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Christian mission history: Important events, locations, people and movements in World
Evangelism
Putting faith in action
Some of the earliest years in this missions dateline are approximate. I'm part
of the Church of the Nazarene. Therefore, various countries in which there are Nazarene
congregations and ministries will appear in this chronological listing.
A chronology of Church history from the perspective of the expansion of
Christianity
Earliest dates must all be considered "approximate."
An earlier edition of this time line was used in Wikipedia and other internet
sites.
- 30 - Pentecost and birth of the Christian church
- 34 - Church scattered by persecution; In Gaza, Philip baptizes a convert, an Ethiopian who
was already a Jewish proselyte.
- 39 - Peter preaches to the Gentiles
- 42 - Mark goes to Egypt
- 49 - Jerusalem Council on admitting Gentiles into the Church 48 - Paul (formerly known as
Saul of Tarsus) begins his first missionary journey to modern-day Turkey.
- 51 - Paul begins his second missionary journey, a trip that will take him through Turkey and
on into modern-day Greece.
- 52 - Apostle Thomas arrives in India and founds church that subsequently becomes Indian
Orthodox Church (and its various descendants).
- 54 - Paul begins his third missionary journey
- 60 - Paul journeys to Rome.
- 66 -Thaddeus establishes the Christian church of Armenia
- 72 - Traditional date of the Apostle Thomas' martyrdom in India
- 100 - First Christians are reported in Monaco, Algeria, and Sri Lanka
- 112 - Traditional date of martyrdom of Sharbil, Babai, and Barsamy in Edessa,
Mesopotamia
- 117 - Emperor Hadrian executes thousands of soldiers who had converted to
Christianity
- 166 - Bishop Soter writes that the number of Christians has surpassed the Jews
- 174 - First Christians reported in Austria
- 180 - Pantaenus preaches in India
- 196 - Bar Daisan writes of Christians among the Parthians, Bactrians (Kushans), and other
peoples in the Persian Empire
- 197 - Tertullian writes that Christianity had penetrated all ranks of society in North
Africa
- 200 - First Christians are reported in Switzerland and Belgium
- 206 - Abgar, King of Edessa, embraces the Christian faith
- 208 - Tertullian writes that Christ has followers on the far side of the Roman wall in Britain
where Roman legions have not yet penetrated
- 250 - Denis (or Denys or Dionysius) is sent from Rome along with six other missionaries to
establish the church in Paris
- 280 - First rural churches emerge in northern Italy; Christianity is no longer exclusively in
urban areas
- 287 - Maurice from Egypt is killed at Agauno, Switzerland for refusing to sacrifice to pagan
divinities
- 295 - Dudi (David) of Basra evangelizes in India
- 300 - First Christians reported in Greater Khorasan; an estimated 10% of the world's
population is now Christian; the Bible is available in 10 different languages
- 304 - Armenia accepts Christianity as state religion
- 306 - The first bishop of Nisibis is ordained
- 314 - Tiridates I of Armenia converted by Gregory the Illuminator
- 327 - Emperor Constantine baptized shortly before his death
- 328 - Frumentius takes gospel to Ethiopia
- 333 - Ethiopian King Ezana of Axum makes Christianity an official religion
- 334 - The first bishop is ordained for Merv in Transoxiana
- 340 - Ulfilas begins work with the Goths in present-day Romania
- 350 - Two young Christians, shipwrecked in the Red Sea, are taken as slaves to Ethiopia to
serve in the royal court. Given freedom to preach the gospel, their witness gives birth to the
Coptic Church.
- 354 - Theophilus "the Indian" reports visiting Christians in India; Philostorgius mentions 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 translates the Bible into Visigothic, the first Bible translation done specifically
for missionary purposes
- 381 - Roman Emperor Theodosius I makes Christianity the official state religion
- 382 - Jerome is commissioned to translate the Bible into Latin
- 386 - Augustine of Hippo converted
- 390 - Nestorian missionary Abdyeshu builds a monastery on the island of Bahrain
- 397 - Ninian evangelizes the Southern Picts of Scotland
- 410 - New Testament translated into Armenian
- 420 - An Arabian Bedouin tribe is converted under sheik Peter-Aspebet
- 425 - The first bishops are ordained for Herat (Afghanistan) and Samarkand
(Uzbekistan)
- 432 - Patrick goes to Ireland as missionary
- 496 - Conversion of Clovis I, king of Franks in Gaul, along with 3,000 warriors
- 500 - First Christians reported in North Yemen
- 508 - Philoxenus of Mabug begins translation of the Bible into Syriac
- 528 - Benedict of Nursia destroys pagan temple at Monte Cassino (Italy) and builds a
monastery
- 535 - The Hephthalite Huns - nomads living in northern China, Central Asia, and northern
India who were also known as the White Huns - are taught to read and write by Nestorian
missionaries.
- 542 - Julian (or Julianus) from Constantinople begins evangelizing Nubia accompanied by an
Egyptian named Theodore
- 563 - Columba sails from Ireland to Scotland where he founds an evangelistic training center
on Iona.
- 565 - The first report of a Loch Ness monster after the Irish missionary Columba visits 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, evangelizes 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 sends Augustine and a team of missionaries to (what is now)
England to reintroduce the gospel. The missionaries settle in Canterbury and within a year
baptize 10,000 people
- 600 - First Christian settlers in Andorra (southwestern Europe, between France and
Spain)
- 629 - Amandus of Elnon is 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) arrive in China; Aidan of Lindisfarne begins evangelizing in the heart of Northumbria
(England)
- 637 - Lombards, a German people living in northern Italy, become Christians
- 638 - A church building is erected in Ch'ang-an, then perhaps the largest city in the
world
- 650 - First church organized in Netherlands
- 673 - Irish monk Maol Rubha founds 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 kill Irish missionary Kilian near Würzburg in what is now Germany. His
remains will be buried in a Benedictine abbey in Würzburg.
- 692 - Willibrord and 11 companions cross the North Sea to become missionaries to the
Frisians (modern day Netherlands)
- 697 - Muslims overrun Carthage, capital of North Africa
- 720 - Caliph Umar II puts heavy pressure on the Christian Berbers to convert to Islam
- 722 - Boniface goes to Germanic tribes
- 724 - Boniface fells pagan sacred oak of Thor at Geismar in Hesse (Germany)
- 740 - Irish monks reach Iceland
- 781 - Nestorian Stele erected near Xi'an (China) to commemorate the propagation in China
of the Luminous Religion, thus providing a written record of a Christian presence in China
- 787 - Liudger begins missionary work among the pagans near the mouth of the Ems river (in
modern day Germany)
- 822 - Mojmír I of Great Moravia, converts to Christianity
- 826 - Ansgar from France is sent by Roman papal authority to Denmark as a royal chaplain
and missionary
- 828 - First Christian church in present-day Slovakia built in Nitra
- 828 - First missionaries reach the area that is now the Czech Republic
- 830 - Scotch-born Erluph is evangelizing in (what is now) Germany when he is killed by the
Vandals.
- 859 - Execution of Eulogius, proponent of confrontational Christian witness in Muslim
societies. Opposed to any feeling of affinity with Muslim culture, Eulogius advocated using a
missiology of martyrdom to confront Islam.
