CWM

History of the Council for World Mission

To make sense of the past 30 years, it is helpful to break down the history of CWM into five periods, in order to gain some perspective on what is a long and detailed period of time.

Anticipation and preparation

In 1966 the London Missionary Society and the Commonwealth Missionary Society came together to form the Congregational Council for World Mission (CCWM). A new governing structure saw the Congregational churches and unions in Great Britain share responsibility with the churches and Unions of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Then, in 1972, the United Reformed Church in the UK was formed, drawing the Presbyterian Church of England and its mission body, the Foreign Missions Committee (founded in 1847), into a relationship with the dominant body in the CCWM. In 1973 it officially became the Council for World Mission.

Upon its formation, the Council had agreed to a regular six yearly review, the very first being scheduled for Singapore in January 1975.

A crucial element in the lead-up to this meeting was the meeting of the World Council of Churches’ Commission for World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) in Bangkok featuring the theme, Salvation Today.

Held at the turn of the years 1972 and 1973, this meeting concentrated on issues such as contextual theology, cultural identity, and relationships between churches of the North and South.

CWM invited leaders from the “daughter” churches to be present in Singapore, and this review conference proposed far reaching changes to the Council:

The Consultation came to the unanimous view that as now constituted, the Council represents only a very restricted understanding of the missionary task (from the west to the developing nations of Africa, Asia, The Pacific, and the Caribbean); that it perpetuates the relationship of donor and recipient; and that it fails to give adequate place to the talents of every church in the one cooperative enterprise.

The new structure of the Council for World Mission, brought into being in June 1977, was formulated to address the inadequacies of the model of mission sharing as it was then.