13January 2013

Gerald H. Anderson, a senior contributing editor, is Director Emeritus of the Overseas Ministries Study Center, New Haven, Connecticut. —anderson_gh@msn.com

Scholars who teach and write about Christian mis sions have formed networks or associations to foster the advance-

ment of their work. To assist and encourage their members these associations hold conferences, support research and publications, and promote collaboration and joint projects.

Missiological Organizations

The following information, organized largely chronologically by year of organizational founding, is taken from the websites and literature of the various associations.1

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Missionswissenschaft (DGMW, Ger-man Society for Mission Studies; www.dgmw.org), estab-lished in 1918, is the oldest continuing association. Although German in origin, the association from the beginning has included members from other countries: Nathan Soderblom joined in 1919, J. H. Oldham and Samuel M. Zwemer (the first American) in 1926, D. T. Niles in 1954, and Christian Baeta and Paul Devanandan in 1962. The DGMW holds an annual meeting in Germany, provides grants to support research projects and the publication of scholarly studies, and sponsors the publication of a book series and the journal Interkulturelle Theologie: Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft (continuing the former Zeitschrift für Mission).

Eastern Fellowship of Professors of Mis sion (www.asmef.org), formally established in 1940, holds yearly meetings in con-junction with the American Society of Missiology, Eastern Region (see below).

Association of Professors of Mission (APM, www.asmweb.org /content/apm), an ecumenical North American fellowship established in 1952, is an outgrowth of the Eastern Fellow-ship of Professors of Mis sion. The APM seeks to foster the effective teaching of mission studies. Each June it holds an annual meeting in tandem with the meeting of the American Society of Missiology (see below).

Midwest Mission Studies Fellowship (MMSF, formerly Mid-west Fellowship of Professors of Mission), founded in 1957 and ecumenical in composition, consists of faculty teaching mission studies in the Middle United States. It meets annu-ally with a program around a theme of mutual interest.

Evangelical Missiological Society (EMS, www.emsweb.org), formed in 1990, is successor to the Association of Evangelical Pro fessors of Missions in North America, which was estab-lished in 1968. It exists to “advance the cause of world evan-gelization.” In addition to an annual con ference and eight regional meetings in the United States and Canada, EMS publishes the Occasional Bulletin three times a year as well as a book series.

Professional Academic Associations for Mission Studies

Gerald H. Anderson

Southern African Missiological Society (SAMS, http://missio nalia.wordpress.com), succes sor (in 1983) to the South Afri-can Missiological Society, founded in 1968, is a society for those engaged in all aspects of missiological research, espe-cially in Southern Africa. Its journal, Missionalia, published three times a year, is noted especially for its missiological abstracts from a wide range of journals. An annual congress for members is held in South Africa in January.

International Association for Mission Studies (IAMS, www .missionstudies.org), established in 1972, is an international, inter confessional, and interdisciplinary professional society. It holds an international assembly every four years, pub-lishes the journal Mission Studies, and sponsors several inter-est groups: (1) Healing and Mission, (2) Biblical Studies and Mission, (3) Women and Mission, and (4) Documentation, Ar chives, Bibliography, and Oral History. The last group held international consultations in Rome in 1980 and 2002, has published a manual on archives management (in Eng-lish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, Korean, and Chi-nese), and has supported re gional consultations in Madagas-car, India, Singapore, and New Zealand.

Korea Evangelical Missiological Society (KEMS, www.kems .kr), begun in 1972 for evangelical professors and missions pastors, meets two or three times per semester. It publishes the journal Pokumkwa sunkyo (Gospel and mis sions) and plans to publish a book series.

American Society of Missiology (ASM, www.asmweb.org), established in 1973, publishes the quarterly journal Missiol-ogy, holds an annual meeting in June, and sponsors a series of scholarly studies published by Orbis Books, as well as a scholarly monograph series. The affiliated American Society of Missiology, Eastern Region (www.asmef.org), meets each fall in conjunction with the Eastern Fellowship of Professors of Mis sion (see above).