- 863 - Cyril and Methodius are invited by Rastislav to evangelize in Great Moravia and the
Balaton Principality
- 864 - Conversion of Prince Boris of Bulgaria
- 867 - The Serbian and Montenegrin peoples embrace Christianity
- 878 - Last definite reference to Christians in China before the Mongol era
- 880 - First Slavic archbishopric established in Great Moravia with Methodius as its
head
- 900 - Missionaries reach Norway
- 912 - The Normans become Christian
- 948 - The leader of the Magyars converts to Christianity
- 957 - Princess Olga of Kiev baptized
- 965 - Harold I of Denmark converts to Christianity and smooths the way for the acceptance
of Christian faith by the Danish people
- 981 - Nestorian monks visiting China find no traces of Christian community left
- 988 - Baptism of Kievan Rus' under Vladimir I
- 997 - Adalbert of Prague dies as a martyr in Prussia
- 1000 - Leif the Lucky evangelizes Greenland
- 1008 - Sigfrid (or Sigurd), English missionary, baptizes King Olof of Sweden
- 1009 - Bruno of Querfurt is beheaded in Prussia where he had gone as a missionary
- 1015 - Russia is said to have been "comprehensively" converted to the Orthodox faith
- 1017 - The Danish king Canute converts to Christianity
- 1099 - Crusaders capture Jerusalem and massacre 70,000 Muslims as well as Jews
- 1200 - The Bible is now available in 22 different languages
- 1219 - Francis of Assisi presents the Gospel to the Sultan of Egypt
- 1220 - Dominican Order established
- 1223 - Franciscan Order established
- 1251 - King Mindaugas of Lithuania baptized
- 1252 - Franciscan William of Rubruck begins his journey to the Mongols
- 1266 - Mongol leader Khan sends 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 opens training center to send missionaries to North Africa
- 1289 - Franciscan friars begin mission work in China
- 1294 - Franciscan Giovanni di Monte Corvino goes to China
- 1303 - Arnold von Koln arrives in China to assist Giovanni di Monte Corvino
- 1321 - Jordanus, a Dominican monk, arrives in India as the first resident Roman Catholic
missionary
- 1322 - Odoric of Pordenone, a Franciscan monk from Italy, arrives in China
- 1323 - Franciscans make contacts on Sumatra, Java, and Borneo
- 1326 - Changatid Khan Ilchigedai grants permission for a church to be built in Samarkand,
Uzbekistan
- 1329 - Nicea falls to Muslim Ottoman Turks
- 1368 - Collapse of the Franciscan mission in China as Ming Dynasty abolishes
Christianity
- 1379 - Stephen of Prem travels north toward the White Sea and settles as a missionary
among the Finno-Ugric speaking Komi peoples living between Pechora and Vychegda Rivers at
Ust-Vim
- 1382 - Bible translated into English from Latin by John Wycliff
- 1386 - Jagiello, king of the Lithuanians, is baptized
- 1410 - Bible is translated into Hungarian
- 1435 - Forced conversion of Jews in Spain
- 1448 - First Christians reported in Mauritania
- 1453 - Constantinople falls to the Muslim Ottoman Turks who make it their capital
- 1462 - Johannes Gutenberg begins printing the Bible with his movable-type printing process;
Pope Pius II assigns 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 requests that a
church be planted in his kingdom
- 1486 - Dominicans become active in West Africa, notably among the Wolof people in
Senegambia.
- 1489 - Baptism of Wolof king Behemoi in Senegal
- 1491 - The Congo sees its first group of missionaries arrive. Under the ministry of these
Franciscan and Dominican priests, the king would soon be baptized and a church built at the
royal capital.
- 1492 - Birth of the church in Angola
- 1493 - Christopher Columbus takes Christian priests with him on his second journey to the
New World
- 1494 - First missionaries arrive in Dominican Republic
- 1495 - The head of a convent in Seville, Spain, Mercedarian Jorge, makes a trip to the West
Indies.
- 1496 - First Christian baptisms in the New World take place when Indian chief Guaticaba
along with other members of his household are baptized on the island of Hispaniola
- 1497 - Forced conversion of Jews in Portugal
- 1498 - First Christians are reported in Kenya
- 1499 - Portuguese Augustinian missionaries arrive at Zanzibar. Their mission will end in
1698 due to the Oman-Arab conquest.
- 1500 - Franciscans enter Brazil with Cabral
- 1501 - Pope Alexander VI grants to the crown of Spain all the newly-discovered countries in
the Americas, on condition that provision be made for the religious instruction of the native
populations
- 1502 - Bartolome de Las Casas, who will later become an ardent defender of the indigenous
peoples of the Americas, goes to Cuba. For his military services there he will be given an
encomienda, an estate that included the services of the Indians living on it.
- 1503 - Mar Elijah, Patriarch of the East Syrian church, sends three missionaries "to the
islands of the sea which are inside Java and to China."
- 1506 - Mission work begun in Mozambique
- 1510 - Dominicans begin work in Haiti
- 1515 - Portuguese missionary Francisco Álvares is sent on a diplomatic mission to Dawit II,
the Negus or Emperor of Abyssinia (an old name for Ethiopia)
- 1516 - Three Franciscans are 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, is consecrated by Pope Leo X as the first
indigenous bishop from Black Africa
- 1519 - Two Franciscans accompany Hernán Cortés in his expedition to Mexico
- 1520 - German missionary Maximilian Uhland, also known as Bernardino de San Jose, goes
to Hispaniola with the newly appointed Bishop Geraldini.
- 1521 - Pope Leo X grants Franciscan Francis Quiñones permission and faculties to go as a
missionary to the New World together with Juan Clapión
- 1522 - Portuguese missionaries establish presence on coast of Sri Lanka and begin moving
inland with Portuguese military units
- 1523 - Martin Luther writes 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 goes to New Spain with 12 Franciscan friars
- 1525 - Italian Franciscan missionary Giulio Zarco is sent to Michoacán on the western coast
of Mexico where he will become very proficient in Indian languages
- 1526 - Franciscans enter Florida; Twelve Dominican friars arrive in the Mexican capital
- 1527 - Missionary Conference of Augsburg -- Organized by the Anabaptists, it is the
first-ever Protestant missionary conference
- 1528 - Franciscan missionary Juan de Padilla arrives in Mexico. He will accompany
Coronado's expedition searching for the Seven Cities and eventually settle among the Quivira
(now called the Wichita)
- 1529 - Franciscan Peter of Ghent writes from Latin America that he and a colleague had
baptized
- 14,000 people on one day.
- 1530 - In his On Translating: An Open Letter, Martin Luther lays out some principles of
correct Bible translating
- 1531 - Franciscan Juan de Padilla begins a series of missionary tours among Indian tribes
southeast of Mexico City.
- 1532 - Evangelization of Peru begins when missionaries arrive with Francisco Pizzaro's
military expedition
- 1533 - First Christian missionaries arrive in Tonkin, Vietnam
- 1534 - The entire caste of Paravas on the Coromandel Coast are baptized -- perhaps 10,000
people in all
- 1535 - German Franciscan missionary Maximilian Uhland (also called Bernardino de San
Jose) speaks before the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith about the wretched
condition of Indians in the New World
- 1536 - Northern Italian Anabaptist missionary Hans Oberecker (also spelled Overacker and
Overakker) is burned at the stake in Vienna, Austria
- 1537 - Pope Paul III orders that the Indians 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 enter Paraguay
- 1539 - The Pueblos of what is now the U.S. Southwest are encountered by Spanish
Franciscan missionary Marcos de Niza
- 1540 - Franciscans arrive in Trinidad and are killed by cannibals
- 1541 - Franciscans begin establishing missions in California
- 1542 - Francis Xavier goes to Portuguese colony of Goa in South India; Franciscans reach
what is now New Mexico
- 1543 - Anabaptist Menno Simons goes as a missionary from the Netherlands to
Germany
- 1544 - Franciscan Andrés de Olmos, a veteran missionary in Mexico, struck northward into
the Texas wilderness. After gathering a group of Indian converts, he will lead them back into
Tamaulipas
- 1546 - Francis Xavier travels to the Indonesian islands of Morotai, Ambon, and Ternate
- 1547 - Wealthy Spaniard Juan Fernandez becomes a Jesuit. He will wind up in Japan as a
missionary.
- 1548 - Francis Xavier founds 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, lands at Tampa Bay, Florida with two companions. They are immediately killed by the
Calusa within sight of the ship from which they had disembarked.
- 1550 - Printed Bibles are available in 28 languages
- 1551 - Dominican Jerome de Loaysa founds the National University of San Marcos in Lima
(Peru) as well as a hospital for the Indians
- 1552 - Founder of Jesuits, Spanish missionary Francis Xavier, dies awaiting admission to
China
- 1553 - Portuguese missionaries build a church in Malacca Town, Malaysia
- 1554 - 1,500 converts to Christianity are reported in Siam (now called Thailand)
- 1555 - John Calvin sends Huguenots to Brazil
- 1556 - Dominican Gaspar da Cruz arrives in Guangzhou, China
- 1557 - Jesuits arrive in Ethiopia
- 1558 - The Kabardian duke Saltan Idarov converts to Orthodox Christianity
- 1559 - Missionary Vilela settles in Kyoto, Japan
- 1560 - Goncalo da Silveira, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, visited the Munhumutapa
Empire, where he quickly made converts
- 1562 - Diego de Landa burns the libraries of the Maya civilization
- 1563 - Jesuit missionary Luis Frois, who will later write a history of Jesuit activity in Japan,
arrives in that country; Omura Sumitada becomes the first daimyo (feudal landholder) to convert
to Christianity
- 1564 - Legaspi begins Augustinian work in Philippine Islands
- 1565 - Jesuits arrive in Macau.
- 1566 - The first Jesuit to enter what is now the United States, Pedro Martinez, is clubbed to
death by fearful Indians on the sands of Fort George Island, Florida
- 1567 - Missionaries Jeronimo da Cruz and Sebastiao da Canto, both Dominicans, arrive at
Ayutthia, Thailand
- 1568 - In the Philippines, Diego de Herrera baptizes Chieftain Tupas of Cebu and his
son
- 1569 - Jeronimo da Cruz is murdered along with two newly-arrived missionaries
- 1570 - Ignacio Azevedo and 39 other Jesuit missionaries are killed by pirates near Palma,
one of the Canary Islands, while on their way to Brazil
- 1571 - Capuchin friars of the 'Strict Observance' arrive on the island of Trinidad with
conquistador Don Juan Ponce of Seville.
