A year-by-year look at Church history through the lens of its worldwide growth
A sampling of events in the 2,000 years of Christian history shows its ongoing worldwide expansion.
From the Day of Pentecost forward, Christians have obeyed Christ's Great Commission to make disciples in all ethnolinguistic people groups.
Church history is sometimes presented as a voyage through doctrinal development and organizational schisms. A more inspirational way is to look at the expansion of Christianity around the globe.
Note: Earliest dates on this timeline of the spread of Christianity must all be considered
"approximate."
Early Church, 30-99 AD
30 - Pentecost and the birth of the Christian church.
34 - Church scattered by persecution. In Gaza, Philip baptized a convert, an Ethiopian who was already a Jewish proselyte.
39 - Peter preached to the Gentiles.
42 - Mark went to Egypt.
48 - Paul (formerly known as Saul of Tarsus) began his first missionary trip to modern-day Turkey.
49 - Jerusalem Council on admitting Gentiles into the Church.
51 - Paul began his second missionary journey, a trip that took him through Turkey and on into modern-day Greece.
52 - Apostle Thomas arrived in India and founded a church that later became the Indian Orthodox Church (and its various descendants).
54 - Paul began his third missionary trip.
60 - Paul, sent to Rome under armed guard, evangelizes on Malta after a ship wreck.
66 -Thaddeus established the Christian church of Armenia.
72 - Traditional date of the Apostle Thomas' martyrdom in India.
100s
100 - First Christians reported in Monaco, Algeria, and Sri Lanka.
112 - Traditional date of the martyrdom of Sharbil, Babai, and Barsamy in Edessa, Mesopotamia. Pliny the Younger reported the rapid growth of Christianity in Bithynia.
117 - Emperor Hadrian executed thousands of soldiers who had converted to Christianity.
150 - Gospel reached Portugal and Morocco.
166 - Bishop Soter wrote that the number of Christians had surpassed the Jews.
167 - At the request of Lucius of Britain, missionaries Fuganus (or Phagan) and Duvianus (or Deruvian) were sent to convert the Britons to Christianity.
174 - First Christians reported in Austria.
177 - Churches in Lyon and Vienne (southern France) reported being persecuted.
180 - Pantaenus preached in India.
196 - Bar Daisan wrote of Christians among the Parthians, Bactrians (Kushans), and other peoples in the Persian Empire.
197 - Tertullian wrote that Christianity had penetrated all ranks of society in North Africa.
200s
200 - First Christians reported in Switzerland and Belgium.
206 - Abgar, King of Edessa, embraced the Christian faith.
208 - Tertullian wrote that Christ had followers on the far side of the Roman wall in Britain, where Roman legions had not yet penetrated.
250 - Denis (or Denys or Dionysius) was sent from Rome together with six other missionaries to establish the church in Paris.
270 - Death of Gregory Thaumaturgus, a Christian leader in Pontus (modern-day eastern Turkey on the Black Sea). It was said that when Gregory became "bishop" there were only 17 Christians in Pontus, while at his death thirty years later, there were only 17 non-Christians
280 - First rural churches emerged in northern Italy. Christianity was no longer exclusively in urban areas.
287 - Maurice from Egypt was killed at Agauno, Switzerland for refusing to sacrifice to pagan divinities.
295 - Dudi (David) of Basra evangelized in India.
300s
300 - First Christians reported in Greater Khorasan (what is today northeastern Iran). An estimated 10% of the world's population was Christian. The Bible was available in 10 different languages.
303 - Christians are persecuted by Diocletian.
304 - Armenia made Christianity its state religion.
306 - The first bishop of Nisibis (in modern-day Turkey) was ordained.
314 - Tiridates I of Armenia converted by Gregory the Illuminator.
327 - Emperor Constantine was baptized shortly before his death.
328 - Frumentius took the gospel to Ethiopia.
332 - Two young Christians, shipwrecked in the Red Sea, were taken as slaves to Ethiopia to serve in the royal court. Given the freedom to preach the Gospel, their witness gave birth to the Coptic Church.
333 - Ethiopian King Ezana of Axum made Christianity an official religion.
334 - The first bishop was ordained for Merv in Transoxiana.
340 - Ulfilas began work with the Goths in present-day Romania.
350 - The Bible was translated into Saidic, an Egyptian language.
354 - Theophilus "the Indian" reported visiting Christians in India. Philostorgius mentioned a community of Christians on the Socotra islands, south of Yemen in the Arabian Sea.
364 - Conversion of Vandals to Christianity during the reign of Emperor Valens.
370 - Ulfilas translated the Bible into Visigothic, the first Bible translation done specifically for missionary purposes.
378 - Jerome wrote, "From India to Britain, all nations resound with the death and resurrection of Christ."
381 - Roman Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the official state religion.
382 - Jerome was commissioned to translate the Bible into Latin.
386 - Augustine of Hippo converted.
390 - Nestorian missionary Abdyeshu built a monastery on the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf.
397 - Ninian evangelized the Southern Picts of Scotland. Three missionaries sent to the mountaineers in the Trento region of northern Italy were martyred.
400s
410 - The New Testament was translated into Armenian.
420 - An Arabian Bedouin tribe was converted under Sheikh Peter-Aspebet.
425 - The first bishops were ordained for Herat (Afghanistan) and Samarkand (Uzbekistan).
430 - Ninian became the first known Christian missionary in Scotland.
"Because Patrick took the
time to fully understand the Celtic culture and language, the Celts launched as missionaries
themselves. Evangelistic efforts were exponentially multiplied, all because Patrick took the time
to really know the Celts." -- Karen Allore, Nazarene Bible College student .
350 - First Christians were reported in Liechtenstein.
496 - Conversion of Clovis I, king of Franks in Gaul (present-day France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, and parts of Northern Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany) with 3,000 warriors.
499 - Persian king Kavadh I, fleeing his country, met a group of Christian missionaries going to Central Asia to preach to the Turks.
500s
500 - First Christians reported in North Yemen.
508 - Philoxenus of Mabug began translating the Bible into Syriac.
528 - Benedict of Nursia destroyed a pagan temple at Monte Cassino (Italy) and built a
monastery.
535 - The Hephthalite Huns - nomads living in northern China, Central Asia, and northern India who were also known as the White Huns - were taught to read and write by Nestorian missionaries.
542 - Julian (or Julianus) from Constantinople began evangelizing Nubia (a region along the Nile River) accompanied by an Egyptian named Theodore.
563 - Columba sailed from Ireland to Scotland, where he founded an evangelistic training center on Iona.
565 - The first report of a "Loch Ness monster" after the Irish missionary Columba visited the Loch. Columba described an animal that broke the surface of the 800-foot-deep loch with a loud roar and an open mouth.
569 - Longinus, Bishop of Nobatia, evangelized Alodia (in what is now Sudan).
578 - Conversion to Christianity of An-numan III, last of Lachemids (Arab princes).
592 - Death of Irish missionary Moluag (Old Irish Mo-Luóc).
596 - Gregory the Great sent Augustine and a team of missionaries to England to reintroduce the gospel. The missionaries settled in Canterbury and, within a year, had baptized
10,000 people.
600s
600 - First Christian settlers in Andorra (southwestern Europe, between France and Spain).
604 - A church is reportedly planted on Thorney Island (where Westminster Abbey now stands.
627 - Edwin of Northumbria becomes the first Christian king in the north of England.
629 - Amandus of Elnon consecrated a missionary bishop. He evangelized the region around Ghent and went on missions to Slavs along the Danube and to Basques in Navarre.
631 - Conversion of the East Angles (one of the seven kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy).
635 - First Christian missionaries (Nestorian monks, including Alopen, from Asia Minor and Persia) arrived in China. Aidan of Lindisfarne began evangelizing in the heart of Northumbria (England).
637 - Lombards, a German people living in northern Italy, became Christians.
638 - A church building was erected in Ch'ang-an (north-central China), then perhaps the largest city in the world.
650 - First church organized in the Netherlands.
673 - Irish monk Maol Rubha founded a training center at Aprochrosan that would serve as a base for missionary outreach into Scotland.
680 - First translation of Christian Scriptures into Arabic.
689 - Pagans killed Irish missionary Kilian near Würzburg in what is now Germany. His remains were buried in a Benedictine abbey in Würzburg.
692 - Willibrord and 11 companions crossed the North Sea to become missionaries to the Frisians (modern-day Netherlands).
697 - Muslims overran Carthage, the capital of North Africa.
700s
720 - Caliph Umar II put heavy pressure on the Christian Berbers to convert to Islam.
724 - Boniface cut down the pagan sacred oak tree of Thor at Geismar in Hesse (Germany).
740 - Irish monks reached Iceland.
754 - Boniface was killed by pagans in Frisia.
781 - Nestorian Stele was erected near Xi'an (China) to commemorate the propagation in China of the Luminous Religion. That makers is a written record of a Christian presence in China in the 8th Century.
787 - Liudger began missionary work among the pagans near the mouth of the Ems River (in modern-day Germany).
800s
822 - Mojmír I of Great Moravia (parts of modern-day Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Serbia) converted to Christianity.
826 - Ansgar from France sent by Roman papal authority to Denmark as a royal chaplain and missionary.
828 - First Christian church in present-day Slovakia was built in Nitra.
828 - First missionaries reached the area that is now the Czech Republic.
830 - Scotch-born Erluph was evangelizing in (what is now) Germany when he was killed by the Vandals.
859 - Execution of Eulogius, a proponent of confrontational Christian witness in Muslim societies. Opposed to any feeling of affinity with Muslim culture, Eulogius pushed for a missiology of martyrdom to confront Islam.
863 - Rastislav invited Cyril and Methodius to evangelize in Great Moravia and the Balaton Principality (southwestern Hungary).
864 - Conversion of Prince Boris of Bulgaria.
867 - The Serbian and Montenegrin peoples embraced Christianity.
878 - Last definite reference to Christians in China before the Mongol era.
880 - The First Slavic Archbishopric was established in Great Moravia with Methodius as its head.
900s
900 - Missionaries reach Norway.
912 - The Normans became Christian.
948 - The leader of the Magyars converted to Christianity.
957 - Princess Olga of Kiev was baptized.
965 - Harold I of Denmark converted to Christianity and smoothed the way for the acceptance of the Christian faith by the Danish eople.
