The World Missionary Conference 1910: Official Message

The Official Message from the Conference
To the Members of the Church in Christian Lands.

DEAR BRETHREN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH,

We members of the World Missionary Conference assembled in Edinburgh desire to send you a message which lies very near to our hearts. During the past ten days we have been engaged in a close and continuous study of the position of Christianity in non-Christian lands. In this study we have surveyed the field of missionary operation and the forces that are available for its occupation. For two years we have been gathering expert testimony about every department of Christian Missions, and this testimony has brought home to our entire Conference certain conclusions which we desire to set forth.
Our survey has impressed upon us the momentous character of the present hour. We have heard from many quarters of the awakening of great nations, of the opening of long-closed doors, and of movements which are placing all at once before the Church a new world to be won for Christ. The next ten years will in all probability constitute a turning-point in human history, and may be of more critical importance in determining the spiritual evolution of mankind than many centuries of ordinary experience. If those years are wasted, havoc may be wrought that centuries are not able to repair. On the other hand, if they are rightly used they may be among the most glorious in Christian history.
We have therefore devoted much time to a close scrutiny of the ways in which we may best utilize the existing forces of missionary enterprise by unifying and consolidating existing agencies, by improving their administration and the training of their agents. We have done everything within our power in the interest of economy and efficiency; and in this endeavour we have reached a greater unity of common action than has been attained in the Christian Church for centuries.
But it has become increasingly clear to us that we need something far greater than can be reached by any economy or reorganisation of the existing forces. We need supremely a deeper sense of responsibility to Almighty God for the great trust which He has committed to us in the evangelisation of the world. That trust is not committed in any peculiar way to our missionaries, or to Societies, or to us as members of this Conference. It is committed to all and each within the Christian family; and it is as incumbent on every member of the Church, as are the elementary virtues of the Christian life—faith, hope and love. That which makes a man a Christian makes him also a sharer in this trust. This principle is admitted by us all, but we need to be aroused to carry it out in quite a new degree. Just as a great national danger demands a new standard of patriotism and service from every
citizen, so the present condition of the world and the missionary task demands from every Christian, and from every congregation, a change in the existing s ale of missionary zeal and service, and the elevation of our spiritual ideal.
The old scale and the old ideal were framed in view of a state of the world which has ceased to exist. They are no longer adequate for the new world which is arising out of the ruins of the old.
It is not only of the individual or the congregation that this new spirit is demanded. There is an imperative spiritual demand that national life and influence as a whole be Christianized: so that the entire impact, commercial and political, now of the West upon the East, and now of the stronger races upon the weaker, may confirm, and not impair, the message of the missionary enterprise.
The providence of God has led us all into a new world of opportunity, of danger, and of duty.
God is demanding of us all a new order of life, of a more arduous and self-sacrificing nature than the old. But if, as we believe, the way of duty is the way of revelation, there is certainly implied, in this imperative call of duty, a latent assurance that God is greater, more loving, nearer and more available for our help and comfort than any man has dreamed. Assuredly, then, we are called to make new discoveries of the grace and power of God, for ourselves, for the Church, and for the world; and, in the strength of that firmer and bolder faith in Him, to face the new age and the new task with a new consecration.

The Official Message from the Conference
To the Members of the Christian Church in non-Christian Lands.

DEAR BRETHREN IN CHRIST,

We desire to send you greeting in the Lord from the World Missionary Conference gathered in Edinburgh. For ten days we have been associated in prayer, deliberation, and the study of missionary problems, with the supreme purpose of making the work of Christ in non-Christian lands more effective, and throughout the discussions our hearts have gone forth to you in fellowship and love.
Many cases of thanksgiving have arisen as we have consulted together, with the whole of the Mission Field clear in view. But nothing has caused more joy than the witness borne from all quarters as to the steady growth in numbers, zeal, and power of the rising Christian Church in newly-awakening lands. None have been more helpful in our deliberations than members from your own Churches. We thank God for the spirit of evangelistic energy which you are showing, and for the victories that are being won thereby. We thank God for the longing after unity which is so prominent among you and is one of our own deepest longings to-day. Our hearts are filled with gratitude for all the inspiration that your example has brought to us in our home-lands. This example is all the more inspiring because of the special difficulties that beset the glorious position which you hold in the hottest part of the furnace wherein the Christian Church is being tried.
Accept our profound and loving sympathy, and be assured of our confident hope that God will bring you out of your fiery trial as a finely-tempered weapon which can accomplish His work in the conversion of your fellow-countrymen. it is you alone who can ultimately finish this work: the word that under God convinces your own people must be your word; and the life which will win them for Christ must be the life of holiness and moral power, as set. forth by you who are men of their own race. But we rejoice to be fellow-helpers with you in the work, and to know that you are being more and more empowered by God’s grace to take the burden of it upon your own shoulders. Take up that responsibility with increasing eagerness, dear brethren, and secure from God the power to carry through the task; then we may see great marvels wrought beneath our own eyes.
Meanwhile we rejoice also to be learning much our-selves from the great peoples whom our Lord is now drawing to Himself; and we look for a richer faith to result for all from the gathering of the nations in Him.
There is much else in our hearts that we should be glad to say, but we must confine ourselves to one further matter, and that the most vital of all.
A strong co-operation in prayer binds together in one all the Empire of Christ. Pray, therefore, for us, the Christian communities in home-lands, as we pray for you: remember our difficulties before God as we remember yours, that He may grant to each of us the help that we need, and to both of us together that fellowship in the Body of Christ which is according to His blessed Will.

Source: W. H. T. Gairdner, Edinburgh 1910 : an account and interpretation of the World Missionary Conference, Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, London, 1910, pp. 277-281.