- 1572 - Jesuits arrive in Mexico
- 1573 - Large-scale evangelization of the Florida Indian nations and tribes begins with the
arrival of Franciscan friars
- 1574 - Augustinian Guillermo de Santa Maria writes a treatise on the illegitimacy of the war
the Spanish government was waging against the Chichimeca in the Mexican state of
Michoacán
- 1575 - Church building constructed in Kyoto. Built in Japanese architectural style, it was
popularly called the "temple of the South Barbarians."
- 1576 - Jesuit missionaries enter the land of the Bengalis following Portuguese
explorations
- 1577 - Dominicans enter Mozambique and penetrate inland, burning Muslim mosques as
they go
- 1578 - King of Spain orders the bishop of Lima not to confer Holy Orders on mestizos
- 1579 - Jesuit Alessandro Valignano arrives in Japan where, as "Visitor of Missions," he
formulates a basic strategy for Catholic proselytism in that country. Valignano's adaptationism
attempted to avoid cultural frictions by covering the gap between certain Japanese customs and
Roman Catholic values.
- 1580 - Japanese Daimyo (feudal landholder) Arima Harunobu becomes Christian and takes
the name Protasio
- 1581 - Luis de Valdivia becomes a Jesuit. After finishing his studies, he will be sent to
Peru
- 1582 - Jesuits begin mission work in China, introduce Western science, mathematics,
astronomy
- 1583 - Five Jesuit missionaries -- Rudolph Acquaviva, Peter Berno, Francis Aranha,
Alphonsus Pacheco and Anthony Francisco -- are murdered near Goa (India)
- 1584 - Matteo Ricci and a Chinese scholar translate 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 meets with Martin Ignatius de Loyola, a Franciscan
missionary from China. The two sign a vinculo de hermandad misionera -- a bond of missionary
brotherhood -- by which the two orders would collaborate in missionary work in Ethiopia, China,
the Philippines, and the East and West Indies.
- 1586 - Portuguese missionary Joao dos Santos reports that locals kill elephants to protect
their crops in Sofala, Mozambique.
- 1587 - All foreigners ordered out of Japan; Manteo becomes the first American Indian to be
baptized by the Church of England
- 1588 - A Dominican missionary arrives in the Philippines
- 1589 - Francis Solano goes to Peru as a missionary
- 1590 - A book by Belgian pastor Hadrian Saravia has a chapter arguing that the Great
Commission is still binding on the church today because the Apostles did not fulfill it
completely
- 1591 - First Roman Catholic church built in Trinidad; First Chinese admitted as members of
the Jesuit order
- 1593 - The Franciscans arrive in Japan and establish St. Anna's hospital in Kyoto
- 1594 - First Jesuit missionaries arrive in Pakistan
- 1595 - Dutch East India Company chaplains expand their ministry beyond the European
expatriates
- 1596 - Jesuit missionaries travel across the island of Samar in the Philippines to establish
mission centers on the eastern side
- 1597 - Twenty-six Japanese Christians are crucified for their faith by General Toyotomi
Hideyoshi in Nagasaki, Japan. By 1640, thousands of Japanese Christians will have been
martyred.
- 1598 - Spanish missionaries push north from Mexico into what is now the state of New
Mexico
- 1599 - Jesuit Francisco Fernandez goes to what is now the Jessore District of Bangladesh
and, with the permission of King Pratapaditya, builds a church there
- 1600 - French missionaries arrive in the area of what is now Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
- 1601 - Matteo Ricci goes to China; First ordination of Japanese priests
- 1602 - Chinese scientist and translator Xu Guangqi is baptized
- 1603 - The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan commences publication of a Japanese- Portuguese
dictionary
- 1604 - Jesuit missionary Abbè Jessè Flèchè arrives at Port Royal, Nova Scotia
- 1605 - Roberto de Nobili goes to India
- 1606 - Japanese Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu bans Christianity
- 1607 - Missionary Juan Fonte establishes 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 fails when the Tacariju kill the
Jesuit leader
- 1609 - Missionary Nicolas Trigault goes to China
- 1610 - Chinese mathematician and astronomer Li Zhizao is baptized
- 1611 - Two Jesuits begin work among Mi'kmaq Indians of Nova Scotia
- 1612 - Jesuits found a mission for the Abenakis in Maine
- 1613 - Missionary Alvarus de Semedo goes to China
- 1614 - Anti-Christian edicts issued in Japan
- 1615 - French missionaries in Canada open 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 ends in the deportation of foreign missionaries. Missionary Johann
Adam Schall von Bell arrives in China
- 1617 - Portuguese missionary Francisco de Pina arrives in Vietnam
- 1618 - Portuguese Carmelites go from Persia to Pakistan to establish a church in Thatta (near
Karachi)
- 1619 - Dominican missionaries found the University of St. Tomas in the Philippine
islands
- 1620 - Carmelites enter Goa
- 1621 - The Augustinians establish themselves in Chittagong
- 1622 - Pope Gregory VI founds 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 unearth 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 were greatly supportive of the Church, and the names of 67 priests
in both Persian and Chinese.
- 1624 - Persecution intensifies in Japan with 50 Christians being burned alive in Edo (now
called Tokyo)
- 1625 - Vietnam expels missionaries
- 1626 - After entering Japan in disguise, Jesuit missionary Francis Pacheco is captured and
executed at Nagasaki
- 1627 - Alexander de Rhodes goes to Vietnam where in three years of ministry he baptizes
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 founds Santa Clara de Capo on the border of
Apache Indian country in what is now New Mexico
- 1630 - An attempt is made in the El Paso, Texas area to establish a mission among the
Mansos Indians
- 1631 - Dutch missionary Abraham Roger, who authored Open Door to the Hidden
Heathendom, begins 10 years of ministry among the Tamil people in the Dutch colony of Pulicat
near Madras, India
- 1632 - Zuni Indians murder 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 Church sends Peter Heyling as first Protestant missionary to
Ethiopia
- 1634 - Jesuit missionary Jean de Brèbeuf travels to the Petun nation (in Canada) and
baptizes a
- 40 year old man.
- 1635 - An expedition of Franciscans leaves Quito, Ecuador, to try to penetrate into
Amazonia from the west. Though most of them will be killed along the way, a few will manage
to arrive two years later on the Atlantic coast.
- 1636 - The Dominicans of Manila (the Philippines) organize a missionary expedition to
Japan. They are arrested on one of the Okinawa islands and will be eventually condemned to
death by the tribunal of Nagasaki.
- 1637 - When smallpox kills thousands of Native Americans, tribal medicine men blame
European missionaries for the disaster
- 1638 - Official ban of Christianity in Japan with death penalty; Influential Puritan Richard
Sibbes writes The Fountain Opened in which he says 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 -- board the
"St. Joseph" and set sail for New France
- 1640 - Jesuit missionaries arrive on the Caribbean island of Martinique
- 1641 - Jesuit missionary Cristoval de Acuna describes the Amazon River in a written report
to the king of Spain
- 1642 - Catholic missionaries Isaac Jogues and Rene Goupil are captured by Mohawk Indians
as they return to Huron country from Quebec. Goupil was tomahawked to death while Jogues
will be held for a period of time as a slave. He used his slavery as an opportunity for missionary
work
- 1643 - John Campanius, Lutheran missionary to the Indians, arrives in America on the
Delaware River; Reformed pastor Johannes Megapolensis begins outreach to Native Americans
while pastoring at Albany, New York
- 1644 - John Eliot begins ministry to Algonquin Indians in North America
- 1645 - After thirty years of work in Vietnam, the Jesuits are expelled from that country
- 1646 - After being accused of being a sorcerer, Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues is killed by the
Iroquois
- 1647 - The Discalced Carmelites begin work on Madagascar
- 1648 - Baptism of Helena and other members of the imperial Ming family
- 1649 - Society for the Propagation of the Gospel In New England formed to reach the
Indians of New England
- 1650 - The destruction of Huronia by the Iroquois puts an end to the Jesuits' dream of
making the Huron Indians the focal point of their evangelism
- 1651 - Count Truchsess of Wetzhausen, prominent Lutheran layman, asks the theological
faculty of Wittenberg why Lutherans are not sending out missionaries in obedience to the Great
Commission
- 1652 - Jesuit Antonio Vieira returns to Brazil as a missionary where he will champion the
cause of exploited indigenous peoples until being expelled by Portuguese colonists
- 1653 - A Mohawk war party captures Jesuit Joseph Poncet near Montreal. He is tortured and
will be finally sent back with a message about peace overtures
- 1654 - John Eliot publishes a catechism for American Indians
- 1655 - Jinga, princess of Matamba in Angola is converted; later she will write to the Pope
urging that more missionaries be sent
- 1656 - First Quaker missionaries arrive in what is now Boston, Massachusetts
- 1657 - Thomas Mayhew, Jr., is 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 Indians, examines the customs of the French colonists and the doctrines of the
missionaries and openly begins protecting Christians in his part of what is now New York
- 1659 - Jesuit Alexander de Rhodes establishes the Paris Foreign Missions Society
- 1660 - Christianity is introduced into Cambodia
- 1661 - George Fox, founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) sends 3
missionaries to China (although they never reached the field)
- 1662 - French Jesuit missionary Julien Garnier sails for Canada
- 1663 - John Eliot's translation of the Bible into one of the Algonquian languages is published
(the New Testament came out two years earlier). This Bible was the first complete Bible to be
printed in the New World
- 1664 - Justinian Von Welz, author of three powerful pamphlets on the need for world
missions, goes to Dutch Guinea (now called Surinam) where he dies after only three months
- 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 publishes his The Indian Grammar, a book written to assist in conversion
work among the Indians. 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
Indians.