981 - Nestorian monks visiting China found no traces of a Christian community.
988 - Baptism of Kievan Rus' under Vladimir I.
997 - Adalbert of Prague died as a martyr in Prussia.
1000s
1000 - Leif the Lucky evangelized Greenland.
1007 - The Keraites, a Turco-Mongolian tribe, were converted to the Nestorianism branch of Christianity.
1008 - English missionary Sigfrid (or Sigurd) baptized King Olof of Sweden.
1009 - Bruno of Querfurt was beheaded in Prussia, where he had gone as a missionary.
"We must be willing to give everything to spread the Gospel!" -- Jill Height, Nazarene Bible College student .
1010 - The church in the unified Kingdom of Georgia became self-governing.
1015 - Russia was said to have been "comprehensively" converted to the Orthodox Christian faith.
1017 - The Danish king Canute converted to Christianity.
1099 - Christian Crusaders captured Jerusalem and massacred 70,000 Muslims as well as many Jews.
1200s
1200 - The Bible was now available in 22 different languages.
1219 - Francis of Assisi presented the Gospel to the Sultan of Egypt [ more on Francis.]
1220 - Dominican Order established.
1223 - Franciscan Order established.
1251 - King Mindaugas of Lithuania baptized.
1252 - Franciscan William of Rubruck began his expedition to the Mongols.
1266 - Mongol leader Khan sent Marco Polo's father and uncle, Niccolo and Matteo Polo, back to Europe with a request to the Pope to send 100 Christian missionaries (only two responded, and they turned back before reaching Mongol territory).
1276 - Ramon Llull opened a training center to send missionaries to North Africa.
1289 - Franciscan friars began mission work in China.
1294 - Franciscan Giovanni di Monte Corvino went to China.
1300s
1303 - Arnold von Koln arrived in China to assist Giovanni di Monte Corvino.
1321 - Jordanus, a Dominican monk, arrived in India as the first resident Roman Catholic missionary.
1322 - Odoric of Pordenone, a Franciscan monk from Italy, arrived in China.
1323 - Franciscans made contacts in Sumatra, Java, and Borneo.
1326 - Changatid Khan Ilchigedai granted permission for a church to be built in Samarkand,
Uzbekistan.
1329 - Nicea fell to Muslim Ottoman Turks.
1368 - Collapse of the Franciscan mission in China when the Ming Dynasty abolished
Christianity.
1379 - Stephen of Prem traveled north toward the White Sea and settled as a missionary
among the Finno-Ugric-speaking Komi peoples living between the Pechora and Vychegda Rivers
at Ust-Vim.
1382 - The Bible was translated into English from Latin by John Wycliff.
1386 - Jagiello, king of the Lithuanians, was baptized.
1400s
1410 - The Bible was translated into Hungarian.
1435 - Attempts to forcibly convert Jews in Spain.
1448 - First Christians reported in Mauritania.
1453 - Constantinople fell to the Muslim Ottoman Turks, who made it their capital.
1462 - Johannes Gutenberg began printing the Bible with his movable-type printing process.
Pope Pius II assigned the evangelization of the Portuguese Guinea Coast of Africa to the
Franciscans led by Alfonso de Bolano.
1485 - After having come into contact with the Portuguese, the King of Benin
requested that a church be planted in his kingdom.
1486 - Dominicans became active in West Africa, particularly among the Wolof
people in Senegambia (modern-day Senegal and Gambia).
1489 - Baptism of Wolof king Behemoi in Senegal.
1491 - The Congo saw its first group of missionaries arrive. Under the ministry of these
Franciscan and Dominican priests, the king was soon baptized, and a church was built at the royal
capital.
1492 - Birth of the church in Angola.
1493 - Christopher Columbus took Christian priests with him on his second trip to the
New World.
1494 - The first missionaries arrived in the Dominican Republic.
1495 - The head of a convent in Seville, Spain, Mercedarian Jorge, made a trip to the West
Indies.
1496 - The first Christian baptisms in the New World took place when Chief Guaticaba,
joined by other members of his household, was baptized on the island of Hispaniola.
1497 - Forced conversion of Jews in Portugal.
1498 - The first Christians were reported in Kenya.
1499 - Portuguese Augustinian missionaries arrived at Zanzibar. Their mission ended in
1698 due to the Oman-Arab conquest.
1500s
1500 - The Franciscans entered Brazil with Cabral.
1501 - Pope Alexander VI granted to the crown of Spain all the newly-discovered countries
in the Americas with the condition that existing indigenous populations be given religious
instruction.
1502 - Bartolome de Las Casas, who later became an ardent defender of the indigenous
peoples of the Americas, went to Cuba. For his military services there, he was given an
encomienda, an estate that included the services of the indigenous people living on
it.
1503 - Mar Elijah, Patriarch of the East Syrian church, sent three missionaries "to the islands
of the sea which are inside Java and to China.".
1506 - Mission work began in Mozambique.
1510 - Dominicans began work in Haiti.
1515 - Portuguese missionary Francisco Álvares was sent on a diplomatic mission to Dawit II, the Negus or Emperor of Abyssinia (an old name for Ethiopia).
1516 - Three Franciscans were killed by cannibals in northeastern South America in the area of Colombia and Venezuela.
1517 - The Mughal Rulers of Delhi opened the door of Bengal to Christian missionaries.
1518 - Don Henrique, son of the king of the Congo, was consecrated by Pope Leo X as the first indigenous bishop from Black Africa.
1519 - Two Franciscans accompanied Hernán Cortés in his expedition to Mexico.
1520 - German missionary Maximilian Uhland, also known as Bernardino de San José, went to Hispaniola with the newly appointed Bishop Geraldini.
1521 - Pope Leo X granted Franciscan Francis Quiñones permission and faculties to go as a missionary to the New World together with Juan Clapión.
1522 - Portuguese missionaries established a presence on the coast of Sri Lanka and began moving inland with Portuguese military units.
1523 - Martin Luther wrote a missionary hymn based on Psalm 67. Titled "May God Bestow on Us His Grace," it has been called "the first missionary hymn of Protestantism.".
1524 - Martin de Valencia went to New Spain (much of North America, northern parts of South America, and several Pacific Ocean archipelagos, namely the Philippines and Guam) with 12 Franciscan friars.
1525 - Italian Franciscan missionary Giulio Zarco was sent to Michoacán on the western coast of Mexico where he became very proficient in indigenous languages.
1526 - Franciscans entered Florida. Twelve Dominican friars arrived in the Mexican capital.
1527 - Missionary Conference of Augsburg -- Organized by the Anabaptists, it was the first-ever Protestant missionary conference.
1528 - Franciscan missionary Juan de Padilla arrived in Mexico. He accompanied Coronado's expedition that was searching for the Seven Cities. He eventually settled among the Quivira (now called the Wichita).
1529 - Franciscan Peter of Ghent wrote from Latin America that he and a colleague had baptized 14,000 people in one day.
1530 - In his On Translating: An Open Letter, Martin Luther laid out some principles of correct Bible translating.
1531 - Franciscan Juan de Padilla began a series of missionary tours among the indigenous tribes southeast of Mexico City.
1532 - Evangelization of Peru began when missionaries arrived with Francisco Pizzaro's military expedition.
1533 - First Christian missionaries arrived in Tonkin, Vietnam.
1534 - The entire caste of Paravas on the Coromandel Coast (southeastern India) were baptized -- perhaps 10,000 people in all.
1535 - German Franciscan missionary Maximilian Uhland (also called Bernardino de San José) spoke before the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith about the wretched condition of indigenous people in the New World.
1536 - Northern Italian Anabaptist missionary Hans Oberecker (also spelled Overacker and Overakker) was burned at the stake in Vienna, Austria.
1537 - Pope Paul III ordered that the indigeneous people of the New World be brought to Christ "by the preaching of the divine word, and with the example of the good life.".
1538 - Franciscans entered Paraguay.
1539 - The Pueblos of what is now the U.S. Southwest were encountered by Spanish Franciscan missionary Marcos de Niza.
1540 - Franciscans arrived in Trinidad and were killed by cannibals.
1541 - Franciscans began establishing missions in California.
1542 - Francis Xavier went to the Portuguese colony of Goa in South India. Franciscans reached what is now New Mexico.
1543 - Anabaptist Menno Simons went as a missionary from the Netherlands to Germany.
1544 - Franciscan Andrés de Olmos, a veteran missionary in Mexico, went northward into the Texas wilderness. After gathering a group of indigenous converts, he led them back south to Tamaulipas.
1546 - Francis Xavier traveled to the Indonesian islands of Morotai, Ambon, and Ternate.
1547 - Wealthy Spaniard Juan Fernandez became a Jesuit. He wound up in Japan as a missionary.
1548 - Francis Xavier founded the College of the Holy Name of God in Baçaim on the northwest coast of India.
1549 - Dominican Luis Cancer, who had worked among the Mayans of Guatemala and Mexico landed at Tampa Bay, Florida, with two companions. They were immediately killed by the Calusa within sight of the ship from which they had disembarked.
1550 - Printed Bibles available in 28 languages.
1551 - Dominican Jerome de Loaysa founded the National University of San Marcos in Lima (Peru) as well as a hospital for the indigenous people.
1552 - Founder of the Jesuits, Spanish missionary Francis Xavier, died awaiting admission to China.
1553 - Portuguese missionaries built a church building in Malacca Town, Malaysia.
1554 - 1,500 converts to Christianity reported in Siam (now called Thailand).
1555 - John Calvin sent Huguenots to Brazil.
1556 - Dominican Gaspar da Cruz arrived in Guangzhou, China.
1557 - Jesuits arrived in Ethiopia.
1558 - The Kabardian duke Saltan Idarov converted to Orthodox Christianity.
1559 - Missionary Vilela settled in Kyoto, Japan.
1560 - Goncalo da Silveira, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, visited the Munhumutapa Empire, where he quickly made converts.
1562 - Diego de Landa burned the libraries of the Maya civilization.
1563 - Jesuit missionary Luis Frois, who later wrote a history of Jesuit activity in Japan, arrives in that country. Omura Sumitada became the first daimyo (feudal landholder) to convert to Christianity.
1564 - Legaspi began Augustinian work in the Philiippine Islands.
1565 - Jesuits arrived in Macau.