Nordic Institute for Missiological and Ecumeni cal Research (NIME, www.missionsresearch.org), established in 1974 at a meeting in Turku (Åbo), Finland, is an interdisciplinary net work for the scholarly study of Christian missions and ecumenism worldwide for those who are engaged in teach-ing and research from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. It hosts a biennial research conference in one of the Nor dic countries, supports the activities of IAMS, and produces an online newsletter.

Centrederecherchesetd’échangessur ladiffusionet l’incul-turation du christianisme (CREDIC, Center of Research and Exchange on the Diffusion and Inculturation of Christi-anity, https://sites.google.com/site/credicmonde/Home), founded in 1979 in Lyon, France, is an international network of university faculty (historians, theologians, and anthro-pologists, as well as persons actively working in mission) engaged in research within the field of mission studies.

International Fellowship for Mission as Transformation (INFE-MIT, http://infemit.org), formerly the International Fellow-ship of Evangelical Mission Theologians, founded in 1980, is sponsored by several groups:

• FraternidadTeologicaLatinoamericana(LatinAmericanTheological Fraternity, www.ftl-al.org), founded in 1970

14 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 37, No. 1

• AfricanTheologicalFellowship(FraternitéThéologiqueAfricaine, http://atf.acighana.org), founded in 1984

• PartnershipinMission:Asia• INFEMIT:EasternandCentralEurope

INFEMIT seeks to foster mutual support, sharing of resources, and the enhancement of evangelical mission scholarship, as well as to encourage holistic mission practice.

Arbeitskreis für evangelikale Missiologie (AfeM, German-language Evangelical Missiological Society, www.missiol ogie-afem.de), founded in 1985, is based in Germany and Switzerland. The AfeM, which meets each January for a two-day conference, has 200 members. It publishes Evangelikale Missiologie, a quarterly journal, as well as books and research reports.

Australian Association for Mission Studies (AAMS, www .groupsthatclick.com/aams) was formed in 2006 out of the South Pacific Association for Mission Studies (SPAMS), which was founded in 1986. The association’s Australian Journal of Mission Studies, published since 1989, is the succes-sor to the South Pacific Journal of Mission Studies.

International Society for Frontier Missiology (ISFM, www.ijfm .org/isfm) began in 1986 as the U.S. Society for Frontier Mis-sions and incrementally became more international. Its focus is on the remaining unfinished task of world evangelization, the “unreached peoples of the world.” It publishes the quar-terly International Journal of Frontier Missiology.

British and Irish Association for Mission Studies (BIAMS, www.biams.org.uk), founded in 1989, promotes the study of the history, theology, and practice of mission. It publishes a bulletin and, every second year, meets in a residential con-ference;inalternateyearsitholdsdayconferences.

Lutheran Society for Missiology (LSFM, www.lsfmissiology.org), founded in 1991, promotes the discussion and study of mis-sion from a Lutheran perspective, holds an annual meeting, and publishes the journal Missio Apostolica and a newsletter, The Communicator.

Fellowship of Indian Missiologists (FOIM), established in 1992, is an ecumenical association of missiologists in India. It holds a meeting every other year, with work shops and papers on a study theme presented for discus sion. The proceedings are published by ISPCK, Delhi, in the FOIM series.

Korean Society of Mission Studies (KSOMS, www.ksoms.org), an ecu menical Protestant association established in 1992, holds public lectures on a quarterly basis. Its journal, The-ology of Mission, published twice a year in Korean, English, and German, includes material from the quarterly lec-tures and academic papers collected both domestically and internationally.

Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of the Missionary Move-ment and World Christianity (www.library.yale.edu/div /yaleedin.htm) held its first meeting in 1992. Its yearly meet-ings, which alternate between Edinburgh and New Haven, Connecticut, provide a forum “where viewpoints from the fields of political, social, diplomatic, and religious history can converge to reassess the significance of the missionary movement and its worldwide effects.”

Association Francophone Oecumenique de Missiologie (AFOM, www.afom.org), an ecumenical French-speaking association for missiology created in 1994, holds a general assembly every year (usually in Paris in May), sponsors a series of monographs published by Le Cerf Editions in Paris, supports other scholarly studies in missiology, and has

developed an electronic database of French-speaking mis-siological institutions.