- 1667 - The first missionary to attempt to reach the Huaorani (or Aucas), Jesuit Pedro Suarez,
is slain with spears
- 1668 - In a letter from his post in Canada, French missionary Jacques Bruyas laments 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. All the rest are little children."
- 1669 - Eager to compete with the Jesuits for conversion of the Indian Nations on the western
Great Lakes, Sulpilcian missionaries Dollier de Casson and Galinee set out from Montreal with
twenty-seven men in seven canoes led by two canoes of Seneca Indians
- 1670 - Jesuits establish missions on the Orinoco River in Venezuela
- 1671 - Quaker missionaries arrive in the Carolinas
- 1672 - A chieftain on Guam kills 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 visit what is now the
state of Illinois, where the latter establishes a mission for Native Americans
- 1674 - Vincentian mission to Madagascar collapses after 25 years of abortive effort
- 1675 - An uprising on the islands of Micronesia leads to the death of three Christian
missionaries
- 1676 - Kateri Tekakwitha, who became known as the Lily of the Mohawks, is baptized by a
Jesuit missionary. Her tribes-people will jeer and stone her for her new faith, and she will
eventually go to a missionary settlement in Canada
- 1678 - French missionaries Jean La Salle and Louis Hennepin discover 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 describes three
Christian congregations flourishing in that Chinese city
- 1680 - The Pueblo Revolt begins in New Mexico with the killing of twenty-one Franciscan
missionaries
- 1681 - After arriving in New Spain, Italian Jesuit Eusebio Kino soon becomes 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,
ranchman, cattle king, and defender of the frontier
- 1682 - 13 missionaries go to "remote cities" in East Siberia
- 1683 - Missionary Louis Hennepin returns to France after exploring Minnesota and being
held captive by the Dakota to write the first book about Minnesota, Description de la
Louisiane
- 1684 - Louis XIV of France sends Jesuit missionaries to China bearing gifts from the
collections of the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles
- 1685 - Consecration of first Catholic bishop of Chinese origin
- 1686 - Russian Orthodox monks arrive in China as missionaries
- 1687 - French activity begins in what is now Côte d'Ivoire when missionaries land at
Assinie
- 1688 - New Testament translated into the Malay language (the first Bible translation into a
language of southeast Asia)
- 1689 - Calusa Indian chief from what is the state of Florida visits Cuba requesting
missionaries
- 1690 - First Franciscan missionaries arrive in Texas
- 1691 - Christian Faith Society for the West Indies organized
- 1692 - Chinese Kangxi Emperor permits the Jesuits to freely preach the Christian message,
converting whom they wish
- 1693 - Jesuit missionary John de Britto is publicly beheaded in India
- 1694 - Missionary and explorer Eusebio Kino becomes the first European to enter the
Tucson, Arizona basin and create a lasting settlement
- 1695 - China's first Russian Orthodox church building is consecrated
- 1696 - Jesuit missionary Francois Pinet founds the Mission of the Guardian Angel near what
is today Chicago, Illinois. The mission was abandoned in 1700 when missionary efforts seemed
fruitless
- 1697 - To evangelize the English colonies, Thomas Bray, an Anglican preacher who made
several missionary trips to North America, begins laying the groundwork for what will 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 establish a mission among the
Tamaroa Indians at Cahokia in what is now the state of Illinois
- 1700 - After a Swedish missionary's sermon to an Indian tribe in Pennsylvania, one Native
American posed such searching questions that the episode was reported in a history of the
Swedish church in America printed in 1731. The interchange later inspired Benjamin Franklin's
Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America (1784), in which Franklin has an Indian
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, arrives 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 expands to the West
Indies
- 1704 - French missionary priests arrive to evangelize the Chitimacha living along the
Mississippi River in what is now the state of Louisiana
- 1705 - Danish-Halle Mission to India begins with Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and Henry
Plutschau
- 1706 - Irish-born Francis Makemie, who has been an itinerant Presbyterian missionary
among the colonists of America since 1683, is finally able to organize the first American
presbytery
- 1707 - Maillard de Tournon makes public, in Nanjing, the Vatican decisions on rites,
including the stipulations against the veneration of ancestors and of Confucius. Clergy who do
not conform are to be excommunicated. Emperor Kangxi is furious. To him, the Pope is a foreign
sovereign who has no right to interfere in Chinese affairs; Italian Capuchin missionaries reach
Kathmandu in
Nepal
- 1708 - Jesuit missionary Giovanni Battista Sidotti is arrested in Japan. He is taken to Edo
(now called Tokyo) to be interrogated by Arai Hakuseki
- 1709 - Experience Mayhew, missionary to the Martha's Vineyard Indians, translates the
Psalms and the Gospel of John into the Massachusett language. It will be a work considered
second only to John Eliot's Indian Bible in terms of significant Indian-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,
dies suddenly in northern Mexico. Kino, who has been called "the cowboy missionary," had
fought against the exploitation of Indians in Mexican silver mines.
- 1712 - Using a press sent by The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the
Tranquebar Mission in India begins printing books in the Portuguese language
- 1713 - Jesuit Ippolito Desideri goes to Tibet as a missionary
- 1714 - New Testament translated into Tamil (India); a missionary training college is
established in Copenhagen
- 1715 - Eastern Orthodox Church missionary outreach is renewed in Manchuria and Northern
China
- 1716 - The establishment of the Alamo Mission in San Antonio is authorized by the viceroy
of Mexico. The mission was to be an educational center for Native Americans who converted to
Christianity.
- 1717 - Chen Mao writes 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 constructs a church building in India that is still in use
today
- 1719 - Isaac Watts writes missionary hymn "Jesus Shall Reign Where'er the Sun"
- 1720 - Missionary Johann Ernst Gruendler dies 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 is abandoned due to the
hostility of the Cochimies Indians, as well as to the decimation of the local population by
epidemics and a water shortage
- 1722 - Hans Egede goes to Greenland
- 1723 - Robert Millar publishes A History of the Propagation of Christianity and the
Overthrow of Paganism
- 1724 - Yongzheng Emperor bans missionary activities outside the Beijing area
- 1725 - Knud Leem arrives as a missionary to the Sami people of Finnmark (Norwegian
Arctic)
- 1726 - John Wright, a Quaker missionary to the Native Americans, settles in southeastern
Pennsylvania
- 1728 - Institutum Judaicum founded in Halle by Francke as first Protestant mission center for
Jewish evangelism
- 1729 - Roman Catholic missionary Du Poisson becomes 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, French missionary, founds a Christian village with over 600 Indians at the
mouth of Kuru river in French Guiana. A Jesuit, Lombard has been called the most successful of
all missionaries in converting the Indians of French Guiana
- 1731 - A missionary movement is born when Count Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf attends the
coronation of King Christian VI of Denmark. For the first time, he 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, would launch missionary outreach in the
Caribbean.
- 1732 - Alphonsus Liguori founds the Roman Catholic religious order known as the
Redemptorist Fathers with the purpose of doing missionary work among rural people
- 1733 - Moravians go to Greenland
- 1734 - A missionary convinces a Groton, Connecticut church to lend its building to the
Mashantucket Pequot Tribe for Christian worship services.
- 1735 - John Wesley goes to Indians in Georgia as missionary with the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
- 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, writes home to London to say that he had begun ministering to blacks.
He noted that the masters of the slaves were prejudiced against them becoming Christian.
- 1738 - Moravian missionary George Schmidt settles in Baviaan Kloof (Kloof of the
Baboons) in the Riviersonderend Valley of South Africa. He begins working with the Khoikhoi
people, who were practically on the threshold of extinction.
- 1739 - The first missionary to the Mahican (Mohegan) Indians, John Sergeant, builds a home
in Stockbridge, Massachusetts that is today a museum.
