I’m enjoying my stay at the Singapore YMCA. On my way to breakfast each day I pass this plaque displaying their mission statement.
There are some worthy ideals about “serving and enriching all members of the community.” Nothing about the gospel.
The YMCA was once an evangelical missionary movement. It birthed the Student Volunteer Movement which mobilized [...]
Category Archives: Movement lifecycle
What happened to the Y?
17 March, 2010 – 8:17 AM
Anglo-Catholics and Anglican decline
12 February, 2010 – 8:55 AM
Peter Corney is a leading evangelical Anglican in Melbourne. He takes a look at Anglican decline and especially the decline of the Anglo-Catholic movement within the Anglican church.
Here is his (edited) list of trends that have contributed to Anglo-Catholic decline:
1. Anglo-Catholics drifted away from the credal and biblical orthodoxy of its founders and gradually embraced [...]
Aussie mainline decline
3 February, 2010 – 8:22 AM
Scott Stephens offers a lament to the lowest common denomination — his own Uniting Church of Australia.
Unfortunately the trend goes back even further than Scott realizes.
The unsurprising decline of the mainline
2 February, 2010 – 3:24 PM
The decline of the Protestant mainline in America began over 150 years ago. It has continued ever since, picking up momentum since the 1960s.
We don’t really need more evidence, but here it is courtesy of George Barna’s latest report.
A generation ago the Protestant landscape of America was dominated by the six major mainline denominations (American [...]
How it began
2 January, 2010 – 9:19 PM
SVM2 Haystack Video from SVM2 on Vimeo.
We began the story of the Student Volunteer Movement in 1886. Eighty years earlier God was preparing the way for the greatest student missionary movement in the history of the church.
In 1806 Five students gathered to pray for revival on their campus and in their generation. Samuel Mills, a [...]
A lost cause
19 December, 2009 – 9:49 AM
In 1927 Robert Wilder resigned and returned to the mission field. He was the first and last of the founding leaders. The Student Volunteer Movement continued to distance itself from the missionary ideals that had launched it.
At the 1928 SVM convention in Detroit, Sherwood Eddy publicly repudiated the founding vision of the movement: “The Evangelization [...]
Wishing you a “progressive” Xmas
18 December, 2009 – 9:45 AM
A “progressive” Anglican church in Auckland, New Zealand has erected a billboard depicting Mary looking dejected after unsatisfying sex with Joseph.
The huge ad shows the unhappy couple in bed accompanied by the slogan: “Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow.” In the fresco-style work, Joseph looks down red-faced while an anguished Mary looks [...]
Embracing another gospel
16 December, 2009 – 10:35 AM
How are we to account for the decline of a once great missionary movement? One important factor was the acceptance of a more “relevant” gospel.
Just before World War I, the Social Gospel movement led by theologians such as Walter Rauschenbusch (above) began to influence the thinking of the Student Volunteer Movement. It became a dominant [...]
The decline begins
14 December, 2009 – 8:18 AM
During the 1920s the Student Volunteer Movement suffered its first reverses.
The first quadrennial convention following World War I was held at Des Moines, Iowa, in 1920. This was the year that the SVM reached its zenith. Attendance climbed to 6,890 at the Des Moines Convention. Within twelve months 2,783 students enrolled as missionary volunteers.
It was [...]
Global expansion
11 December, 2009 – 8:09 AM
Under Luther Wishart of the YMCA the Student Volunteer Movement became a world wide movement for missions mobilization.
Wishart was an unlikely founder: overweight, nearly blind, lacking the natural charisma of a leader. Regardless, he set off on a four year world tour determined to make college campuses the “strategic points in the world’s conquest.’”
John Mott [...]
