History Of Church Missionary Society(CMS)
Origin of Church Missionary Society
The C.M.S. is a Society organised by some members of the Church ofEngland to help in the propagation of the Gospel in Africa and in the East.
How did this great enterprise begin?
An evangelical revival took place in England in the 18th Century. Wetend to associate this with the name of Wesley and with Methodism, but it also led to the formation of an evangelical group within the Church of England at the end of the century. The outstanding men in this group were Charles Simeon, Vicar of a church in Cambridge (of whom Macaulay said that his “sway was far greater than that of any primate”), John Venn, Rector of Clapham, who became the first President of C.M.S. and some distinguished laymen such as Wilberforce and Thornton (both M.Ps), Zachary Macaulay (Lord Maculay’s father) who had been a Colonial Governor, and James Stephen, a prominent lawyer.These rich and prosperous men lived in comfort, but they also practised austerity, rising early and giving much time to prayer and Bible reading.
They consecrated themselves to good works and noble causes. Above all they felt the call to express their faith in a fresh effort to evangelise. The S.P.G. and the S.P.C.K,. founded almost a century earlier, were doing splendid work but they had to confine their efforts mainly to the work for which they had been primarily founded, namely, that among English people overseas. There was, therefore, a need for a society within the Church of England to organise work for and among the non-Christian races of the World. It was the evangelicals who felt this need most keenly and so it was they who, in 1799, founded the C.M.S. The had to fight against apathy and opposition and to overcome all the difficulties of pioneer work. In the first ten years of the Society only five missionaries could be sent out, but the work was blessed and rapidly increased thereafter. It should be noted that lay people played a great part in the launching of this enterprise. Simeon and Vann were assisted in the founding of C.M.S. by city merchants and bankers, a solicitor, a sculptor, a surgeon, a tea broker and many others.
This participation of lay people has remained characteristic of the Society throughout its history, and the Society continued to depend the active interest and the giving of many thousands of lay people of all classes in parishes of the Church of England.