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CH A P T E R 1 0

Evangelical Missions

and

African Initiatives

n Chapter Nine we followed the advance of the gospel by African
and European missionaries during the eighteenth century. Progress
I was at times slow but sure, and challenges were many. Now, we will
look at the development of evangelical missions in the nineteenth and
early twentieth century. The foundation for the great advance of the
church was laid between the 1950s and the 1990s and the beginning of
the twenty-first century. It is an exciting story.

The Nineteenth Century—the Great Century of Missions

Kenneth Scott Latourette refers to the period of history from 1792
to 1914 as “the great century of mission” as the gospel spread around
the world. He wrote three volumes about this one century in his seven-
volume History of the Expansion of Christianity.

I have noted the effects of the Great Awakening of Europe and North
America in providing a missionary movement. The sovereign power of the
Holy Spirit moved people to see “the world as a parish,” as John Wesley,
the founder of the Methodists, declared. Missionaries like William Carey,
who wrote An Enquiry into the Obligation of Christians to Use Means for the

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