1566 - The first Jesuit to enter what is now the United States, Pedro Martinez, was clubbed to death by fearful indigenous people on the sands of Fort George Island, Florida.
1567 - Missionaries Jeronimo da Cruz and Sebastiao da Canto, both Dominicans, arrived at Ayutthia, Thailand.
1568 - In the Philippines, Diego de Herrera baptized Chieftain Tupas of Cebu and his son.
1569 - Jeronimo da Cruz was murdered together with two newly arrived missionaries.
1570 - Ignacio Azevedo and 39 other Jesuit missionaries were killed by pirates near Palma, one of the Canary Islands, while on their way to Brazil.
1571 - Capuchin friars of the 'Strict Observance' arrived on the island of Trinidad with conquistador Don Juan Ponce of Seville.
1572 - Jesuits arrived in Mexico.
1573 - Large-scale evangelization of the Florida indigenous tribes began with the arrival of Franciscan friars.
1574 - Augustinian Guillermo de Santa Maria wrote a treatise on the illegitimacy of the war that the Spanish government was waging against the Chichimeca in the Mexican state of Michoacán.
1575 - A church building was constructed in Kyoto. Built in Japanese architectural style, the building was popularly called the "temple of the South Barbarians.".
1576 - Jesuit missionaries entered the land of the Bengalis following Portuguese explorations.
1577 - Dominicans entered Mozambique and penetrated inland, burning Muslim mosques as they went.
1578 - The King of Spain ordered the bishop of Lima not to confer Holy Orders on mestizos.
1579 - Jesuit Alessandro Valignano arrived in Japan where, as "Visitor of Missions," he formulated a basic strategy for Catholic proselytism in that country. Valignano's adaptionism attempted to avoid cultural friction by covering the gap between certain Japanese customs and
Roman Catholic values.
1580 - Japanese Daimyo (feudal landholder) Arima Harunobu became Christian and took the name Protasio.
1581 - Luis de Valdivia became a Jesuit. After finishing his studies, he was sent to Peru.
1582 - Jesuits began mission work in China, introducing Western science, mathematics, and astronomy.
1583 - Five Jesuit missionaries -- Rudolph Acquaviva, Peter Berno, Francis Aranha, Alphonsus Pacheco, and Anthony Francisco -- were murdered near Goa in India.
1584 - Matteo Ricci and a Chinese scholar translated a catechism into Chinese under the title T'ien-chu sheng-chiao shih-lu (A True Account of God and the Sacred Religion).
1585 - Carmelite leader Jerome Gracian met with Martin Ignatius de Loyola, a Franciscan missionary from China. The two signed a bond of missionary brotherhood document by which the two religious orders agreed to collaborate in missionary work in Ethiopia, China, the
Philippines, and the East and West Indies.
1586 - Portuguese missionary Joao dos Santos reported that locals kill elephants to protect their crops in Sofala, Mozambique.
1587 - All foreigners were ordered out of Japan. Manteo became the first Native American to be baptized by the Church of England.
1588 - A Dominican missionary arrived in the Philippines.
1589 - Francis Solano went to Peru as a missionary.
1590 - A book by Belgian pastor Hadrian Saravia had a chapter arguing that the Great Commission was still binding on the church today because the Apostles did not fulfill it completely.
1591 - First Roman Catholic church building was constructed in Trinidad. First Chinese were admitted to the Jesuit order.
1593 - The Franciscans arrived in Japan and established St. Anna's Hospital in Kyoto.
1594 - First Jesuit missionaries arrived in Pakistan.
1595 - Dutch East India Company chaplains expanded their ministry beyond the European expatriates.
1596 - Jesuit missionaries traveled across the island of Samar in the Philippines to establish mission centers on the eastern side.
1597 - Twenty-six Japanese Christians were crucified for their faith by General Toyotomi Hideyoshi in Nagasaki, Japan. By 1640, thousands of Japanese Christians had been martyred.
1598 - Spanish missionaries pushed north from Mexico into what is now the state of NewMexico.
1599 - Jesuit Francisco Fernandez went to what is now the Jessore District of Bangladesh and, with the permission of King Pratapaditya, constructed a church building there.
1600s
1600 - French missionaries arrived in the area of what is now Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
1601 - Matteo Ricci went to China. First ordination of Japanese priests.
1602 - Chinese scientist and translator Xu Guangqi was baptized.
1603 - The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan published a Japanese/Portuguese dictionary.
1604 - Jesuit missionary Abbè Jessè Flèchè arrived at Port Royal, Nova Scotia.
1606 - Japanese Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu banned Christianity.
1607 - Missionary Juan Fonte established the first Jesuit mission among the Tarahumara in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Northwest Mexico.
1608 - A missionary expedition into the Ceará area of Brazil failed when the Tacariju killed the Jesuit leader.
1609 - Missionary Nicolas Trigault went to China.
1610 - Chinese mathematician and astronomer Li Zhizao was baptized.
1611 - Two Jesuits began work among Mi'kmaq people of Nova Scotia.
1612 - Jesuits founded a mission for the Abenakis in Maine.
1613 - Missionary Alvarus de Semedo went to China.
1614 - Anti-Christian edicts issued in Japan.
1615 - French missionaries in Canada opened schools in Trois-Rivieres and Tadoussac to teach Native American children with the hopes of converting them.
1616 - Nanjing Missionary Case in which the clash between Chinese practice of ancestor worship and Catholic doctrine ended in the deportation of foreign missionaries. Missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell arrived in China.
1617 - Portuguese missionary Francisco de Pina arrived in Vietnam.
1618 - Portuguese Carmelites went from Persia to Pakistan to establish a church in Thatta (near Karachi).
1619 - Dominican missionaries founded the University of St. Tomas in the Philippine islands.
1620 - Carmelites entered Goa.
1621 - The Augustinians established themselves in Chittagong, Bangladesh.
1622 - Pope Gregory VI founded the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.
1623 - A team of workers digging near an ancient Christian church and monastery in Ch'ang-ngan (Si-ngan-fu), China, unearthed an ancient stone monument over 9 feet tall, 33 inches wide, and 10 inches thick. The text, in both Chinese characters and Persian script, begins with the
words, "Let us praise the Lord that the [Christian] faith has been popular in China." The inscription had been written by Ching Ching (Adam), a Syrian monk in AD 781. It told of the arrival of a missionary, A-lo-pen (Abraham), in AD 625. He had arrived "bearing the sacred books, braving difficulties and dangers." Christianity was described as "The Illustrious Religion," and the text included a doctrinal overview and a list of Christian worship practices and ethics. It also mentioned a succession of Emperors who had been supportive of the Church and the
names of 67 priests in both Persian and Chinese.
1624 - Persecution intensified in Japan with 50 Christians being burned alive in Edo (now called Tokyo).
1625 - Vietnam expelled Christian missionaries.
1626 - After entering Japan in disguise, Jesuit missionary Francis Pacheco was captured and executed at Nagasaki.
1627 - Alexander de Rhodes went to Vietnam, where, in three years of ministry, he reportedly baptized 6,700 converts.
1628 - Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples established in Rome to train "native clergy" from all over the world.
1629 - Franciscan missionary Benavides founded Santa Clara de Capo on the border of Apache country in what is now New Mexico.
1630 - An attempt was made in the El Paso, Texas area to establish a mission among the Manson tribe.
1631 - Dutch missionary Abraham Roger, who authored Open Door to the Hidden Heathendom, began 10 years of ministry among the Tamil people in the Dutch colony of Pulicat near Madras, India.
1632 - The Zuni murdered a group of Franciscan missionaries who had three years earlier established the first mission to the Zunis at Hawikuh in what is now New Mexico.
1633 - German Lutheran Peter Heyling became the first Protestant missionary to Ethiopia.
1634 - Jesuit missionary Jean de Brèbeuf traveled to the Petun nation (in Canada) and baptized a 40-year-old man.
1635 - An expedition of Franciscans left Quito, Ecuador, to try to penetrate Amazonia from the west. Though most of them were killed along the way, a few managed to arrive on the Atlantic coast two years later.
1636 - The Dominicans of Manila (the Philippines) organized a missionary expedition to Japan. They were arrested on the Okinawa islands and were eventually condemned to death by the tribunal of Nagasaki.
1637 - When smallpox killed thousands of Native Americans, tribal medicine men blamed European missionaries for the disaster.
1638 - Official ban of Christianity in Japan with the death penalty. Influential Puritan Richard Sibbes wrote The Fountain Opened in which he said that the gospel must continue its journey "til it have gone over the whole world.".
1639 - The first women to New France as missionaries -- three Ursuline Nuns -- boarded the "St. Joseph" and set sail for the area now known as New England and Quebec.
1640 - Jesuit missionaries arrived on the Caribbean island of Martinique.
1641 - Jesuit missionary Cristoval de Acuna described the Amazon River in a report to the king of Spain.
1642 - Mohawks captured Catholic missionaries Isaac Jogues and Rene Goupil as they returned to Huron country from Quebec. Goupil was tomahawked to death while Jogues was held for a period of time as a slave. He used his enslavement as an opportunity to do missionary work.
1643 - John Campanius, a Lutheran missionary to indigenous peoples, arrived in America on the Delaware River. Reformed pastor Johannes Megapolensis began outreach to Native Americans while pastoring at Albany, New York.
1644 - John Eliot began a ministry to Algonquins in North America.
1645 - After thirty years of work in Vietnam, the Jesuits were expelled from that country.
1646 - After being accused of being a sorcerer, Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues was killed by the Iroquois.
1647 - The Discalced Carmelites began work on Madagascar.
1648 - Helena and other members of the imperial Chinese Ming dynasty were baptized.
1649 - The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel In New England was formed to reach the indigenous peoples of New England.
1650 - The destruction of Huronia by the Iroquois ended the Jesuits' dream of making the Huron tribe the focal point of their evangelistic efforts.
1651 - Count Truchsess of Wetzhausen, a prominent Lutheran layman, asked the theological faculty of Wittenberg why Lutherans were not sending out missionaries in obedience to the Great Commission.
1652 - Jesuit Antonio Vieira returned to Brazil as a missionary, where he championed the cause of exploited indigenous peoples until being expelled by Portuguese colonists.