- 1740 - Moravian David Zeisberger starts work among Creek people of Georgia
- 1741 - Dutch missionaries start building Christ Church building in Malacca Town, Malaysia.
It will take 12 years to complete.
- 1742 - Moravian Leader Count Zinzendorf visits Shekomeko, New York and baptizes six
Indians
- 1743 - David Brainerd starts ministry to North American Indians
- 1744 - Thomas Thompson resigns his position 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 would later
request 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, writes 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, Massachussets a call is issued to the Christians of the New World to
enter into a seven-year "Concert of Prayer" for missionary work
- 1747 - Jonathan Edwards appeals for prayer for world missions; birth of Thomas Coke, the
"Father of Methodist Missions"
- 1748 - Roman Catholic Pedro Sanz and the four other missionaries are executed, 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) arrives in Mexico as a
missionary. In 1767 he would go north to what is now California, zealously converting native
Americans.
- 1750 - Jonathan Edwards, preacher of the First Great Awakening, having been banished from
his church at Northampton, Massachusetts goes as a missionary to the nearby Housatonic
Indians. Christian Frederic Schwartz goes to India with Danish-Halle Mission
- 1751 - Samuel Cooke arrives in New Jersey as a missionary for the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
- 1752 - Thomas Thompson, first Anglican missionary to Africa, arrives in the Gold Coast
(now Ghana)
- 1753 - Searchers in Labrador looking for Moravian Johann Christian Erhardt finds the body
of one of his traveling companions. The disappearance of Erhardt and six companions had led to
temporary abandonment of Moravian missionary initiatives in Labrador.
- 1754 - Moravian John Ettwein arrives in America from Germany as a missionary. Preaching
to Native Americans and establishing missions, Ettwein will travel as far south as Georgia.
Eventually, he will become head of the Moravian church in what is now the United States.
- 1755 - The Mahican Indian settlement at Gnadenhutten, Pa. is attacked and destroyed.
Moravian missionary Johann Jacob Schmick who pastors a group of Indian converts, will remain
with the Mahicans through exile and captivity despite almost constant threats from white
neighbors. Schmick will join his Indian congregation as they seek refuge in Bethlehem, follow
them as captives to
Philadelphia, and remain with them after they settle in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania.
- 1756 - Civil unrest forces Gideon Halley away from his missionary work among the Six
Nations on the Susquehanna River where he has 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 begin ministering to Blacks in the Caribbean
- 1758 - John Wesley baptizes two African-American slaves, thus breaking the skin color
barrier for Methodist societies
- 1759 - Native American Samson Occom, direct descendant of the great Mahican chief
Uncas, is ordained by the Presbyterians. Despite poor eyesight, Occom became the first
American Indian to publish works in English. These included sermons, hymns and a short
autobiography.
- 1760 - Adam Voelker and Christian Butler arrive in Tranquebar as the first Moravian
missionaries to India
- 1761 - The first Moravian missionary in Ohio, Frederick Post, settles on the north side of the
Muskingum in what is now Bethlehem township
- 1762 - Moravian Missionary John Heckewelder confers with Koquethagacton ("White
Eyes") at the mouth of the Beaver River (Pennsylvania)
- 1763 - The Presbyterian Synod of New York orders that a collection for missions be taken.
In
- 1767 the Synod will ask that this collection be done annually.
- 1764 - The Moravians make a decision to expand and begin publicizing their missionary
activity, particular in the British colonies; Moravian Jens Haven makes the first of three
exploratory missionary journeys to Greenland
- 1765 - Suriname Governor General Crommelin convinces three Moravian missionaries to
work near the head waters of the Gran Rio. They settle among the Saramaka near the Senthea
Creek in Granman Abini's village where they are received with mixed feelings.
- 1766 - Philip Quaque, a Fetu youth from the Cape Coast area of Ghana who spent twelve
years studying in England, returns to Africa. Supported as a missionary by the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, Quaque is first non-European ordained priest in the
Church of England
- 1767 - Spain expels the Jesuits from Spanish colonies in the New World
- 1768 - Five United Brethren missionaries from Germany, invited by the Danish Guinea
Company, arrive in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), to teach in the Cape Coast Castle schools
- 1769 - Junípero Serra founds Mission San Diego de Alcalá, first of the 21 Alta California
missions.
- 1770 - John Marrant, a free black from New York City, begins ministering cross-culturally,
preaching to the American Indians. By 1775 he had carried the gospel to the Cherokee and Creek
Indians as well as to groups he called the Catawar and Housaw peoples.
- 1771 - Francis Asbury arrives in America; David Avery is ordained as missionary to the
Oneida tribe
- 1772 - After visiting Scilly Cove in Newfoundland, Canada, missionary James Balfour
describes it as a "most Barbarous Lawless Place"
- 1773 - Pope Clement XIV dissolves the Jesuit Order; two Dominican order missionaries
beheaded in Vietnam
- 1774 - Moravian missionaries Christoph Brasen and Gottfried Lehmann drown when their
sloop sinks in a storm off Greenland
- 1775 - John Crook is sent by Liverpool Methodists to the Isle of Man
- 1776 - Cyril Vasilyevich Suchanov builds first church among Evenks of Transbaikal (or
Dauria) in (Siberia); The first baptism of an Eskimo by a Lutheran pastor takes place in
Labrador.
- 1777 - Portuguese missionaries build a church at Hashnabad, Bangladesh
- 1778 - Theodore Sladich is martyred while doing missionary work to counter Islamic
influence in the western Balkans
- 1779 - Charles Simeon is 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 writes 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 the German language, the book will be
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 goes to Jamaica as missionary
- 1783 - Moses Baker and George Gibbions, both former slaves, leave the U.S. to become
missionaries in the West Indies
- 1784 - Thomas Coke (Methodist) submits his Plan for the Society for the Establishment of
Missions Among the Heathen. Methodist missions among the "heathen" will begin in 1786 when
Coke, destined for Nova Scotia, is driven off course by a storm and lands at Antigua in the
British West Indies.
- 1785 - Joseph White's sermon titled "On the Duty of Attempting the Propagation of the
Gospel among our Mahometan and Gentoo Subjects in India" is 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 was first preached at the University of Oxford.
- 1786 - John Marrant, a free black from New York City, preaches 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 Indians.
- 1787 - William Carey is ordained in England by the Particular Baptists and soon begins to
urge that worldwide missions be undertaken
- 1788 - Dutch missionaries begin preaching the Gospel among fishermen in Bangladesh
- 1789 - The Jesuits, establish Georgetown University in present-day Washington, D.C., as the
first US Catholic college
- 1790 - Prince Williams, a freed slave from South Carolina, goes to Nassau, Bahamas, where
he will start Bethel Meeting House
- 1791 - One hundred and twenty Korean Christians are 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 had
been when this is reported to the authorities.
- 1792 - William Carey writes Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use means for the
conversion of the heathen and forms the Baptist Missionary Society to support him in
establishing missionary work in India.
- 1793 - Frontier missionary Stephen Badin
- 1794 - Eight Russian Orthodox missionaries arrive in Alaska
- 1795 - The London Missionary Society is formed to send missionaries to Tahiti
- 1796 - Scottish and Glasgow Missionary Societies established; In India, Johann Philipp
Fabricius finishes translating entire Bible into Tamil
- 1797 - Netherlands Missionary Society formed; The Duff, carrying 37 lay and pastoral
missionaries, drops anchor in Tahiti; Twenty-one-year-old William Pascoe Crook of the London
Missionary Society is left alone at Vaitahu on the Pacific island of Tahuata. The first missionary
to visit Hiva, he was not well received by the islanders.
- 1798 - The Missionary Society of Connecticut is 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) is formed; John Vanderkemp,
Dutch physician goes to Cape Colony, Africa; Religious Tract Society organized
- 1800 - New York Missionary Society formed
- 1801 - John Theodosius Van Der Kemp moves to Graaff Reinet to minister to the Khoikhoi
(Hottentots) people. Earlier he had helped found the Netherlands Missionary Society. In 1798, he
had gone to South Africa to work as a missionary among the Xhosa.
- 1802 - Henry Martyn hears Charles Simeon speak of William Carey's work in India and
resolves to become a missionary himself. He will sail for India in 1805
- 1803 - The Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society votes to publish a missionary
magazine. Now known as The American Baptist, the periodical is the oldest religious magazine
in the U.S.
