The Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions and Its Contribution to Overall Missionary Service

Abstract

The Student Volunteer Movement (SVM) for Foreign Missions was founded in 1886 at a Conference in the Mt. Hermon University, an organization designed to recruit college and university students in the United States and later of course through the Western world, for missionary service abroad. The primary leader of the SVM was A. T. Pierson, a major leader not just in SVM but in the overall mission focus. Because of its amazing work, the SVM ranks as one of the great student movements in the Christian church in the twentieth century. Though it was predated by other student missionary organizations in the United States, Great Britain, and Europe, it captivated the student world in a unique way. Before it began its dramatic decline in the 1920s, the SVM had fired the missionary zeal of students around the world and had been influential in enrolling more than 20,000 students to work in foreign missions. Its significant impact on the worldwide mission of the church in its day does provide the potential example of student interest and raises the hope that this movement will reoccur and encourage today's growing student interest in world mission.