Ann Judson.
In the mid-1800s, with Christian missionary work taking root in coastal
cities around the globe, young missionary J. Hudson Taylor began feeling
drawn to the unreached interior of China. In 1865 he resigned from his mission
board and formed the China Inland Mission. Taylor’s passion and his mobilizing
skills made the China Inland Mission (now known as OMF International)
the largest missionary sending agency in the world and sparked the
formation of other mission boards focused on inland areas.
Being a missionary during the great century was not the easiest of vocations.
Missionaries of that era frequently had their lives cut short by disease or
hostile people groups. In some areas of Africa, the average life span of Western
missionaries in the 1800s after arriving on the field was only nine months.
During that period, some missionaries used coffins as shipping crates in order
to spare others the trouble of constructing burial boxes for them.
No Sacrifice Too Great
If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too
great for me to make for Him. 17
—C. T. Studd, missionary to Africa