Student Volunteer Movement - Denominational Missions Programs

Denominational Missions Programs

While the Student Volunteer Movement was struggling to find its place in the shifting student Christian movement configuration it was also forced to reevaluate its relationship to the missions work of the major Protestant denominations. In its heyday the SVM had been viewed by the denominational boards as an invaluable tool for drumming up missions interest and providing a pool of recruits from which the boards could select their missionaries. The SVM's broad recruiting system did produce a considerable amount of "chaff" individuals who could not meet the boards' increasingly rigorous standards for trained and often specialized missionary personnel - but, in general, the boards were glad for the Movement's support and had often called upon its files to locate suitable candidates for specific openings overseas.

The era of disillusionment after World War I affected denominational missions activity fully as much as it did the Student Volunteer Movement. From the peak year in 1920 when 1731 new missionaries were sent overseas there was a steady decline in the numbers sent, reaching a low point of 550 in 1927 before rising again briefly. It was inevitable that the declining denominational activity would have a direct effect on the SVM's program. As E. Fay Campbell wrote to Jesse Wilson in 1935, "It seems harder than ever to get support, chiefly because of the continued financial state of the mission boards which does not permit them to send out many missionaries. It is almost impossible to get People to see the need for our Movement in the face of the fact that the boards are calling for so few new missionaries." As mentioned earlier, faith mission boards were experiencing growth during the period of decline of the more liberal denominational boards, but the Volunteer Movement had historically drawn most of its support from the major denominations, and its liberal stances increasingly divorced its program from the faith missions' developing work.

In the confusing days of the between-War period the SVM called upon board secretaries to help in evaluation of the Movement's role. Responses to a questionnaire sent out by the SVM's 1933 Commission on Policy indicated that some denominations continued to support the idea of a volunteer movement while others did not see a need for it. Representatives of the Baptist and Congregational boards expressed praise for the Movement while the Episcopal, Methodist and Presbyterian representatives were less enthusiastic. Criticism included the statements that "the Movement has dwindled until it is largely a movement of the 'hick' colleges" and "My fear is that at this present stage the idea of volunteering for foreign missions tends to divert the attention of Christian students from the essential obligation of the Christian, whether he goes to the field or stays at home." Before 1920, most denominations had not sponsored their own student fellowships and the SVM's role on campus had been clear. Partially in reaction to the liberal orientation of the "Y" movements, denominations developed their own campus student groups during the 1920s and 1930s. The effect of this trend was to obscure the SVM's role. According to a SVM report written in 1953, "In the late thirties, the pressure became so strong that SVM was forced to question its very existence, for many of those within the church student movement - - which, by its very nature, was pushing SVM into a separatist movement --- challenged the SVM and said that it should not operate as a separate movement."

The development of the Student Volunteer Movement's relationship with denominational campus ministries has been touched upon earlier, but here can be mentioned briefly the more direct channels of contact with denominational mission boards which the SVM maintained throughout its existence. When the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America emerged in 1950, the SVM's role in the new organization was as a member Unit of its Division of Foreign Missions, Division of Home Missions and Joint Commission on Missionary Education. The NCCCUSA viewed the SVM as primarily an interdenominational recruiting agency to work among students. As the organization of the National Council of Churches evolved, the SVM became the Missionary Services Department of the Joint Department of Christian Vocation of the Division of Christian Education in 1951. In 1959 when the Volunteer Movement passed from autonomous existence, it was related to the National Council of Churches as the Department of Missionary Services of the Commission on Christian Higher Education.