1653 - A Mohawk war party captured Jesuit Joseph Poncet near Montreal. He was tortured and finally sent back with a message about peace overtures.
1654 - John Eliot published a catechism for Native Americans.
1655 - Jinga, princess of Matamba in Angola, was converted. Later, she wrote to the Pope urging that more missionaries be sent.
1656 - First Quaker missionaries arrived in what is now Boston, Massachusetts.
1657 - Thomas Mayhew, Jr., was lost at sea during a voyage to England that was to combine an appeal for missionary funds with personal business.
1658 - After the flight of the French missionaries from his area, chief Daniel Garakonthie of the Onondaga tribe, examined the customs of the French colonists and the doctrines of the missionaries and openly began protecting Christians in his part of what is now New York.
1659 - Jesuit Alexander de Rhodes established the Paris Foreign Missions Society.
1660 - Christianity was introduced into Cambodia.
1661 - George Fox, founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) sent three missionaries to China (although they never reached the field).
1662 - French Jesuit missionary Julien Garnier sailed for Canada.
1663 - John Eliot's translation of the entire Bible into one of the Algonquian languages was published (the New Testament had come out two years earlier). This Bible was the first complete Bible to be printed in the New World.
1664 - Justinian Von Welz, the author of three powerful pamphlets on the need for world missions, went to Dutch Guinea (now called Surinam) where he died three months later.
1665 - Japanese feudal landholders (called Daimyo) were ordered to follow the shogunate's example and to appoint inquisitors to do a yearly scrutiny of Christians.
1666 - John Eliot published his The Indian Grammar, a book written to assist in conversion work among Native Americans. Described as "some bones and ribs preparation for such a work," Eliot intended his Grammar for missionaries wishing to learn the
dialect spoken by the Massachusett Native Americans.
1668 - In a letter from his post in Canada, French missionary Jacques Bruyas lamented his ignorance of the Oneida language: "What can a man do who does not understand their language, and who is not understood when he speaks. As yet, I do nothing but stammer; nevertheless, in
four months, I have baptized 60 persons, among whom there are only four adults, baptized in
periculo mortis.1 All the rest are little children.".
1669 - Eager to compete with the Jesuits for conversion of the indigenous peoples on the Western Great Lakes, Sulpilcian missionaries Dollier de Casson and Galinee set out fromMontreal with twenty-seven men in seven canoes led by two canoes of Senecas.
1670 - Jesuits established missions on the Orinoco River in Venezuela.
1671 - Quaker missionaries arrived in the Carolinas.
1672 - A chieftain on Guam killed Jesuit missionary Diego Luis de San Vitores and his Visayan assistant, Pedro Calungsod, for having baptized the chief's daughter without his permission (some accounts do say the girl's mother consented to the baptism).
1673 - French trader Louis Jolliet and missionary Jacques Marquette visited what is now the state of Illinois, where the latter established a mission for Native Americans.
1674 - Vincentian mission to Madagascar collapsed after 25 years of abortive effort.
1675 - An uprising on the islands of Micronesia led to the death of three Christian missionaries.
1676 - Kateri Tekakwitha, who became known as the Lily of the Mohawks, was baptized by a Jesuit missionary. Her tribes-people jeered and stoned her for her new faithl. She survived and went to a missionary settlement in Canada.
1678 - French missionaries Jean La Salle and Louis Hennepin discovered Niagara Falls, that stupendous series of waterfalls on the Niagara River between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
1679 - Writing from Changzhou, newly arrived missionary Juan de Yrigoyen described three Christian congregations flourishing in that Chinese city.
1680 - The Pueblo Revolt began in New Mexico with the killing of twenty-one Franciscan missionaries.
1681 - After arriving in New Spain, Italian Jesuit Eusebio Kino soon became what one writer described as "the most picturesque missionary pioneer of all North America." A bundle of evangelistic zeal, Kino was also an explorer, astronomer, cartographer, mission builder, rancher,
cattle king, and defender of the frontier.
1682 - 13 missionaries went to "remote cities" in East Siberia.
1683 - Missionary Louis Hennepin returned to France after exploring Minnesota (where he was held as a prisoner for a time by the Dakota tribe) to write the first book about Minnesota, Description de la Louisiane.
1684 - Louis XIV of France sent Jesuit missionaries to China bearing gifts from the collections of the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles.
1685 - Consecration of the first Catholic bishop of Chinese origin.
1686 - Russian Orthodox monks arrived in China as missionaries.
1687 - French activity began in what is now Côe d'Ivoire when missionaries landed at Assinie.
1688 - New Testament translated into the Malay language (the first Bible translation into a language of Southeast Asia).
1689 - Carlos (Calosa or King Calusa), the paramount chief of the Calusa people ofSouthwest Florida, visited Cuba requesting missionaries.
1690 - First Franciscan missionaries arrived in Texas.
1691 - Christian Faith Society for the West Indies organized.
1692 - Chinese Kangxi Emperor permitted the Jesuits to freely preach the Christian message, converting whom they wished.
1693 - Jesuit missionary John de Britto was publicly beheaded in India.
1694 - Missionary and explorer Eusebio Kino became the first European to enter the Tucson, Arizona basin and create a lasting settlement.
1695 - China's first Russian Orthodox church building was consecrated.
1696 - Jesuit missionary Francois Pinet founded the Mission of the Guardian Angel near what is today Chicago, Illinois. The mission was abandoned in 1700 after missionary efforts seemed to bear no fruit.
1697 - To evangelize the English colonies, Thomas Bray, an Anglican preacher who made several missionary trips to North America, began laying the groundwork for what would be the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
1698 - Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge organized by Anglicans.
1699 - Priests of the Quebec Seminary of Foreign Missions established a mission among the Tamaroas at Cahokia in what is now the state of Illinois.
1700s
1700 - After a Swedish missionary's sermon to an indigenous tribe in Pennsylvania, one Native American posed such searching questions that the episode was reported in a 1731 history of the Swedish church in America. The interchange later inspired Benjamin Franklin's Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America (1784), in which Franklin has a Native American reply to a sermon on original sin "What you have told us ... is all very good. It is indeed bad to eat apples. It is better to make them all into cyder.".
1701 - Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts officially organized.
1702 - George Keith, Scotch Quaker, arrived in America as a missionary of the newly-organized Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
1703 - The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts expanded to the West Indies.
1704 - French missionary priests arrived to evangelize the Chitimacha living along the Mississippi River in what is now the state of Louisiana.
1705 - Danish-Halle Mission to India began with Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and Henry Plutschau.
1706 - Irish-born Francis Makemie, who had been an itinerant Presbyterian missionary among the colonists of America since 1683, was finally able to organize the first American presbytery.
1707 - Maillard de Tournon made public in Nanjing the Vatican decisions on rites, including the stipulations against the veneration of ancestors and of Confucius. Clergy who do not conform were to be excommunicated. Emperor Kangxi was furious. To him, the Pope was
a foreign sovereign who had no right to interfere in Chinese affairs. Italian Capuchin missionaries reached Kathmandu in Nepal.
1708 - Jesuit missionary Giovanni Battista Sidotti was arrested in Japan. He was taken to Edo (now called Tokyo) to be interrogated by Arai Hakuseki.
1709 - Experience Mayhew, missionary to the Martha's Vineyard Native Americans, translated the Psalms and the Gospel of John into the Massachusett language. It was considered second only to John Eliot's Indian Bible in terms of groundbreaking indigenous-language translations in colonial New England.
1710 - German Bible Society founded by Count Canstein.
1711 - Jesuit Eusebio Kino, missionary-explorer in southern Arizona and northern Sonora, died suddenly in northern Mexico. Kino, who has been called "the cowboy missionary," had fought against the exploitation of indigenous people in Mexican silver mines.
1712 - Using a press sent by The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the Tranquebar Mission in India began printing books in the Portuguese language.
1713 - Jesuit Ippolito Desideri went to Tibet as a missionary.
1714 - New Testament translated into Tamil (India). A missionary training college was established in Copenhagen.
1715 - Eastern Orthodox Church missionary outreach was renewed in Manchuria and
Northern China.
1716 - The viceroy of Mexico authorized the establishment of the Alamo Mission in San Antonio. The mission was to be an educational center for Native Americans who converted to Christianity.
1717 - Chen Mao wrote to the Chinese Emperor about his concerns over Catholic missionaries and Western traders. He urgently requested an all-out prohibition of Catholic missionaries in the Qing provinces.
1718 - Bartholomew Ziegenbalg constructed a church building in India that is still in use today.
1720 - Missionary Johann Ernst Gruendler died in India. He had arrived there in 1709 with the sponsorship of the Danish Mission Society.
1721 - Mission San Juan Bautista Malibat in Baja California was abandoned due to the hostility of the Cochimies, as well as to the decimation of the local population by epidemics and a water shortage.
1722 - Hans Egede went to Greenland.
1723 - Robert Millar published A History of the Propagation of Christianity and the Overthrow of Paganism.
1725 - Knud Leem arrived as a missionary to the Sami people of Finnmark (Norwegian Arctic).
1726 - John Wright, a Quaker missionary to the Native Americans, settled in southeastern Pennsylvania.
1728 - Institutum Judaicum founded in Halle by Francke as the first Protestant mission center for Jewish evangelism.
1729 - Roman Catholic missionary Du Poisson became the first victim in the Natchez massacre. On his way to New Orleans, he had been asked to stop and say Mass at the Natchez post. He was killed in front of the altar.
1730 - Lombard, a French missionary, founded a Christian village with over 600 indigenous people at the mouth of the Kuru River in French Guiana. A Jesuit, Lombard has been called the most successful of all missionaries in converting the indigenous people of French Guiana.
1731 - A missionary movement was born when Count Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf attended the coronation of King Christian VI of Denmark. For the first time, Zinzendorf met a non-European who talked about only recently hearing the name of Christ. By the following year, the movement with which Zinzendorf was associated, the Moravians, launched missionary
outreach in the Caribbean.
1732 - Alphonsus Liguori founded the Roman Catholic religious order known as the Redemptorist Fathers with the purpose of doing missionary work among rural people.
1733 - Moravians went to Greenland.
1734 - A missionary convinced a Groton, Connecticut church to lend its building to the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe for Christian worship services.
