Student Volunteer Movement - Comparison To Other Christian Student Movements

Comparison To Other Christian Student Movements

The 1933 Commission on Student Volunteer Movement Policy, among other suggestions which were disturbing to the SVM leadership, had advocated the establishment of a Student Christian Movement in America which would unite the YMCA, YWCA and SVM into one body. This idea was considerably ahead of its time in the United States, although an experimental body of this type had been established in Canada in 1988 and was already the mode of operation in Great Britain. There was, however, a growing conviction that the Volunteer Movement should cooperate very closely with the National Intercollegiate Christian Council (YMCA and YWCA), as well as with denominational bodies, while still maintaining its organizational autonomy.

At a consultation at Oberlin College in 1936, measures were taken to consolidate cooperation with the National Intercollegiate Christian Council, including the radical decree that individual SVM members and regional Student Volunteer groups should incorporate all their activities into the NICC work in their locality. In 1939, the National Intercollegiate Christian Council for the first time officially provided for the inclusion of the SVM General Secretary as a member of its Administrative Committee. Friendly relations were also established between the SVM and the University Christian Mission, a cooperative organization representing denominational student work. For a portion of 1938, SVM General Secretary Paul Braisted devoted three-quarters of his time to the Campus Secretaryship of the UCM.

A North American Student Conference on the World Mission of Christianity, sponsored by the NICC, the Council of Church Boards of Education, and the SVM, was held in Toronto in December 1939. At this conference it was voted to "recommend the continuance of the Student Volunteer Movement as the cooperative agency of the general Student Christian Movements for carrying forward their Christian World Mission emphasis in education and recruiting; and that, in addition, the Movement specialize in the following areas: 1) Establishment of standards of personnel for overseas service, and 2) Recruitment of personnel for missionary areas at home." The Student Volunteer Movement remained hesitant to sacrifice its autonomy at this phase of the development of student Christian work in the United States because it saw itself as a more ecumenical force than either the NICC or the denominational movements.

In 1944, the United Student Christian Council came into being as a national federation of the YMCA, YWCA, and denominational student movements. The federation was ecumenical on the national level, but did not express itself ecumenically on the regional or local levels. Though remaining autonomous in policy, administration, and finance, the Student Volunteer Movement agreed to serve as the Missionary Committee of the United Student Christian Council. A dilemma remained for the SVM, however, because the USCC offered no regional ecumenical structures for the Movement to work through. The SVM's role in the USCC was restricted to the national level, to planning the quadrennial student mission conventions and producing educational material. Some itinerating work was possible in the sponsorship of special missions programs on campuses. From 1945 to 1947 the SVM sought to maintain contacts on the local level through a system of "campus representatives," but this system was not successful. In 1947 a Special Commission on the Future of the Student Volunteer Movement recommended that SVM campus missionary fellowship groups be reestablished. The new missionary fellowship groups were to be informal interest groups, however, rather than official organizations. The Movement had found that students interested in missions were calling for missionary fellowship groups because their special needs were not being met by the general student movements. The dangers of separatism, which had led to the elimination of local Volunteer Bands, seemed less alarming at this point than the dangers of the SVM program losing the support of its volunteers.

In 1953, the United Student Christian Council asked the Student Volunteer Movement to become its Missionary Department, as a step toward a fully ecumenical student movement in the United States. After due consideration, the Movement agreed to this next phase, and in 1954 became the Commission on World Mission of the USCC, "temporarily relinquishing its status as a member movement of the USCC." This was a functional relationship which still did not affect the financial and administrative autonomy of the Student Volunteer Movement. The theory of this relationship was acceptable to the SVM, but in practice certain difficulties emerged. At a SVM Policy Committee meeting in March 1956, it was a cause for concern that USCC member movements did not depend more on the SVM for missionary education. The Committee minutes indicate that both the Presbyterian and Methodist boards of foreign missions had active student departments of their own at this time.

In 1959, the United Student Christian Council, the Student Volunteer Movement, and the Interseminary Committee merged to form the National Student Christian Federation. The Student Volunteer Movement became the Commission on World Mission of the NSCF. Its tasks remained those of promoting missionary education, fellowship, and enlistment. It continued to plan and sponsor missions conferences, including the 19th Ecumenical Student Conference on the Christian World Mission held at Athens, Ohio in 1964 with 3000 students present. The National Student Christian Federation was reconstituted as the University Christian Movement in 1966. At this time, as the Concise Dictionary of the Christian World Mission phrases it, the Commission on World Mission was among the first to act on the formation of a movement fully representative of the churches, and agreed that the sense of mission was sufficiently embodied in the student movement for the Commission to cease a separate existence."