- 1804 - British and Foreign Bible Society formed; Church Missionary Society enters Sierra
Leone
- 1805 - The first Christian missionaries arrive in Namibia, brothers Abraham and Christian
Albrecht from the London Missionary Society
- 1806 - Haystack prayer meeting at Williams College; Andover Theological Seminary
founded as a missionary training center; Protestant missionary work begins in earnest across
southern Africa
- 1807 - First Protestant missionary to China, Robert Morrison, begins work in Guangzhou
(formerly called Canton)
- 1808 - London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews founded
- 1809 - National Bible Society of Scotland organized
- 1810 - The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions is formed
- 1811 - English Wesleyans enter Sierra Leone
- 1812 - First American foreign missionary, Adoniram Judson, arrives in Serampore and soon
goes to Burma
- 1813 - The Methodists form the Wesleyan Missionary Society.
- 1814 - First recorded baptism of a Chinese convert, Cai Gao; American Baptist Foreign
Mission Society formed; Netherlands Bible Society founded; four Native Americans from
beyond the Rocky Mountains come east to St. Louis, Missouri seeking information on the
"palefaces' religion"; first missionaries arrive in New Zealand led by Samuel Marsden
- 1815 - American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions open work on Ceylon; Basel
Missionary Society organized; Richmond African Missionary Society founded.
- 1816 - Robert Moffat arrives in Africa; American Bible Society founded
- 1817 - James Thompson begins distributing Bibles throughout Latin America
- 1818 - Missionary work begins in Madagascar with the reluctant approval of the king
- 1819 - John Scudder, missionary physician, joins the Ceylon Mission; Wesleyan Methodists
start work in Madras, India; Reginald Heber writes words to missionary classic "From
Greenland's Icy Mountains"
- 1820 - Hiram Bingham goes to Hawaii (Sandwich Islands)
- 1821 - African-American Lott Carey, a Baptist missionary, sails with 28 colleagues from
Norfolk, VA to Sierra Leone; Protestant Episcopal Church mission board established.
- 1822 - Paris Evangelical Missionary Society established
- 1823 - Scottish Missionary Society workers arrive in Mumbai (known then as Bombay),
India; Liang Fa, first Chinese Protestant evangelist, is ordained by Robert Morrison; Colonial and
Continental Church Society formed; African American Betsy Stockton is sent by the American
Board of Missions to Hawaii. She thus becomes the first single woman missionary in the history
of modern missions.
- 1824 - Berlin Mission Society formed
- 1825 - George Boardman goes to Burma
- 1826 - American Bible Society sends first shipment of Bibles to Mexico
- 1827 - Missionary Lancelot Threlkeld reports 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 begins work in the Christiansborg area of Accra, Ghana; Karl Gutzlaff
of the Netherlands Missionary Society lands in Bangkok, Thailand; Rhenish Missionary
Association formed
- 1829 - George Mueller, a native of Prussia, goes to England as a missionary to the Jews
- 1830 - Church of Scotland missionary Alexander Duff arrives in Kolkata (formerly
Calcutta); William Swan, missionary to Siberia, writes Letters on Missions, the first
Protestant comprehensive treatment of the theory and practice of missions; Baptism of
Taufa'ahau Tupou, King of Tonga, by a western missionary
- 1831 - American Congregational missionaries arrive in Thailand, withdrawing in 1849
without a single convert; Presbyterian Church mission board established; Trinitarian Bible
Society formed
- 1832 - Teava, former cannibal and pioneer Pacific Islander missionary, is commissioned by
John Williams to work on the Samoan island of Manono
- 1833 - Baptist work in Thailand begins with John Taylor Jones; American Methodist
missionary Melville Box arrives in Liberia; Free Will Baptist Foreign Missionary Society begins
work in India
- 1834 - American Presbyterian Mission opens work in India in the Punjab
- 1835 - Rhenish Missionary Society begins work among the Dayaks on Borneo (Indonesia);
Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta calls India's caste system "a cancer."
- 1836 - Plymouth Brethren begin work in Madras, India; George Müller begins his work with
orphans in Bristol, England;Gossner Mission formed; Leipzig Mission Society established;
Colonial Missionary Society formed; The Providence Missionary Baptist District Association is
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 established; First translation of 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 journey to Palestine.
- 1839 - Entire Bible is published in language of Tahiti; three French missionaries martyred in
Korea; English Protestant missionaries murdered on Erromango (Vanuatu, South Pacific)
- 1840 - David Livingstone is in present-day Malawi (Africa) with the London Missionary
Society; American Presbyterians enter Thailand and labor for 18 years before seeing their first
Thai convert; Irish Presbyterian Missionary Society formed; Welsh Calvinistic Methodist
Missionary Society founded
- 1841 - Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society formed; Welsh Methodists begin working
among the Khasi people of India
- 1842 - Gossner Mission Society begun in Berlin
- 1843 - Baptist John Taylor Jones translates New Testament into the Thai language; British
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews formed
- 1844 - German Ludwig Krapf begins work in Mombasa on the Kenya Coast; first Young
Men's Christian Association (YMCA) formed by George Williams; George Smith and Thomas
McClatchie sail for China as the first two CMS missionaries to that country
- 1845 - Southern Baptist Convention mission organization founded
- 1846 - The London Missionary Society establishes work on Niue, a South Pacific island
which westerners had named the "savage island."
- 1847 - Presbyterian William Burns goes to China, translates The Pilgrim's Progress into
Chinese; Moses White sails to China as a Methodist medical missionary
- 1848 - Charles Forman goes to Punjab; German missionaries Johannes Rebmann and Johann
Ludwig Krapf arrive 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 is established in conjunction with the Berlin Missionary Association for China. Work in
China will commence in 1851 with the arrival of Hermandine Neumann in Hong Kong.
- 1851 - Allen Gardiner and six missionary colleagues die of exposure and starvation at
Patagonia on the southern tip of South America when a re-supply ship from England arrives 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, has finished
training its first group of young missionaries. They are sent to Africa on a ship (the Kandaze)
which had been built entirely from donations.
- 1854 - London Missionary Conference; New York Missionary Conference; Henry Venn,
secretary of the Church Missionary Society, sets out ideal of self-governing, self-supporting and
self-propagating churches; Hudson Taylor arrives in China
- 1855 - Henry Steinhauer is ordained as a Canadian Methodist missionary to North American
Indians and posted to Lac La Biche, Alberta. Steinhauer's missionary work had actually begun 15
years earlier in 1840 when he was assigned to Lac La Pluie to assist in translating, teaching and
interpreting the Ojibwa and Cree languages.
- 1856 - Presbyterians start work in Colombia with the arrival of Henry Pratt
- 1857 - Bible translated into Tswana language; Board of Foreign Missions of Dutch
Reformed Church set up
- 1858 - John G. Paton begins work in New Hebrides; Elizabeth Freeman martyred in India;
Basel Evangelical Missionary Society begins work in western Sumatra (Indonesia);Publication of
David Livingstone's book Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa
- 1859 - Protestant missionaries arrive in Japan
- 1860 - United Lutheran Church begins work in Liberia; Liverpool Missionary Conference;
Cyrus Hamlin lays groundwork for the establishment of Robert College in Constantinople
- 1861 - Protestant Stundism arises in the village of Osnova of modern-day Ukraine; Sarah
Doremus founds the Women's Union Missionary Society; Episcopal Church opens work in Haiti;
Rhenish Mission goes to Indonesia under Ludwig Nommensen
- 1862 - Paris Evangelical Missionary Society opens work in Senegal
- 1863 - Robert Moffat, missionary to Africa with the London Missionary Society, publishes
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 enter Argentina
- 1865 - The China Inland Mission is founded by James Hudson Taylor; James Laidlaw
Maxwell plants first viable church in Taiwan.
- 1866 - Theodore Jonas Meyer (1819-1894), a converted Jew serving as a Presbyterian
missionary in Italy, nurses those dying in a cholera epidemic until he himself falls prey to the
disease. Barely surviving, he becomes a peacemaker between Catholics and Protestants; Robert
Thomas, the first Protestant martyr in Korea, is beheaded giving a Bible to his executioner.
- 1867 - Methodists start work in Argentina; Scripture Union established; Lars Skrefsrud and
Hans Barreson begin working among the Santals of India.
- 1868 - Robert Bruce goes to Iran, Canadian Baptist missionary Americus Timpany begins
work among the Telugu people in India.
- 1869 - The first Methodist women's missionary magazine, The Heathen Women's Friend,
begins publication
- 1870 - Clara Swain, the very first female missionary medical doctor, arrives at Bareilly,
India.
- 1871 - Henry Stanley finds David Livingstone in central Africa; George Leslie Mackay
plants church in northern Taiwan.
- 1872 - First All-India Missionary Conference with 136 participants
- 1873 - Regions Beyond Missionary Union founded in London in connection with the East
London Training Institute for Home and Foreign Missions; first Scripture portion (Gospel of
Luke) translated into a language of the Philippines (Pangasinan); Lottie Moon appointed as
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 initiates the Interior Micronesia
Mission in the Mortlock Islands under the leadership of Micronesian students from Ohwa
- 1875 - The Foreign Christian Missionary Society is 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 arrives at a port on the Calabar River in what is
now Nigeria. That part of Africa was then known as the White Man's Grave. The only woman on
board that ship is 29-year-old Mary Slessor, a missionary.