1735 - John Wesley went to what is now the US state of
Georgia as a missionary with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. (John Wesley's influence today)
1736 - Anti-Christian edicts in China. Moravian missionaries at work among Nenets people
of Arkhangelsk.
1737 - Rev. Pugh, a missionary in Pennsylvania with The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, wrote home to London to say that he had begun ministering to blacks. He noted that the slave masters were prejudiced against them becoming Christian.
1738 - Moravian missionary George Schmidt settled in Baviaan Kloof (Kloof of the Baboons) in the Riviersonderend Valley of South Africa. He began working with the Khoikhoi people, who were practically on the threshold of extinction.
1739 - The first missionary to the Mahican (Mohegan) tribe, John Sergeant, built a home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is today a museum.
1740 - Moravian David Zeisberger started work among the Creek people of Georgia.
1741 - Dutch missionaries began work on a building for Christ Church in Malacca Town, Malaysia. It took 12 years to complete.
1742 - Moravian Leader Count Zinzendorf visited Shekomeko, New York, where he baptized six Native Americans.
1743 - David Brainerd started his ministry to Native Americans.
1744 - Thomas Thompson resigned as dean at the University of Cambridge to become a missionary. He was sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to New Jersey. Taking a special interest in the slave population there, he later requested to
begin mission work in Africa. In 1751, Thompson would become the first S.P.G. missionary to the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana).
1745 - One day in late December, David Brainerd, missionary to Native Americans, wrote in his journal: "After public worship was over, I went to my house, proposing to preach again after a short season of intermission. But they soon came in one after another, with tears in their eyes, to know, what they should do to be saved. . . . It was an amazing season of power among them, and seemed as if God had bowed the heavens and come down ... and that God was about to convert the whole world.".
1746 - From Boston, Massachusetts, a call was issued to the Christians of the New World to enter into a seven-year "Concert of Prayer" for missionary work.
1747 - Jonathan Edwards appealed for prayer for world missions. Birth of Thomas Coke, the "Father of Methodist Missions".
1748 - Dominican friar Pedro Sanz and the four other missionaries were executed in China, together with 14 Chinese Christians. Prior to his death, Sanz reportedly converted some of his prison guards to Christianity.
1749 - Spanish Franciscan priest Junipero Serra (1713-1784) arrived in Mexico as a missionary. In 1767, he went north to what is now California, seeking the conversion of Native Americans.
1750 - Jonathan Edwards, preacher of the First Great Awakening, having been banished from his church at Northampton, Massachusetts, went as a missionary to the nearby Housatonics. Christian Frederic Schwartz went to India with the Danish-Halle Mission.
1751 - Samuel Cooke arrived in New Jersey as a missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
1752 - Thomas Thompson, the first Anglican missionary to Africa, arrived in the Gold Coast (now Ghana).
1753 - Searchers in Labrador looking for Moravian Johann Christian Erhardt found the body of one of his traveling companions. The disappearance of Erhardt and six companions had led to the temporary abandonment of Moravian missionary initiatives in Labrador.
1754 - Moravian John Ettwein arrived in America from Germany as a missionary. Preaching to Native Americans and establishing missions, Ettwein traveled as far south as Georgia. Eventually, he became head of the Moravian church in what is now the United States.
1755 - The Mahican settlement at Gnadenhutten, PA. was attacked and destroyed. Moravian missionary Johann Jacob Schmick, who pastored a group of indigenous converts, remained with the Mahicans through exile and captivity despite almost constant threats from white neighbors. Schmick joined his Native American congregation as they sought refuge in Bethlehem, following them as they eventually settled in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania.
1756 - Civil unrest forced Gideon Halley away from his missionary work among the Six Nations on the Susquehanna River, where he had been working for four years under the supervision of Jonathan Edwards with an appointment from the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians.
1757 - Lutherans reportedly began ministering to Blacks in the Caribbean.
1758 - John Wesley baptized two African-American slaves. In doing so, he broke the skin color barrier for Methodist societies.
1759 - Native American Samson Occom, a direct descendant of the great Mahican chief Uncas, was ordained by the Presbyterians. Despite poor eyesight, Occom became the first Native American to publish works in English. These included sermons, hymns, and a short autobiography.
1760 - Adam Voelker and Christian Butler arrived in Tranquebar as the first Moravian missionaries to India.
1761 - The first Moravian missionary in Ohio, Frederick Post, settled on the north side of the Muskingum in what is now Bethlehem township.
1762 - Moravian Missionary John Heckewelder conferred with Koquethagacton ("White Eyes") at the mouth of the Beaver River (Pennsylvania)
1763 - The Presbyterian Synod of New York ordered that a collection for missions be taken. In 1767, the Synod asked that this collection be done annually.
1764 - The Moravians decided to expand and begin publicizing their missionary activity, particularly in the British colonies. Moravian Jens Haven made the first of three exploratory missionary trips to Greenland.
1765 - Suriname Governor General Crommelin convinced three Moravian missionaries to work near the headwaters of the Gran Rio. They settled among the Saramaka near the Senthea Creek in Granman Abini's village where they were received with mixed feelings.
1766 - Philip Quaque, a Fetu youth from the Cape Coast area of Ghana who spent twelve years studying in England, returned to Africa. Supported as a missionary by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, Quaque was the first non-European ordained priest in the Church of England
1767 - Spain expelled the Jesuits from Spanish colonies in the New World
1768 - Five United Brethren missionaries from Germany, invited by the Danish Guinea Company, arrived in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), to teach in the Cape Coast Castle schools
1769 - Junípero Serra founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first of the 21 Alta California missions.
1770 - John Marrant, a free black from New York City, began ministering cross-culturally, preaching to Native Americans. By 1775, he had carried the gospel to the Cherokee and Creektribes as well as to groups he called the Catawar and Housaw peoples.
1771 - Francis Asbury arrived in America. David Avery was ordained as a missionary to the Oneida tribe
1772 - After visiting Scilly Cove in Newfoundland, Canada, missionary James Balfour described it as a "most Barbarous Lawless Place"
1773 - Pope Clement XIV dissolved the Jesuit Order. Two Dominican order missionaries were beheaded in Vietnam
1774 - Moravian missionaries Christoph Brasen and Gottfried Lehmann drowned when their sloop sank in a storm off Greenland
1775 - John Crook was sent by Liverpool Methodists to the Isle of Man
1776 - Cyril Vasilyevich Suchanov constructed the first church building among Evenks of Transbaikal (or Dauria) in (Siberia). The first baptism of an Eskimo by a Lutheran pastor took place in Labrador.
1777 - Portuguese missionaries constructed a church building at Hashnabad, Bangladesh
1778 - Theodore Sladich was martyred while doing missionary work to counter Islamic influence in the western Balkans
1779 - Charles Simeon was converted while a student at King's College, Cambridge. Twenty years later, he helped found what became the Church Missionary Society.
1780 - August Gottlieb Spangenberg wrote An Account of the Manner in Which the Protestant Church of the Unitas Fratrum, or United Brethren, Preach the Gospel and Carry On Their Missions Among the Heathen. Originally written in German, the book was translated
into English in 1788.
1781 - In the midst of the American Revolutionary War, the British so feared Moravian missionary David Zeisberger and his influence among the Lenapi (also called Delaware) and other Native Americans that they arrested him and his assistant, John Heckewelder, charging
them with treason,
1782 - Freed slave George Lisle went from the USA to Jamaica as a missionary
1783 - Moses Baker and George Gibbions, both former slaves, left the U.S. to become missionaries in the West Indies
1784 - Thomas Coke (Methodist) submitted his Plan for the Society for the Establishment of Missions Among the Heathen. Methodist missions among the "heathen" began in 1786 when Coke, destined for Nova Scotia, was driven off course by a storm and landed at Antigua in the
Caribbean.
1785 - Joseph White's sermon titled "On the Duty of Attempting the Propagation of the Gospel among our Mahometan and Gentoo Subjects in India" was published in the second edition of his book Sermons Containing a View of Christianity and Mahometanism, in their
History, their Evidence, and their Effects. The sermon had first been preached at the University of Oxford.
1786 - John Marrant, a free black from New York City, preached to "a great number of Indians and white people" at Green's Harbor, Newfoundland. Marrant's cross-cultural ministry led him to take the Gospel to the Cherokee, Creek, Catawba (he called them the Catawar), and
Housaw tribes.
1787 - William Carey was ordained in England by the Particular Baptists. Soon afterward, he began to urge that worldwide missions be undertaken
1788 - Dutch missionaries began preaching the Gospel to fishermen in Bangladesh
1789 - The Jesuits established Georgetown University in present-day Washington, D.C., as the first US Roman Catholic college
1790 - Prince Williams, a freed slave from South Carolina, went to Nassau, Bahamas, where he started Bethel Meeting House
1791 - One hundred and twenty Korean Christians were tortured and killed for their faith. It began when Paul Yun Ji-Chung, a noble who had become a Christian, decided not to bury his mother according to traditional Confucian custom. A ferocious persecution of Christians began
this was reported to the authorities.
1792 - William Carey wrote his Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen and formed the Baptist Missionary Society to support him in establishing missionary work in India.
1793 - Frontier missionary Stephen Badin left Baltimore on foot for Kentucky, reaching his destination seven months later.
1794 - Eight Russian Orthodox missionaries arrived in Alaska
1795 - The London Missionary Society formed to send missionaries to Tahiti
1796 - Scottish and Glasgow Missionary Societies established. In India, Johann Philipp Fabricius finished translating the entire Bible into Tamil
1797 - Netherlands Missionary Society formed. The Duff, carrying 37 lay and pastoral missionaries, dropped anchor in Tahiti. Twenty-one-year-old William Pascoe Crook of the London Missionary Society was left at Vaitahu on the Pacific island of Tahuata. The first
missionary to visit Hiva, Crook was not well received by the islanders.
1798 - The Missionary Society of Connecticut was organized by the Congregationalists to take the gospel to the "heathen lands" of Vermont and Ohio. Its missionaries evangelized both European settlers and Native Americans.
1799 - The Church Missionary Society (Church of England) was formed. John Vanderkemp, a Dutch physician, went to Cape Colony, Africa. Religious Tract Society organized
1800s
1800 - New York Missionary Society formed
1801 - John Theodosius Van Der Kemp moved to Graaff Reinet to minister to the Khoikhoi (Hottentots) people. Earlier he had helped found the Netherlands Missionary Society. Earlier, in 1798, he had gone to South Africa as a missionary among the Xhosa.
