Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions

Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions

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Co-Operation In Foreign Missions, by Roland Allen This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions
Author: Roland Allen
Release Date: September 3, 2004 [EBook #13360]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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MISSIONARY SURVEY AS AN AID TO INTELLIGENT CO-OPERATION IN FOREIGN MISSIONS
BY
ROLAND ALLEN, M.A. SOMETIME S.P.G. MISSIONARY IN NORTH CHINA AUTHOR OF "MISSIONARY METHODS, ST. PAUL'S OR OURS," ETC.
AND
THOMAS COCHRANE, M.B., C.M. LATE PRINCIPAL OF UNION MEDICAL COLLEGE, PEKING, AND HON. SECRETARY OF THE LAYMEN'S MOVEMENT, LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY
1920

PREFACE.
This book, written by Mr. Allen, bears both our names because we studied the material together, and settled what should be included and what excluded. We discussed and disputed, and finally found ourselves in complete agreement. We therefore decided to issue the book in our joint names, on the understanding that I should be allowed to disclaim the credit for writing it. But the book would never have been written at all save for the inspiration and help of Mr. S.J.W. Clark, who, in his travels in nearly every mission field, has brought an unusually acute mind, trained by a long business experience, to bear upon mission problems, and has done more hard thinking on the question of survey than any man we know.
Let anyone who doubts the need for survey study the present distribution of missionary forces. He will find little evidence of any plan or method. In one region of the world there are about four hundred and fifty missionaries to a population of three millions, while in another area with more than double the number of people, there are only about twenty missionaries.
After travelling in the latter region I asked one of the senior workers what in his opinion would be a large enough foreign staff, and he indicated quite a moderate addition to the existing force. Suppose I had suggested a total of a hundred missionaries, he would have declared the number far too large. Perhaps he was too modest in his demands. Conditions in one area differ from those in another. But such a wide difference in distribution and in demands makes the need of survey to ascertain facts and conditions absolutely imperative, especially when we remember that to the force of four hundred and fifty in the territory with the smaller population, missionaries will probably continue to be added and unevangelised regions will have to wait.
After surveying one of the better staffed divisions of the mission field, a missionary declared that not more missionaries were needed, but a more effective use of the force at work; and fortunately in that particular field central direction is beginning to secure that end. But usually there is no central direction and no comparison of plans between neighbouring missions on the field, although several missions may be located in the same town or city; and two Mission Houses in London may be almost next door neighbours, and may have missions in the same city in the Far East, and may yet be entirely ignorant of each other's plans for work in that city. They might be rival businesses guarding trade secrets! Hence it is not strange that when late in the day a survey of a city in China is made in which there are about two hundred missionaries, it is found that not one of them is giving full time to evangelistic work! Across the city of Tokyo a line could be drawn west of which all the foreign workers live, while east of it there are nine hundred and sixty thousand people without a single resident missionary!
But not only is intermission planning, based on survey, sadly lacking; few missions have thoroughly surveyed their own fields and their own work, and fewer still have surveyed them in relation to the work of others. The result is that policies are adopted and staffs increased in a way which--for all administrators know to the contrary--may be adding weight where it should be diminished, and may be piling up expenditure in the wrong place.
It should be pointed out, however, that survey is beginning to come into its own. It is being more and more realised that it should be the basis of all co-operative work, and the survey of