- 1877 - James Chalmers goes 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 the missionary secretary of the new
Church of the Nazarene in 1907.
- 1880 - Woman missionary doctor Fanny Butler goes to India; Missionary periodical The
Gospel in All Lands is launched by A. B. Simpson
- 1881 - Methodist work in Lahore, Pakistan starts in the wake of revivals under Bishop
William Taylor; North Africa Mission (now Arab World Ministries) founded on work of Edward
Glenny in Algeria
- 1882 - James Gilmour, London Missionary Society missionary to Mongolia, goes 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 enters West Pakistan; A.B. Simpson organizes The Missionary Union
for the Evangelization of the World. The first classes of the Missionary Training College are held
in New York City. Zaire Christian and Missionary Alliance mission field opens.
- 1884 - David Torrance is sent by the Jewish Mission of the Free Church of Scotland as a
medical missionary to Palestine
- 1885 - Horace Underwood, Presbyterian missionary, and Henry Appenzellar, Methodist
missionary, arrive in Korea; Scottish Ion Keith-Falconer goes to Aden on the Arabian peninsula;
"Cambridge Seven" -- C. T. Studd, M. Beauchamp, W. W. Cassels, D. E. Hoste, S. P. Smith, A.
T. Podhill-Turner, C. H. Polhill-Turner -- go to China as missionaries; Ugandan troops kill
Anglican bishop James
Hannigton and the Africans traveling with him.
- 1886 - Student Volunteer Movement launched as 100 university and seminary students at
Moody's conference grounds at Mount Hermon, Massachusetts, sign 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 sails to China; Student Volunteer Movement for foreign missions
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) founded
- 1889 - Samuel Moffett sails from US for Korea, establishes Presbyterian Mission there;
North Africa Mission enters Tripoli as first Protestant mission in Libya
- 1890 - Central American Mission founded by C. I. Scofield, editor of the Scofield Reference
Bible; The Scandinavian Alliance (now The Evangelical Alliance Mission) founded; Methodist
Charles Gabriel writes missionary song "Send the Light"; John Livingston Nevius of China visits
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 built by Koreans with their own resources
- 1891 - Samuel Zwemer goes to Arabia; Helen Chapman sails for the Congo (Zaire). She
married a Danish missionary, William Rasmussen, whom she met during the voyage.
- 1892 - Redcliffe Missionary Training College founded in Chiswick (London)
- 1893 - Eleanor Chestnut goes to China as Presbyterian medical missionary; Sudan Interior
Mission founded by Rowland Bingham, a graduate of Nyack College
- 1894 - Soatanana Revival begins in Madagascar, lasting over 90 years
- 1895 - Africa Inland Mission formed by Peter Cameron Scott; Japan Bible Society
established; Roland Allen sent as missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
Foreign Parts to its North China Mission.
- 1896 - Ödön Scholtz founds the first Hungarian Lutheran foreign mission periodical
Külmisszió
- 1897 - Presbyterian Church (USA) begins work in Venezuela
- 1898 - Theresa Huntington leaves her New England home for the Middle East. For seven
years she will work as an American Board missionary in Elazig (Kharput) in the Ottoman
Empire. Her letters home will be published in a book titled Great Need over the Water.
- 1899 - James Rodgers arrives in Philippines with the Presbyterian Mission; Central
American Mission enters Guatemala
- 1900 - American Friends open work in Cuba; Ecumenical Missionary Conference in
Carnegie Hall, New York (162 mission boards represented); 189 missionaries and their children
killed in Boxer Rebellion in China; South African Andrew Murray writes The Key to the
Missionary Problem in which he challenges the church to hold weeks of prayer for the world
- 1901 - Nazarene John Diaz goes to Cape Verde Islands; Maude Cary sails for Morocco;
Disciples of Christ open work in northern Luzon (Philippines); Oriental Missionary Society
founded by Charles Cowman (his wife is the compiler of popular devotional book Streams in the
Desert); Missionary James Chalmers killed and eaten by cannibals in Papua New Guinea
- 1902 - Swiss members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Missions in Many Lands
(CMML) enter Laos; California Yearly Meeting of Friends opens work in Guatemala
- 1903 - Church of the Nazarene enters Mexico
- 1904 - Premillennialist theologian W.E. Blackstone begins teaching that the world has
already been evangelized, citing Acts 2:5, 8:4, Mark 16:20 and Colossians 1:23
- 1905 - Gunnerius Tollefsen is converted at a Salvation Army meeting under the preaching of
Samuel Logan Brengle. Later he would become a missionary to the Belgian Congo and then first
mission secretary of the Norwegian Pentecostal movement.
- 1906 - The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM) opens work in Venezuela with T. J. Bach
and John Christiansen
- 1907 - Harmon Schmelzenbach sails for Africa; Presbyterians and Methodists open Union
Theological Seminary in Manila, Philippines; Bolivian Indian Mission founded by George
Allen
- 1908 - Gospel Missionary Union opens work in Colombia with Charles Chapman and John
Funk; Assemblies of God enter Rome and southern Italy
- 1909 - Pentecostal movement organized in Chile; Nazarenes enter Argentina
- 1910 - C.T. Studd establishes Heart of Africa Mission (now called WEC International);
Edinburgh Missionary Conference held in Scotland, presided over by John Mott, beginning
modern ecumenical cooperation in missions
- 1911 - Christian & Missionary Alliance enters Vietnam
- 1912 - Conference of British Missionary Societies formed
- 1913 - African-American Eliza George sails from New York for Liberia
- 1914 - Large-scale revival movement in Uganda
- 1915 - Founded in 1913 in Nanjing, China as a women's Christian college, Ginling College
officially opens 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 are 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 Chinese Bible translation is published; Nazarenes enter South
Africa
- 1920 - Baptist Mid-Missions formed;Church of the Nazarene enters Syria
- 1921 - Founding of International Missionary Council (IMC); Norwegian Mission Council
formed
- 1922 - Nazarenes enter Mozambique
- 1923 - Scottish missionaries begin work in British Togoland
- 1924 - Bible Churchman's Missionary Society opens work in Upper Burma; Baptist
Mid-Missions begins work in Venezuela
- 1925 - E. Stanley Jones, Methodist missionary to India, writes The Christ of the Indian
Road
- 1926 - Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigators, is converted through Bible verses he had
memorized
- 1927 - Near East Christian Council established
- 1928 - Cuba Bible Institute (West Indies Mission) opens; Jerusalem Conference of IMC
- 1929 - Christian & Missionary Alliance enters East Borneo (Indonesia)
- 1930 - Christian & Missionary Alliance starts work among Baouli tribe in the Côte
d'Ivoire
- 1931 - HCJB radio station started in Quito, Ecuador by Clarence Jones; Baptist
Mid-Missions enters Liberia
- 1932 - Assemblies of God open mission work in Colombia; Laymen's Missionary Inquiry
report published
- 1933 - Gladys Aylward (subject of movie "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness") arrives in
China
- 1934 - William Cameron Townsend begins the Summer Institute of Linguistics
- 1935 - Frank C. Laubach, American missionary to the Philippines, perfects 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 are forced to leave that
country.
- 1937 - After expulsion of missionaries from Ethiopia by Italian invaders, widespread revival
erupts among Protestant (SIM) churches in south
- 1938 - West Indies Mission enters Dominican Republic; Church Missionary Society forced
out of Egypt; Madras World Missionary Conference held; Dr. Orpha Speicher oversees
construction of Reynolds Memorial Hospital in central India
- 1939 - A sick missionary, Joy Ridderhof, makes a recording of gospel songs and a message
and sends it into the mountains of Honduras. It is the beginning of Gospel Recordings
- 1940 - Marianna Slocum begins translation work in Mexico; Military police in Japan arrest
the executive officers of the Salvation Army
- 1941 - The steamship Zamzam, sailing from New York with 140 missionaries bound for
various mission fields in Africa, is sunk by the Germans. All the missionary passengers would be
saved.