1802 - Henry Martyn heard Charles Simeon speak of William Carey's work in India and resolved to become a missionary himself. He sailed for India in 1805
1803 - The Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society voted to publish a missionary magazine that came to be called The American Baptist. When it ceased publication in 2004, the periodical was the oldest continuously-published religious magazine in the U.S.
1804 - British and Foreign Bible Society formed. Church Missionary Society entered Sierra Leone
1805 - The first Christian missionaries arrived in Namibia. Brothers Abraham and Christian
Albrecht from the London Missionary Society
1806 - Haystack prayer meeting at Williams College. Andover Theological Seminary was founded as a missionary training center. Protestant missionary work began in earnest across southern Africa
1807 - First Protestant missionary to China, Robert Morrison, began work in Guangzhou (formerly called Canton)
1808 - Founding of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews
1809 - The National Bible Society of Scotland organized
1810 - The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was formed
1811 - English Wesleyans entered Sierra Leone
1812 - One of the first American foreign missionaries, Adoniram Judson, arrived in Serampore and soon went to Burma
1813 - The Methodists formed the Wesleyan Missionary Society.
1814 - First recorded baptism of a Chinese convert, Cai Gao. American Baptist Foreign Mission Society was formed. Netherlands Bible Society was founded. Four Native Americans from beyond the Rocky Mountains went east to St. Louis, Missouri seeking information on the "palefaces' religion." The first missionaries arrived in New Zealand led by Samuel Marsden
1815 - The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions opened work on Ceylon. Basel Missionary Society was organized. Richmond African Missionary Society was founded.
1816 - Robert Moffat arrived in Africa. American Bible Society was founded
1817 - James Thompson began distributing Bibles throughout Latin America.
1818 - Missionary work began in Madagascar with the reluctant approval of the king
1819 - John Scudder, a missionary physician, joined the Ceylon Mission. Wesleyan Methodists started work in Madras, India. Reginald Heber wrote the words to the classic missionary hymn "From Greenland's
Icy Mountains"
1820 - Hiram Bingham went to Hawaii (Sandwich Islands)
1821 - African-American Lott Carey, a Baptist missionary, sailed with 28 colleagues from Norfolk, VA to Sierra Leone. Protestant Episcopal Church mission board was established.
1822 - Paris Evangelical Missionary Society established
1823 - Scottish Missionary Society workers arrived in Mumbai (known then as Bombay), India. Liang Fa, the first Chinese Protestant evangelist, was ordained by Robert Morrison. Colonial and Continental Church Society formed. African-American Betsy Stockton was sent by the American Board of Missions to Hawaii. She was the first single woman missionary in the history of modern missions.
1824 - Berlin Mission Society formed
1825 - George Boardman went to Burma
1826 - The American Bible Society sent the first shipment of Bibles to Mexico
1827 - Missionary Lancelot Threlkeld reported in The Monitor that he was "advancing rapidly" in his efforts to disseminate Holy Scripture among Indigenous Australians of the Hunter and Shoalhaven Rivers.
1828 - Basel Mission began work in the Christiansborg area of Accra, Ghana. Karl Gutzlaff of the Netherlands Missionary Society landed in Bangkok, Thailand. Rhenish Missionary Association formed.
1829 - George Mueller, a native of Prussia, went to England as a missionary to the Jews
1830 - Church of Scotland missionary Alexander Duff arrived in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). William Swan, a missionary to Siberia, wrote Letters on Missions, the first Protestant integrated treatment of the theory and practice of missions. Baptism of Taufa'ahau Tupou, King of Tonga, by a Western missionary
1831 - American Congregational missionaries arrived in Thailand. They withdrew in 1849 before seeing a single convert. Presbyterian Church mission board was established. Trinitarian Bible Society was formed.
1832 - Teava, former cannibal and pioneer Pacific Islander missionary, was commissioned by John Williams to work on the Samoan island of Manono.
1833 - Baptist work in Thailand began with John Taylor Jones. American Methodist missionary Melville Box arrived in Liberia. Free Will Baptist Foreign Missionary Society began work in India.
1834 - American Presbyterian Mission opened work in India in Punjab
1835 - Rhenish Missionary Society began work among the Dayaks on Borneo (Indonesia).
Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, called India's caste system "a cancer."
1836 - Plymouth Brethren began work in Madras, India. George Müller began his work with orphans in Bristol, England. Gossner Mission was formed. Leipzig Mission Society was established. Colonial Missionary Society was formed. The Providence Missionary Baptist District Association was formed, one of at least six national organizations among African-American Baptists whose sole objective was missionary work in Africa.
1837 - Evangelical Lutheran Church mission board was established. First translation of the Bible into Japanese (actual translation work done in Singapore)
1838 - Church of Scotland Mission of Inquiry to the Jews: four Scottish ministers including Robert Murray M'Cheyne and Andrew Bonar travel to Palestine.
1839 - The entire Bible was published in the language of Tahiti. Three French missionaries were martyred in Korea. English Protestant missionaries were murdered on Erromango (Vanuatu, South Pacific)
1840 - David Livingstone was in present-day Malawi (Africa) with the London Missionary Society. The American Presbyterians entered Thailand and labored for 18 years
before seeing their first Thai convert. Irish Presbyterian Missionary Society was formed. The Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Missionary Society was founded
1841 - Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society was formed. Welsh Methodists began working among the Khasi people of India
1842 - Gossner Mission Society began in Berlin
1843 - Baptist John Taylor Jones translated the New Testament into the Thai language. British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews was formed
1844 - German Ludwig Krapf began work in Mombasa on the Kenya Coast. The First Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was formed by George Williams. George Smith and Thomas McClatchie sailed for China as the first two Church Mission Society missionaries to that country
1845 - Southern Baptist Convention mission organization was founded
1846 - The London Missionary Society established work on Niue, a South Pacific island that Westerners called the "savage island."
1847 - Presbyterian William Burns went to China and translated The Pilgrim's Progress into Chinese. Moses White sailed to China as a Methodist medical
missionary.
1848 - Charles Forman went to Punjab. German missionaries Johannes Rebmann and Johann Ludwig Krapf arrived at Kilimanjaro. Initially, their story of a snow-covered peak near the equator was scoffed at.
1849 - Just weeks after arriving on the Melanesian island of Aneityum (or Anatom), missionary John Geddie wrote in his journal: "In the darkness, degradation, pollution, and misery that surrounds me, I will look forward in the vision of faith to the time when some of these poor
islanders will unite in the triumphant song of ransomed souls, 'Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood.'"
1850 - On the occasion of Karl Gützlaff's visit to Europe, the Berlin Ladies Association for China was established in conjunction with the Berlin Missionary Association for China. The following year, it started ministry in China with the arrival of Hermandine Neumann in Hong Kong.
1851 - Allen Gardiner and six missionary colleagues died of exposure and starvation at Patagonia on the southern tip of South America when a re-supply ship from England arrived six months late
1852 - Zenana (women) and Medical Missionary Fellowship formed in England to send out single women missionaries
1853- The Hermannsburg Missionary Society, founded in 1849 by Louis Harms, finished training its first group of young missionaries. They were sent to Africa on a ship (the Kandaze) built entirely with donated funds.
1854 - London Missionary Conference. New York Missionary Conference. Hnry Venn, secretary of the Church Missionary Society, promoted the ideals of self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating churches (more on the "three selfs"). Hudson Taylor arrived in China.
"Hudson Taylor's story reminds me that God's promises are always greater than our problems, and God will never let anything come to you that He and you cannot handle together." -- Victor Patterson, Northwest Nazarene University student
1855 - Henry Steinhauer was ordained as a Canadian Methodist missionary to indigenous peoples and posted to Lac La Biche, Alberta. Steinhauer's missionary work had begun 15 years earlier, in 1840, when he was assigned to Lac La Pluie to assist in interpreting, translating, and teaching in the Ojibwa and Cree languages.
1856 - Presbyterians started work in Colombia with the arrival of Henry Pratt
1857 - Bible translated into the Tswana language. The Board of Foreign Missions of the Dutch Reformed Church was set up.
1858 - John G. Paton began work in New Hebrides. Elizabeth Freeman martyred in India. Basel Evangelical Missionary Society began work in western Sumatra (Indonesia). Publication of David Livingstone's book Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.
1859 - Protestant missionaries arrived in Japan.
1860 - The United Lutheran Church began work in Liberia. Liverpool Missionary Conference. Cyrus Hamlin laid the groundwork for the establishment of Robert College in Constantinople.
1861 - Protestant Shtundism arose in the village of Osnova of modern-day Ukraine. Sarah Doremus founded the Women's Union Missionary Society. Episcopal Church opened work in Haiti. Rhenish Mission went to Indonesia under Ludwig Nommensen.
1862 - Paris Evangelical Missionary Society opens work in Senegal
1863 - Robert Moffat, missionary to Africa with the London MissionarySociety, published his book Rivers of Water in a Dry Place, Being an Account of the Introduction of Christianity into South Africa, and of Mr. Moffat's Missionary Labours.
1864 - Baptists entered Argentina
1865 - The China Inland Mission was founded by James Hudson Taylor. James Laidlaw Maxwell planted the first viable church in Taiwan.
1866 - Theodore Jonas Meyer (1819-1894), a converted Jew serving as a Presbyterian missionary in Italy, nursed those dying in a cholera epidemic until he himself fell prey to the disease. Barely surviving, he became a peacemaker between Catholics and Protestants. Robert
Thomas, the first Protestant martyr in Korea, was beheaded while offering a Bible to his executioner.
1867 - Methodists started work in Argentina. Scripture Union established. Lars Skrefsrud and Hans Barreson began working among the Santals of India.
1868 - Robert Bruce went to Iran. Canadian Baptist missionary Americus Timpany began work among the Telugu people in India.
1869 - The first Methodist women's missionary magazine, The Heathen Women's Friend, began publication
1870 - Clara Swain, the very first female missionary medical doctor, arrived at Bareilly, India.
1871 - Henry Stanley found David Livingstone in central Africa. George Leslie Mackay planted a church in northern Taiwan.
