Who We Are
We are a worldwide community of churches, representing 13 million believers, committed to practising partnership in mission.
We believe that mission begins with God and that we are partners with God in mission. Mission is a task of the whole church and not just of interested individuals.
Our 31 members share their experience of mission through training, short-term exchanges and conferences. In partnership through CWM they also share financial resources and missionaries from one side of the globe to the other to carry out God's mission locally.
CWM has 31 members in Africa, the Caribbean, East Asia, Europe, the Pacific and South Asia.
Although CWM is just over 30 years old it is built on a long history of mission. CWM arose out of the London Missionary Society in 1977. It owes a great deal to its forerunners in mission – including such names as David Livingstone, John Williams and Robert Moffat – for sharing the word of God and Christianity across the globe from as far back as 1795.
CWM was set up to embrace more churches across the globe and widen its scope for mission by putting equality of partnership at the heart of its mission practice.
Guide to the Archive of the Overseas Mission of the Presbyterian Church of England
19 Nov 2009
One of the first acts of the newly-established Presbyterian Church in England (PCE) in 1844 was to set up a Foreign Missions Committee (FMC) to “institute foreign missions in connection with this Church as speedily as possible.”
CWM history
23 Jul 2007
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 complex story.
Overview of the CWM archive
18 Jul 2007
The CWM archive documents the extensive contact between the Western missionary enterprise and the indigenous peoples and cultures of Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean, from the late 18th to the late 20th centuries.
History of the London Missionary Society
18 Jul 2007
Leaders among the Independent Churches joined forces with Anglican and Presbyterian clergy and laymen to form a Missionary Society in 1795 whose object was "to spread the knowledge of Christ among heathen and other unenlightened nations". In 1818 the Society was renamed "The London Missionary Society" (LMS).