Rede Ecumênica Latino-Americana de Missiólog@s (RELAMI, Latin American Ecumenical Network of Mis siologists, www .missiologia.org.br), founded in 1997, developed out of the mis siology department of the Theological Graduate School in São Paulo, Brazil. This network of collaborators works for an open dialogue on mission out of the tension be tween lib-eration, salvation, and inculturation.

SEANET (South, East, Southeast, and North Asia Network), first convened in 1999, is focused on the Buddhist world and meets annually in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Both Western and Asian mission practitioners and scholars participate in SEANET’sMissiologicalForum,launchedin2002.Aselec-tion of the papers presented there finds publication in an ongoing book series. See http://ojs.globalmissiology.org /index.php/english/article/view/429/1096.

Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Mission Studies (ANZAMS, www.missionstudies.org/archive/anzams), an interconfessional group of “reflective practitioners” founded in 2000, holds a conference every year or two to address questions—theological, biblical, historical, practical, and con textual—about Christian mis sion.

Association of Anabaptist Missiologists (AAM), which held its inaugural meeting in 2000, counts 190 members in the United States, Canada, and other countries. The AAM meets annually for a consultation on a particular theme; paperspresented are published in Mission Focus: Annual Review.

International Association of Catholic Missiologists (IACM, www.iacmcatholic.com), which had its inaugural assembly in Rome in Octo ber 2000, promotes missiological research and seeks to encourage scholarly collaboration among Cath-olic missiologists.

Philippine Association of Catholic Missiologists (PACM), estab-lished in 2001, meets annually with the purpose of fostering and animating the Philippine church to be a church-in-mission. Papers from its daylong public conferences, each on a spe-cific missiological theme, are published in various journals, particularly Landas, the theological journal of the Loyola School of Theology in Manila. See http://www.misyonoline .com/new/jan-feb2008/at-the-service-of-mission.

Central and Eastern European Association for Mission Stud-ies (CEEAMS, www.ceeams.org), an ecumenical fellowship, was cre ated in 2002 at a meeting in Budapest, Hungary. An inaugural conference was held in Budapest in 2004, with participants from Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine. CEEAMS publishes the journal Acta Missiologiae.

Asian Society of Missiology (ASM, http://asianmissiology .org), begun in 2003, publishes Asian Missiology as an online journal.

Japan Missiological Society (JMS, www45.atwiki.jp/jmsweb and www.missiology.jp), launched in 2005, meets annually with approximately sixty-five in attendance. The society publishes the Journal of the Japan Missiological Society online, as well as an online newsletter. Publication of a book series is envisioned.

Other Venues

Scholarly productivity related to the Christian world mission is not restricted to the strictly missiological societies listed here. Numerous presentations germane to mission studies are made

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by missiologists, historians, and others at convocations of learned societies with wider parameters—for example, at meetings of the American Society of Church History, the American Anthropological Association, and the American Political Science Association. Looking at the field from another direction, the mandate of the Latin American Theological Fraternity (www .ftl-al.org), as its name indicates, is not limited to mission stud-ies, but its meetings and members have a rich legacy of seminal missiological scholarship.

Other venues for the production and dissemination of mis-siological research—and sources of personnel and support for professional missiological societies—are more properly seen as extensions of, or cooperative ventures between, academic institutions or departments, such as the Svenska Institutet för Missionsforskning (Swedish Institute for Missions Research, www.teol.uu.se/sim) at Sweden’s Uppsala University, pub-lisher of Swedish Missiological Themes;CentreIIMO(CentreforIntercultural theology, Interreligious dialogue, Missiology and Ecumenism, www.uu.nl/faculty/humanities/EN/organisation /departments/religious-studies-and-theology/centreforinter culturaltheology/Pages/default.aspx), based at Utrecht Univer-sity in the Netherlands, which publishes the journal Exchange;and the Centre for the Study of World Christianity (www.ed.ac .uk/schools-departments/divinity/research/centres/wor ld-christianity),locatedattheUniversityofEdinburgh’sSchoolof Divinity, home to the journal Studies in World Christianity.