"People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply acknowledging a great debt we owe to our God, which we can never repay?. . . It is emphatically no sacrifice. Rather it is a privilege." --
David Livingstone, speaking at Cambridge University in 1857
1872 - First All-India Missionary Conference with 136 participants
1873 - Regions Beyond Missionary Union was founded in London in connection with the East London Training Institute for Home and Foreign Missions. The first Scripture portion (Gospel of Luke) was translated into a language used in the Philippines (Pangasinan). Lottie Moon
was appointed as a missionary to China
1874 - Lord Radstock's first visit to St. Petersburg and the beginning of an evangelical awakening among the St. Petersburg nobility. Albert Sturges initiated the Interior Micronesia Mission in the Mortlock Islands under the leadership of Micronesian students from Ohwa.
1875 - The Foreign Christian Missionary Society was organized with Isaac Errett as president. It served a network of churches within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Church of Christ movements.
1876 - In September, a rusty ocean steamer arrived at a port on the Calabar River in Nigeria. That part of Africa was then known as the White Man's Grave. The only woman on board that ship was 29-year-old Mary
Slessor, a missionary.
1877 - James Chalmers went to New Guinea
1878 - Mass movement to Christ in Ongole, India. Evangelical Association Missionary Society formed.
1879 - H. F. Reynolds enters the ministry. He became responsible for the global missionary work of the new Church of the Nazarene in 1907.
1880 - Woman missionary doctor Fanny Butler went to India. The missionary periodical The Gospel in All Lands was launched by A. B. Simpson
1881 - Methodist work in Lahore, Pakistan, started in the wake of revivals under Bishop William Taylor. North Africa Mission (now Arab World Ministries) started out of the ministry of Edward Glenny in Algeria
1882 - James Gilmour, London Missionary Society missionary to Mongolia, went home to England for a furlough. During that time, he published a book, Among the Mongols. It was so well-written that one critic wrote, "Robinson Crusoe has turned missionary, lived years
in Mongolia, and wrote a book about it." Concerning the author, the critic said, "If ever on earth there lived a man who kept the law of Christ, and could give proof of it, and be absolutely unconscious that he was giving it to them, it is this man whom the Mongols called 'our
Gilmour.'"
1883 - Salvation Army entered West Pakistan. A.B. Simpson organized The Missionary Union for the Evangelization of the World. The first classes of the Missionary Training College were held in New York City. Zaire Christian and Missionary Alliance mission field opened.
1884 - David Torrance was sent by the Jewish Mission of the Free Church of Scotland as a medical missionary to Palestine
1885 - Presbyterian missionary Horace Underwood and Methodist missionary Henry Appenzeller arrived in Korea. Scottish Ion Keith-Falconer went to Aden on the Arabian peninsula. "The Cambridge Seven" -- C. T. Studd, M.
Beauchamp, W. W. Cassels, D. E. Hoste, S. P. Smith, A.T. Podhill-Turner, and C. H. Polhill-Turner -- went to China as missionaries. Ugandan troops killed Anglican bishop James Hannigton and the Africans traveling with him.
1886 - Student Volunteer Movement launched when 100 university and seminary students at Moody's conference grounds at Mount Hermon, Massachusetts, signed the Princeton Pledge which says: "I purpose, God willing, to become a foreign missionary."
1887 -Dr. William Cassidy, a Toronto medical doctor, was ordained as the Christian and Missionary Alliance's first missionary preacher. Unfortunately, en route to China, he died of smallpox. However, Cassidy's death has been called the "spark that ignited the Alliance missionary blaze."
1888 - Jonathan Goforth sailed to China. The Student Volunteer Movement for foreign missions was officially organized with John R. Mott as chairman and Robert Wilder as traveling secretary. The movement's motto, coined by Wilder, was: "The evangelization of the world in this
generation". Scripture Gift Mission (now Lifewords) was founded
1889 - Samuel Moffatt sailed from the US for Korea to establish the Presbyterian Mission there. North Africa Mission entered Tripoli and started the first Protestant mission in Libya
1890 - Central American Mission was founded by C. I. Scofield, editor of the Scofield Reference Bible. The Scandinavian Alliance (now The Evangelical Alliance Mission) was founded. Methodist Charles Gabriel wrote the missionary song "Send the Light." John
Livingston Nevius of China visited Korea to outline his strategy for missions: 1) Each believer should be a productive member of society and active in sharing his faith; 2) The church in Korea should be distinctly Korean and free of foreign control; 3) The leaders of the Korean church will be selected and trained from its members; 4) Church buildings will be constructed by Koreans with their own resources
1891 - Samuel Zwemer went to Arabia. Helen Chapman sailed for the Congo (Zaire). She married a Danish missionary, William Rasmussen, whom she met during the voyage.
1892 - Redcliffe Missionary Training College was founded in Chiswick (London)
1893 - Eleanor Chestnut went to China as a Presbyterian medical missionary. Sudan Interior Mission was founded by Rowland Bingham, a graduate of Nyack College
1894 - The Soatanana Revival began in Madagascar and lasted over 90 years
1895 - The Africa Inland Mission was formed by Peter Cameron Scott. The Japan Bible Society was established. Roland Allen was sent as a missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to its North China Mission.
1896 - Ödön Scholtz founded the first Hungarian Lutheran foreign mission periodical, the Külmisszió
1897 - Presbyterian Church (USA) began work in Venezuela
1898 - Theresa Huntington left her New England home for the Middle East. For seven years, she worked as an American Board missionary in Elazig (Kharput) in the Ottoman Empire. Her letters home were published in a book titled Great Need over the Water.
1899 - James Rodgers arrived in the Philippines with the Presbyterian Mission. Central American Mission entered Guatemala
1900s
1900 - American Friends opened work in Cuba. Ecumenical Missionary Conference in Carnegie Hall, New York (162 mission boards represented). One hundred eighty-nine foreign missionaries and their children were killed in China's Boxer Rebellion. South African Andrew Murray wrote The Key to the Missionary Problem in which he challenged the church to hold weeks of prayer for the world
1901 - Nazarene John Diaz went to Cape Verde Islands. Maude Cary sailed for Morocco. Disciples of Christ opened work in northern Luzon (Philippines). Oriental Missionary Societywas founded by Charles Cowman (his wife compiled the popular devotional book Streams in the Desert). Missionary James Chalmers was killed and eaten by cannibalsin Papua New Guinea
1902 - Swiss members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Missions in Many Lands (CMML) entered Laos. California Yearly Meeting of Friends opened work in Guatemala.
1903 - Church of the Nazarene entered Mexico
1904 - Premillennialist theologian W.E. Blackstone began teaching that the world has already been evangelized, citing Acts 2:5, 8:4, Mark 16:20, and Colossians 1:23
1905 - Gunnerius Tollefsen was converted at a Salvation Army meeting under the preachingof Samuel Logan Brengle. Later, he became a missionary to the Belgian Congo and then first mission secretary of the Norwegian Pentecostal movement.
1906 - The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM) opened work in Venezuela with T. J. Bach and John Christiansen
1907 - Harmon Schmelzenbachsailed for Africa. Presbyterians and Methodists opened Union Theological Seminary in Manila, Philippines. Bolivian Indian Mission was founded by George Allen.
1908 - Gospel Missionary Union opened work in Colombia with Charles Chapman and John Funk. Assemblies of God entered Rome and southern Italy
1909 - Pentecostal movement organized in Chile. Nazarenes entered Argentina
1910 - C.T. Studd established the Heart of Africa Mission (now called WEC International). Edinburgh Missionary Conference held in Scotland, presided over by John Mott, beginning modern interdenominational cooperation in world missions
1911 - Christian & Missionary Alliance entered Vietnam
1912 - Conference of British Missionary Societies formed
1913 - African-American ElizaGeorge sailed
from New York to Liberia
1914 - Large-scale revival movement in Uganda
1915 - Founded in 1913 in Nanjing, China as a women's Christian college, Ginling College officially opened with eight students and six teachers. It was supported by four missions: the Northern Baptists, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Methodists, and the
Presbyterians.
1916 - Rhenish missionaries were forced to leave Ondjiva in southern Angola under pressure from the Portuguese authorities and Chief Mandume of the Kwanyama. By then, four congregations existed with a confessing membership of 800.
1917 - Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association (IFMA) founded
1918 - James L. Barton, head of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, asked missionaries who had served in the Ottoman Empire for detailed reports of the horrors they had witnessed of the Armenian Genocide.
1919 - The Union Version of the Chinese Bible was published. Nazarenes entered South Africa.
1920 - Baptist Mid-Missions was formed. Church of the Nazarene entered Syria.
1921 - Founding of the International Missionary Council (IMC). Norwegian Mission Council was formed.
1922 - Nazarenes entered Mozambique.
1923 - Scottish missionaries began work in British Togoland.
1924 - Bible Churchman's Missionary Society opened work in Upper Burma. Baptist Mid-Missions began work in Venezuela.
1925 - E. Stanley Jones, Methodist missionary to India, wrote The Christ of the Indian Road.
1926 - Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigators, was converted through Bible verses he had memorized
1927 - Near East Christian Council established
1928 - Cuba Bible Institute (West Indies Mission) opened. Jerusalem Conference of IMC
1929 - Christian & Missionary Alliance entered East Borneo (Indonesia).
1930 - Christian & Missionary Alliance started work among the Baouli tribe in the Côte d'Ivoire
1931 - HCJB radio station was started in Quito, Ecuador by Clarence Jones. Baptist Mid-Missions entered Liberia.
1932 - Assemblies of God opened mission work in Colombia. Laymen's Missionary Inquiry report was published.
1933 - Gladys Aylward (the subject of the movie "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness") arrived in China.
1935 - Frank C. Laubach, an American missionary to the Philippines, perfected the "Each one teach one" literacy program, which has been used worldwide to teach 60 million people to read.
1936 - With the outbreak of civil war in Spain, missionaries were forced to leave that country.
1937 - After the expulsion of missionaries from Ethiopia by the invading Italian army, widespread revival erupted among Protestant (SIM) churches.
1938 - West Indies Mission entered the Dominican Republic. The Church Missionary Society was forced out of Egypt. Madras World Missionary Conference held. Dr. Orpha Speicher supervised the construction of the Reynolds Memorial Hospital building in central India.