- 1942 - William Cameron Townsend founds Wycliffe Bible Translators; New Tribes mission
founded with a vision to reach the tribal peoples of Bolivia
- 1943 - World Gospel Mission (National Holiness Missionary Society) enters Honduras; 5
missionaries with New Tribes Mission martyred; Nazarenes enter Virgin Islands; 11 American
Baptist missionaries beheaded in the Philippines by Japanese soldiers
- 1944 - Missionaries return to Suki, Papua New Guinea after withdrawal of the Japanese
military
- 1945 - Mission Aviation Fellowship formed; Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC)
founded; Evangelical Foreign Missions Association formed by denominational mission boards;
Nazarenes enter Australia, Bolivia, Guyana and the Philippines
- 1946 - First Inter-Varsity missionary convention (now called "Urbana"); United Bible
Societies formed;
- 1947 - Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society begins work among the Senufo people
in the Côte d'Ivoire
- 1948 - Alfredo del Rosso merges his Italian Holiness Mission with the Church of the
Nazarene, thus opening Nazarene work on the European continent; Don Owens opens work for
the Church of the Nazarene in Korea; Southern Baptist Convention adopts program calling for
the tripling of the number of missionaries (achieved by 1964)
- 1949 - Southern Baptist Mission board opens work in Venezuela
- 1950 - Paul Orjala arrives in Haiti; radio station 4VEH, owned by East and West Indies Bible
Mission, starts broadcasting from near Cap Haitien, Haiti
- 1951 - World Evangelical Alliance organized; Bill and Vonette Bright create Campus
Crusade for Christ at UCLA
- 1952 - Church of the Nazarene enters New Zealand; Trans World Radio founded
- 1953 - Walter Trobisch, who would publish I loved a girl in 1962, begins pioneer missionary
work in northern Cameroon; Nazarenes enter Panama
- 1954 - Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities opens work in Cuba; Argentina Revival
breaks out during Tommy Hicks crusade
- 1955 - Donald McGavran publishes Bridges of God; Dutch missionary
"Brother Andrew" makes first of many Bible smuggling trips into Communist Eastern Europe;
Sydney and Wanda Knox go to Papua New Guinea as Nazarene missionaries
- 1956 - U.S. missionaries Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Edward McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger
Youderian die at the hands of the Huaorani on the Curaray River in Ecuador; Assemblies of God
open work in Senegal
- 1957 - Nazarenes enter Malawi
- 1958 - Rochunga Pudaite completes translation of Bible into Hmar language (India) and was
appointed the leader of the Indo-Burma Pioneer Mission; Nazarenes enter Brazil and
Germany
- 1959 - Radio Lumiere founded in Haiti by West Indies Mission (now World Team);
Josephine Makil becomes the first African-American to join Wycliffe Bible Translators.
- 1960 - Kenneth Strachan starts Evangelism-in-Depth in Central America; 18,000 people in
Morocco reply to newspaper ad by Gospel Missionary Union offering free correspondence course
on Christianity; Loren Cunningham founds Youth with a Mission
- 1961 - Nazarenes enter Zambia
- 1962 - Don Richardson goes to Sawi tribe in Papua New Guinea; Operation Mobilisation
founded in Mexico by George Verwer
- 1963 - Theological Education by Extension movement launched in Guatemala by Ralph
Winter and James Emery
- 1964 - In separate incidents, rebels in the Congo kill missionaries Paul Carlson and Irene
Ferrel as well as brutalizing missionary doctor Helen Roseveare; Carlson is featured on
December 4 TIME magazine cover; Hans von Staden of the Dorothea Mission
proposes to Patrick Johnstone that he write the book now titled Operation
World.
- 1965 - Evangelist Juliet Ndzimandze is ordained in Swaziland, the first woman in Africa to
be ordained by the Church of the Nazarene
- 1966 - Red Guards destroy churches in China; Berlin Congress on Evangelism; Missionaries
expelled from Burma; God's Smuggler published
- 1967 - A million Christians are killed in Biafra civil war; Church of the Nazarene enters the
Netherlands
- 1968 - Wu Yung and others form the Chinese Missions Overseas in order to send out
missionaries from Taiwan to do cross-cultural ministry
- 1969 - OMF International begins "industrial evangelism" to Taiwan's factory workers
- 1970 - Frankfurt Declaration on Mission; Operation Mobilisation launches Logos ship
- 1971 - Gustavo Gutierrez publishes A Theology of Liberation
- 1972 - American Society of Missiology founded with journal Missiology; Nazarenes enter
Ecuador and St. Lucia
- 1973 - Church of the Nazarene enters Argentina, Indonesia, Namibia, and Portugal; first
All-Asa Mission Consultation convenes in Seoul, Korea with 25 delegates from 14 countries;
founding of American Society of Missiology
- 1974 - Missiologist Ralph Winter talks about "hidden" or unreached peoples at Lausanne
Congress of World Evangelism. Lausanne Covenant is written and ratified; Guatemala Las
Verapaces becomes first "regular" Nazarene district on a mission field
- 1975 - Missionaries Armand Doll and Hugh Friberg imprisoned in Mozambique after
communist takeover of government
- 1976 - U.S. Center for World Mission founded in Pasadena, California; 1600 Chinese
assemble in Hong Kong for the Chinese Congress on World Evangelization; Islamic World
Congress calls for withdrawal of Christian missionaries; Peace Child appears in Reader's
Digest.
- 1977 - Evangelical Fellowship of India sponsors the All-India Congress on Mission and
Evangelization
- 1978 - Nazarenes enter Switzerland; LCWE Consultation on Gospel and Culture in
Willowbank, Bermuda
- 1979 - Production of JESUS film commissioned by Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for
Christ; PIONEERS is founded, the first missionary agency with a sole focus on the "unreached
people groups" paradigm
- 1980 - Philippine Congress on Discipling a Whole Nation; Lausanne Congress on World
Evangelism Conference in Pattaya
- 1981 - Colombian terrorists kidnap and kill Wycliffe Bible Translator Chet Bitterman;
Project Pearl: one million Bibles are delivered in a single night to thousands of waiting believers
in China
- 1982 - Third World Theologians Consultation in Seoul; story on "The New Missionary"
makes December 27 cover of TIME magazine; Andes Evangelical Mission
(formerly Bolivian Indian Mission) merges into SIM (formerly Sudan Interior Mission)
- 1983 - Nazarenes start work on St. Kitts-Nevis
- 1984 - Founding of STEM (Short Term Evangelical Mission teams) ministry by Roger
Petersen signals the rising importance of Short-term missions groups
- 1985 - Nazarenes start work in Cyprus
- 1986 - Entire Bible published in Haitian Creole language; Nazarenes enter Egypt and
Guadeloupe
- 1987 - Second International Conference on Missionary Kids (MKs) held in Quito,
Ecuador
- 1988 - Wycliffe Bible Translators complete their 300th New Testament translation (Cotabato
Manobo language of the Philippines); Nazarenes start 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; concept of 10/40 Window emerges; "Ee-Taow" video
released by New Tribes Mission; Nazarenes enter Thailand
- 1990 - Church of the Nazarene enters Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Liberia,
Rwanda and Tanzania
- 1991 - The Marxist government of Ethiopia is overthrown and missionaries are able to return
to that country; Regions Beyond Missionary Union is dissolved
- 1992 - Nazarenes start work in Angola, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Romania, Russia,
Solomon Islands and Ukraine
- 1993 - Church of the Nazarene enters Albania, Eritrea, Lesotho, Madagascar
- 1994 - Liibaan Ibraahim Hassan, a convert to Christianity in Somalia, is martyred by Islamic
militants in the capital city of Mogadishu; Church of the Nazarene enters Bulgaria and St.
Martin
- 1995 - Nazarene missionary Don Cox abducted in Quito, Ecuador; Church of the Nazarene
starts work in Fiji and Palau
- 1996 - Nazarenes enter Hungary, Kazakhstan, Pakistan
- 1997 - Nazarenes enter Burkina Faso and Sao Toma
- 1998 - Nazarenes enter Benin, Nepal and Togo
- 1999 - Trans World Radio goes on the air from Grigoriopol (Moldova) using a
1-million-watt AM transmitter; Veteran Australian missionary Graham Stewart Stains and his
two sons are burned alive by Hindu extremists as they are sleeping in a car in eastern India.
- 2000 - Militants detonate two bombs in a Christian church in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, killing
seven persons and injuring 70 others.
- 2001 - New Tribes Missionaries Martin and Gracie Burnham are kidnapped in the
Philippines by Muslim terrorist group; Baptist missionary Roni Bowers and her infant daughter
are killed when a Peruvian Air Force jet fires 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
shoot up a church in Bahawalpur, Pakistan, killing 15 Pakistani Christians.
- 2002 - Militants throw grenades into the Protestant International Church in Islamabad,
Pakistan, during a church service. Five persons are killed and 46 are wounded
- 2003 - Church of the Nazarene starts work on Réunion
- 2004 - Four Southern Baptist missionaries are killed by gunman in Iraq
- 2006 - Abdul Rahman, an Afghan Christian convert, is forced out of Afghanistan by local
Muslim leaders, and he is exiled to Italy.
What happened on specific days of the year?
For "what happened today in missionary history?"
January | February |
March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December
SNU missions course materials and syllabi
Howard Culbertson, 5901 NW 81st, Oklahoma City, OK 73132
| Phone: 405-740-4149 - Fax: 405-491-6658
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