Page 197 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

Evangelical Missions and African Initiatives

James Hudson Taylor
As a result of the Great Awakening in Europe and North America,
new missionary organizations appeared to address the missions task.
What has been referred to as “faith missions” became prominent with
James Hudson Taylor. Taylor was born in Yorkshire, England in 1832.
His father was a lay preacher in the Methodist Church who influenced
his son to have a passion for missions that soon bore fruit. In his
biographer’s words:

No other missionary in the nineteen centuries since the
apostle Paul has had a wider vision and has carried out a more
systematized plan of evangelizing a broad geographical area
than Hudson Taylor. His sights were set on reaching the whole
of China, all four hundred million people, and it was to that
end that he labored, though not single-handedly.… The China
Inland Mission was his creation and the pacesetter of future faith
missions. (Tucker, 173)

Taylor was influenced by George Mueller and Anthony Norris Groves.
To Taylor and the missionaries who followed in faith missions, specific
church affiliation and related order were secondary to a cooperative
allegiance to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Faith missionaries
came from most evangelical, Protestant churches. Candidates came
from Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, Anglican, Brethren, and other
churches. They used the term faith to express a belief that Taylor and
others held: “God’s work, done in God’s way, will never lack God’s
supply.” Missionaries were not
permitted to borrow money or to go
into debt. Later, some adaptations
were made to allow individual “God’s work, done in
missionaries to raise needed support.
God’s way, will never

As noted concerning the life lack God’s supply.”
of Mary Slessor of Nigeria, faith
missions gave women opportunities
for missionary work and even places of leadership. This missionary
movement also stressed the need for acculturation (adjusting to a new
culture). For example, missionaries with the China Inland Mission wore

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