Each of these organizations from time to time hosts confer-ences, colloquia, and symposia focused on some facet of mission history or world Christianity, as do schools of world mission, seminaries, universities, and university departments located around the world and too numerous to mention. Notices for a number of such meetings are found in the “Noteworthy” column in each issue of the IBMR.

Likewise the meetings and conferences convened by

worldwide entities such as the WCC Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (www.oikoumene.org/en/who-are-we /organization-structure/consultative-bodies/world-miss ion-and-evangelism.html), the WEA Mission Commission (www .worldevangelicals.org/commissions/list/?com=mc), which publishes Connections, and the Lausanne Movement (www .lausanne.org) are consumers of missiological research, as well as generators of ongoing missiological reflection. The same is true of regional mission structures such as COMIBAM (www.comibam .org), United States Catholic Mission Association (www.usca tholicmission.org), and MissioNexus (www.missionexus.org).

There are also numerous networks, conferences, and asso-ciations of mission agencies and mission executives, some of which sponsor research or distill information supplied by the academic missiological community for application to missional purposes. Some examples are the Bangkok Mission Forum (founded in 2004), Sorak Mission Forum (2005), and Korean Missiological Forum (2005), all composed of missiologists and mission executives. Further examples can be found at www .mislinks.org/gathering/associations and www.sedosmission .org/site/index.php?option=com_weblinks&view=catego ries&Itemid=23&lang=en.

As this article makes apparent, familiarity with use of the Internet is indispensable for missiological researchers today. Extensive resources supporting academic study of the Christian world mission, many with full text available online, can be found at www.mislinks.org/gathering/associations, under the heading “Academic Sites Supporting Mission Research,” and at www .library.yale.edu/div/MissionsResources.htm.

Two websites that offer extended lists of academic societies specifically focused on mission studies are those of the Interna-tional Association for Mission Studies (http://missionstudies .org/archive/7liais/societies.htm) and of MisLinks (www.misl inks.org/gathering/mission-societies).

Note 1. This article adapts and extends the list of academic societies for

mission studies appearing in Gerald H. Anderson, “Professional Associations (Academic),” in Encyclopedia of Mission and Missionaries, ed. Jonathan J. Bonk (New York: Routledge, 2007), 353–55. Website

URLs have been updated and are current as of September 2012. Please send corrections, changes to URLs, and other societies to be added to this list as well as further entries for the bibliography to info@ibmr.org.

Selected Bibliography

Anderson, Gerald H., with John Roxborogh, John M. Prior, and Christoffer H. Grundmann. Witness to World Christianity: The International Association for Mission Studies, 1972–2012. New Haven: OMSC Publications, 2012.

Bloch-Hoell, Nils E. “Nordisk institutt for misjonsfor skning og økumenisk forskning” (Nordic Institute for Missiology and Ecumenical Research). Norsk tidsskrift for misjon 29 (1975): 41–44.

Gensichen, Hans-Werner. Invitatio ad Fraternitatem: 75 Jahre Deutsche Gesellschaft für Missionswissenschaft (1918–1993) (Invitation to a fraternity: 75 years of the German Society for Mission Studies [1918–1993]). Mün ster: Lit Verlag, 1993.

Horner, Norman A. “The Association of Professors of Mission: The First Thirty-Five Years, 1952–1987.” International Bulletin of Mis sionary Research 11, no. 3 (July 1987): 120–24.

Kroeger, James H. “At the Service of Mission: The Philippine Associa-tion of Catholic Missiologists.” Landas 17, no. 2 (2003): 196–200.

Myklebust, O. G. “On the Origin of IAMS.” Mission Studies 3 (1986): 4–11.

Shenk, Wilbert R., and George R. Hunsberger. The American Soci ety of Missiology: The First Quarter Century. Decatur, Ga.: American Society of Missiology, 1998.

Skreslet, Stanley H. Comprehending Mission: The Questions, Methods, Themes, Problems, and Prospects of Missiology. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2012.

VanNiekerk,A.S.“TheKingdomDimensionintheChurch’sMission.”Missionalia 15 (1987): 123–33.

International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 37, No. 1