WEC International is an interdenominational
mission
Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to:
Organised activities Religion
*Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity
*Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...
agency of evangelical tradition which focuses on
evangelism,
discipleship and
church planting
Church planting is a term referring to the process (mostly in Protestant frameworks) that results in a new local Christian congregation being established. It should be distinguished from church development, where a new service, worship center or ...
, through music and the arts, serving addicts and vulnerable children, through Christian education, missionary and church leadership training, medical and development work, Bible translation, literacy and media production, in order to help local Christians share the gospel cross-culturally. WEC emphasises the importance of shared life in a local church as a vital expression of Christian life. WEC prioritises the planting of churches among
indigenous people groups and
unreached people group
In Christianity, an unreached people group refers to an ethnic group without an indigenous, self-propagating Christian church movement. Any ethnic or ethnolinguistic nation without enough Christians to evangelize the rest of the nation is an "unrea ...
s, who have little or no access to the Christian
gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...
.
History
WEC was founded in 1913 by
Charles Studd (CT), the cricketer turned missionary. Studd was one of the Cambridge Band also called
Cambridge Seven—seven members of Cambridge University who offered themselves for service under the China Inland Mission as a result of a visit by the American evangelist
D.L. Moody to the campus in 1884. Studd spent several years in China and a time in India before going on in his fifties to establish and lead the "Heart of Africa" Mission (HAM). Although broken in health, Studd said, "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him." The ''Heart of Africa'' mission, changed its name to Worldwide Evangelisation Crusade. Later, recognising some misunderstandings with using the word "crusade", the mission was renamed as Worldwide Evangelisation for Christ (WEC International). The Heart of Africa Mission/WEC International was started as part of what
missiologists
Missiology is the academic study of the Christian mission history and methodology, which began to be developed as an academic discipline in the 19th century.
History
Missiology as an academic discipline appeared only in the 19th century. It was ...
call "The Second Wave—Interdenominational missions to the continental heartlands (1865–1910) (the First Wave being denominational missions to the continental coastlands (1792–1865)
The Heart of Africa Mission was changed to Worldwide Evangelization Crusade (WEC) in 1919 when Mr. Gilbert Barclay, who married Studd's daughter Dorothy, became Home Overseer. He took the position on the condition that the organization have a worldwide title, scope and work. (As C.T. Studd believed God told him, on his way to Congo, "This journey is not just for Africa but for the whole unevangelised world.") Recruitment of missionaries began immediately and in 1922 WEC entered
Amazonia
The Amazon rainforest, Amazon jungle or ; es, Selva amazónica, , or usually ; french: Forêt amazonienne; nl, Amazoneregenwoud. In English, the names are sometimes capitalized further, as Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Forest, or Amazon Jungle. ...
. WEC was the parent organization and individual fields were permitted to retain their own subtitles, so the new field became Heart of Amazonia. By the time of Studd's death, the Amazonia field had 16 missionaries with headquarters and mission stations in three people groups. 'Little Tibet' (
Kashmir) was entered next, then Arabia, followed by West Africa (
Spanish Guinea
Spanish Guinea (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Guinea Española'') was a set of Insular Region (Equatorial Guinea), insular and Río Muni, continental territories controlled by Spain from 1778 in the Gulf of Guinea and on the Bight of Bonny, in ...
), and then
Colombia, South America
A branch of WEC International was formed in the U.S. in 1939 and is located in
Fort Washington, PA.
The Heart of Africa Mission was begun in northern Congo in 1913 by Charles Thomas Studd and A.B. Buxton, beginning at
Niangara on the banks of the
Uele River
The Uele, also known by the phonetically identical Uélé, Ouélé, or Welle River, is a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Course
The Uele forms at Dungu, at the confluence of the Dungu and Kibali rivers, which both originate ...
.
After the death of the founder in 1931, his missionary colleague
Norman Percy Grubb was appointed General Secretary (leader). Grubb built the mission up from 30 missionaries to 800 in 20 countries and encouraged the establishment of the
Christian Literature Crusade as a sister mission in 1941. After retirement in 1965, Grubb lived at the WEC US headquarters in Ft. Washington, PA, writing extensively and traveling from there until his death in 1993.
In 1941 the Christian Literature Crusade was begun out of the ministry of WEC by Kenneth Adams. It aimed to open Christian book centers in all lands where there was a call for them and to serve existing churches and missions with
Christian literature
Christian literature is the literary aspect of Christian media, and it constitutes a huge body of extremely varied writing.
Scripture
While falling within the strict definition of literature, the Bible is not generally considered literature. Ho ...
, as well as Gospel Literature Worldwide, Radio Worldwide, and a Survey and Research Department.
WEC has been influential in the movement for countries once known as 'missionary-receiving' lands to become 'missionary-sending' lands. WEC International missionary Leslie Brierley visited Brazil in 1962 to survey that land for its missionary-sending potential. Later, in 1972–73, he and Bob Harvey, also of WEC, began touring Brazil giving seminars promoting the idea. The idea has since matured in Brazil and spread to many other countries. Many indigenous mission agencies were formed as a result, and Brierley formed a "global strategy for launching mission movements in non-Western countries."
Another WEC missionary, Dr Phyllis Kilbourn, launched a branch ministry of WEC called "Rainbows of Hope", providing training for Christians to work among children at risk around the world. This grew out of her seeing the devastating effects of the 1990-1997
civil war in Liberia on the children of that country. She later started Crisis Care Training International as another department of WEC to offer training for Christian workers dealing with children in crisis.
WEC today
WEC's international headquarters are in Singapore, and the current International Directors are Dr Louis and Susan Sutton.
Policy
C.T. Studd, the founder of WEC, said their objective is "The evangelization of all the unevangelized regions of the world."
More recently, the purpose of the organization was listed as "To bring the gospel to the remaining unevangelized peoples with the utmost urgency, to demonstrate the compassion of Christ to a needy world, and to inspire, mobilize and train for cross-cultural mission."
Norman Grubb, the successor to C.T. Studd in Congo, wrote that the mission made no appeals for funds, took no offerings at meetings, guaranteed missionaries no fixed salaries, and incurred no debt from the beginning. Funds that were received were divided equally among the missionaries. Neither C.T. Studd nor his wife ever took any money from the mission.
[Grubb, ''C.T. Studd, Cricketer and Pioneer'', p. 203-204]
See also
* ''
Operation World''
References
{{Authority control
International non-profit organizations
Christian missions
Christian missionary societies
Christian organizations established in 1913
1913 establishments in the United Kingdom