1939 - A sick missionary, Joy Ridderhof, made a recording of gospel songs and a message and sent it into the mountains of Honduras. It was the beginning of Gospel Recordings.
1940 - Marianna Slocum began translation work in Mexico. Military police in Japan arrested the executive officers of the Salvation Army.
1941 - The steamship Zamzam, sailing from New York with 140 missionaries bound for various African mission fields, was sunk by the Germans. All the missionary passengers were saved.
1942 - William Cameron Townsend founded Wycliffe Bible Translators. New Tribes mission was founded with a vision to reach the tribal peoples of Bolivia.
1943 - World Gospel Mission (National Holiness Missionary Society) entered Honduras. Five missionaries with New Tribes Mission were martyred. The Nazarenes entered the Virgin Islands. Eleven American Baptist missionaries were beheaded in the Philippines by Japanese
soldiers.
1944 - Missionaries returned to Suki, Papua New Guinea after the withdrawal of the Japanese military
1945 - Mission Aviation Fellowship was formed. Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC) was founded. Evangelical Foreign Missions Association formed by denominational mission boards. The Nazarenes entered Australia, Bolivia, Guyana and the Philippines.
1946 - First Inter-Varsity missionary convention (later called simply "Urbana"). United Bible Societies was formed.
1947 - The Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society began work among the Senufo people in the Côte d'Ivoire
1948 - Alfredo del Rosso merged his Italian Independent Holiness Mission with the Church of the Nazarene. That opened Nazarene work on the European continent. Don Owens opened work for the Church of the Nazarene in Korea. The Southern Baptist Convention adopted a strategy that called for tripling the number of its missionaries (achieved by 1964)
1949 - Southern Baptist Mission board opened work in Venezuela.
1950 - Nazarene missionaries Paul and Mary Orjala arrived in Haiti. Radio station 4VEH, owned by East and West Indies Bible Mission, started broadcasting from near Cap Haitien, Haiti.
1951 - The World Evangelical Alliance was organized. Bill and Vonette Bright created Campus Crusade for Christ (now called Cru) at UCLA.
1952 - The Church of the Nazarene entered New Zealand. Trans World Radio was founded.
1953 - Walter Trobisch, who would later write, I loved a girl, began pioneer missionary work in northern Cameroon. The Nazarenes entered Panama.
1954 - The Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities opened work in Cuba. Argentine Revival broke out during a Tommy Hicks crusade.
1955 - Donald McGavran published Bridges of God. Dutch missionary "Brother Andrew" made the first of many Bible smuggling trips into Communist Eastern Europe. Sydney and Wanda Knox went to Papua New Guinea as Nazarene missionaries.
1956 - U.S. missionaries Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Edward McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian died at the hands of the Waorani on the Curaray River in Ecuador. Assemblies of God opened work in Senegal.
1957 - The Nazarenes entered Malawi.
1958 - Rochunga Pudaite completed a translation of the Bible into the Hmar language (India) and was appointed the leader of the Indo-Burma Pioneer Mission. The Nazarenes entered Brazil and Germany.
1959 - Radio Lumiere founded in Haiti by the West Indies Mission (now World Team). Josephine Makil became the first African-American to join Wycliffe Bible Translators.
1960 - Kenneth Strachan started Evangelism-in-Depth in Central America. In Morocco, 18,000 people replied to a newspaper ad by the Gospel Missionary Union offering a free correspondence course on Christianity. Loren Cunningham founded Youth with a Mission.
1961 - The Nazarenes entered Zambia.
1962 - Don and Carol Richardson went to the Sawi tribe in Papua New Guinea. George Verwer founded Operation Mobilisation in Mexico.
1963 - The Theological Education by Extension movement was launched in Guatemala by Ralph Winter and James Emery.
1964 - In separate incidents, rebels in the Congo killed missionaries Paul Carlson and Irene Ferrel as well as brutalizing missionary doctor Helen Roseveare. Carlson was featured on the December 4 TIME magazine cover. Hans von Staden of the Dorothea Mission urged Patrick Johnstone to write the book now titled Operation World. | Roseveare's fondly-remembered story about a hot water bottle and a doll.
1965 - Evangelist Juliet Ndzimandze was ordained in Swaziland, the first woman to be ordained in Africa by the Church of the Nazarene.
1966 - Red Guards destroyed churches in China. Berlin Congress on Evangelism. Missionaries were expelled from Burma (now Myanmar). God's Smuggler was published.
1967 - A million Christians were killed in the Biafra civil war. The Church of the Nazarene
entered the Netherlands.
1968 - Wu Yung and others formed the Chinese Missions Overseas to send out missionaries from Taiwan to do cross-cultural ministry.
1969 - OMF International began "industrial evangelism" to Taiwan's factory workers.
1970 - Frankfurt Declaration on Mission. Operation Mobilisation launched the ship Logos.
1971 - Gustavo Gutierrez published A Theology of Liberation.
1972 - The American Society of Missiology was founded with the journal Missiology. The Nazarenes entered Ecuador and St. Lucia.
1973 - The Church of the Nazarene entered Argentina, Indonesia, Namibia, and Portugal. The first All-Asa Mission Consultation convened in Seoul, Korea with 25 delegates from 14 countries.
1974 - Missiologist Ralph Winter talked about "hidden" or unreached peoples at the Lausanne Congress of World Evangelism. The Lausanne Covenant was written and ratified. Guatemala Las Verapaces became the first Phase 4 Nazarene district outside of the USA,
Canada, and Great Britain.
1975 - American missionaries Armand Doll and Hugh Friberg were imprisoned in Mozambique after a communist takeover of the government.
1976 - U.S. Center for World Mission founded in Pasadena, California. In Hong Kong, 1600 Chinese assembled for the Chinese Congress on World Evangelization. Islamic World Congress called for the withdrawal of Christian missionaries. Peace Child appeared in Reader's Digest..
1977 - The Evangelical Fellowship of India sponsored the "All-India Congress on Mission and Evangelization".
1978 - The Nazarenes entered Switzerland. LCWE Consultation on Gospel and Culture was held in Willowbank, Bermuda.
1979 - Production of the JESUS film was commissioned by Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ. PIONEERS was founded, the first missionary agency with a sole focus on the "unreached people groups."
1980 - Philippine Congress on "Discipling a Whole Nation." The Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism was held in Pattaya.
1981 - Colombian terrorists kidnapped and killed Wycliffe Bible Translator Chet Bitterman. Project Pearl: one million Bibles were delivered in a single night to thousands of waiting believers in China.
1982 - Third World Theologians Consultation in Seoul. Story on "The New Missionary" made the December 27 cover of TIME magazine. Andes Evangelical Mission (formerly Bolivian Indian Mission) merged into SIM (originally Sudan Interior Mission).
1983 - Nazarenes started work on St. Kitts-Nevis.
1984 - Founding of STEM (Short Term Evangelical Mission teams) ministry by Roger Petersen signaled the rising importance of short-term missions groups.
1985 - Unsuccessful attempt to start Nazarene work in Cyprus.
1986 - The entire Bible was published in Haitian Creole. Nazarenes entered Egypt and Guadeloupe.
1987 - Second International Conference on Missionary Kids (MKs) was held in Quito, Ecuador.
1988 - Wycliffe Bible Translators completed their 300th New Testament translation (Cotabato Manobo language of the Philippines). The Nazarenes started work in French Guiana, Senegal, and Uganda.
1989 - Adventures In Missions (AIM) Short-term missions agency founded by Seth Barnes. Lausanne II, a world missions conference. The concept of the 10/40 Window emerged. "Ee-Taow" video released by New Tribes Mission. Nazarenes entered Thailand.
1990 - Church of the Nazarene entered the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda, and Tanzania.
1991 - The Marxist government of Ethiopia was overthrown and missionaries were able to return to that country. Regions Beyond Missionary Union was dissolved.
1992 - Nazarenes started work in Angola, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Romania, Russia, Solomon Islands, and Ukraine.
1993 - Church of the Nazarene entered Albania, Eritrea, Lesotho, and Madagascar.
1994 - Liibaan Ibrahim Hassan, a convert to Christianity in Somalia, was martyred by Islamic militants in the capital city of Mogadishu. The Church of the Nazarene entered Bulgaria and St. Martin.
1995 - Nazarene missionary Don Cox was abducted in Quito, Ecuador. The Church of the Nazarene started work in Fiji and Palau.
1997 - Nazarenes entered Burkina Faso and Sao Toma.
1998 - Nazarenes entered Benin, Nepal and Togo.
1999 - Trans World Radio went on the air from Grigoriopol (Moldova) using a 1-million-watt AM transmitter. Veteran Australian missionary Graham Stewart Stains and his two sons were burned alive by Hindu extremists as they slept in a car in eastern India.
2000s
2000 - Militants detonated two bombs in a Christian church in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, killing
seven persons and injuring 70 others.
2001 - New Tribes Missionaries Martin and Gracie Burnham were kidnapped in the Philippines by a Muslim terrorist group. Baptist missionary Roni Bowers and her infant daughter are killed when a Peruvian Air Force jet fired on their small float-plane. Though severely wounded in both legs, missionary pilot Kevin Donaldson landed the burning plane on the Amazon River. Six masked gunmen shot up a church in Bahawalpur, Pakistan, killing 15 Pakistani Christians.
2002 - Militants threw grenades into the Protestant International Church in Islamabad, Pakistan, during a church service. Five persons were killed and 46 were wounded.
2003 - Church of the Nazarene started work on Reunion.
2004 - Four Southern Baptist missionaries were killed by gunmen in Iraq.
2006 - Abdul Rahman, an Afghan Christian convert, was forced out of Afghanistan and into exile in Italy by local Muslim leaders.
1In periculo mortis is a Latin phrase meaning "in danger of dying."
Not every year has something connected to it. If you know of something for one of the missing years, let me know. I'll be glad to add it. It needs to be said that I'm part of the Church of the Nazarene. So, that's the reason events connected with my "tribe" appear here and there in this chronological unfolding of gospel outreach.
-- compiled by Howard Culbertson,
"The stories of missionaries, like William Carey, Robert Morrison, and J. Hudson Taylor, left me questioning the depth of my own faith and passion for seeing others come to Christ. I want faith like they had -- unwavering faith -- and a passion for the lost." -- Kaitlin S., children's pastor
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Commission fulfillment on specific days of the year?
