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New World Outlook may well be the oldest continuously published mission magazine of any denomination. Beginning in January 1911 as The Missionary Voice — the mission journal of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South — it was renamed The World Outlook in 1932 and was adopted by The Methodist Church after the 1939 merger of the Northern, Southern, and Protestant branches of Methodism. Since the 1968 union with the Evangelical United Brethren, it has been the official Mission Magazine of The United Methodist Church. New was added to the title in 1970 after a merger with a Presbyterian publication of that name, and new it has remained, reflecting the constant renewal and continuous expansion of United Methodist global mission. Below are a series of brief excerpts covering every decade of publication, chosen to give readers a few passing snapshots of mission as it unfolded in the twentieth century. |
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A 1929 Missionary Voice cover: the Great South Gate in Seoul, Korea. |
No student of these times doubts that we are at the watershed of modern history....The old is giving way to the new, and the most stolidly conservative peoples are turning from the past to the future....The awakening nations of the Orient, where one-half the human race face a bewildering dawn and thrill with new life, can no more be the same....The same is true of the near East, whose sudden leap toward liberty has so astonished the world. Some may be disposed to question the part that Christian missions has played in bringing about these changes, but there can be but one opinion as to the part [missions] should play in determining whither they shall tend. Christianity is the one world force that can...dominate and direct these movements to sane and saving results. "The
Decisive Hour in Christian Missions," The Missionary
Voice, |
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American Methodism has had a hundred years of divine blessing upon its work for missions. In the celebration of this record we are not aiming to produce a pageant...but to inaugurate a forward movement which should be worthy of the kingdom of God in the twentieth century. Bishop
James Atkins, A few weeks ago I sent out an appeal to the Sunday Schools of this Conference, South Brazil, asking them to help save the starving children in the Province of Shantung, China, and described some of the conditions in the stricken area. Practically every Sunday School in the Conference has responded, some with remarkable generosity, so that we have been able to remit to the Committee in New York about $310. One school, at a place called Quarahy on the Uruguayan frontier, where we have only recently sent a preacher, and which had an attendance of only 61 when the appeal was made, raised the sum of about fifty dollars. Rev.
G. D. Parker, In a recent study of 'Facts About the Korean Methodist Church,' Dr. J. S. Ryang...has this pertinent paragraph: 'Methodism has played a most important part in the making of modern Korea. It was the Methodist Missions which established the first school for boys, the first school for girls, the first hospital, the first school for the blind, the first kindergarten, ordained the first Korean pastors, produced the first Korean woman M.D., the first trained nurse, the first kindergarten teacher, and the first Korean woman Ph.D.'...May we Methodist women be allowed a little quiet pride that in this roll of 'firsts' nine out of the eleven concern our work for Korean women? Moneta
Troxel, "The Methodism's In Manchuli City, Manchuria, a town on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, is the most distant congregation of our church....It was my privilege to conduct the first revival meeting in February 1927. The temperature was about forty below zero, but in spite of the extreme cold the people would gather in front of our chapel thirty minutes before the doors were opened to be sure to get in to the service.... I have never preached to people who were so anxious to hear the Gospel as were these Russians. George
F. Erwin, "A Letter from the |
A 1929 Missionary Voice cover: an Arizona scene.
In 1939, paintings such as Firle's "The Lesson" graced the covers.
The June 1939 cover shows a painting by A. Kampf, "The Sower." |
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"The Whole Family Loves World Outlook" says the caption on this January 1943 cover. This issue featured a discussion on the Board of Missions and Church Extension, the General Conference of the Methodist Church of Mexico, women working in the war effort, and Methodist missions in North Africa.
In 1944, colorized photos were used: "Workers in Airplane Factory" in September and "New Mexican Indians" in July.
The May 1959 World Outlook showed students at a school in Congo as part of a special "Africa Issue."
The June 1969 photograph of an American soldier holding a Vietnamese child ran with the title "Reconciliation." |
The status of European Methodism was thus set forth in
the notable address of the Bishops to the Copenhagen Conference [held
in August 1939, 30 days before the outbreak of war]: "We are representatives
of the Methodist Church from the northernmost city of Norway, Hammerfest,
to the southern shore of Sicily in Italy...We have organized work in Switzerland,
Germany, Denmark, Sweden. Branching off to the west there is Belgium,
France, even Spain, and toward the east we point to Hungary, Yugoslavia,
Bulgaria, the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia, Slovakia, Poland, Latvia,
Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, and Russia ....The total number of European
Methodists is approximately 112,000.
Elmer
T. Clark, "The Plight and The languages in which the Methodist Episcopal Church [in the Philippines] is carrying on churches, Sunday schools and hostels, and preparing literature are: Iloco, the most widely used tongue—3,000,000 speaking it in Luzon, 400,000 in Hawaii, and several hundred thousand in California and elsewhere in western America; Tagalog, spoken by 4,000,000 people; Pangasinan by 400,000; Pampangan by 300,000; and Ibanag by 75,000. In addition to this, there are Methodist services conducted in English, in Spanish, and in Chinese; and it is possible that within a few years other language groups will be seeking the ministry of the Church. William
Watkins Reid, "The Larger 'Daku Di' Uyuyu Ambunya'—The words mean 'The Testaments have come.' They were shouted excitedly about the Southern Methodist Mission headquarters at Wembo Nyama in the Belgian Congo on August 2 last when the first cases of the New Testament in the Otetela language arrived from the printers in England ....The language is complicated enough, but very expressive, and remarkably complete...For saying, 'He is ready to go,'they might use 'He is standing in the road to go.' In asking what was the final decision of a meeting, they would say, 'How did you stop the tongue?' Francis
C. Stifler, While spotlights have been focused on riots, race-strikes, walkouts, and threatened troubles of cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other hot-spots....something has been happening in Gary, Indiana....In the schools there is the "All Out Americans" for 10,000 youth who are frontiersmen in interracial cooperation in the community. The Anslem Forum...represents 44 nationalities, 5 races, 40 religious denominations and a cross section of professional and cultural interests. In the discoveries of the citizens of Gary lie profound secrets for diplomatic working for the peace of the world. "What do you say?" asks one citizen. "My boy goes across the sea to fight, so you Polish can get back to your homeland, and my girl can't go in your park."...When the first Gary park system was established, Negroes were just sort of "planned out." Margery
Todd Poole, "To Secure I come from a land of contrasts, Burma....We, Christians, are aliens, strangers in our own land....We have been denationalized when once we became Christians. If we are Baptists or Methodists we have more in common with America, from where missionaries come. If we are Catholics we hark back rather to France and Italy, and if we are Anglicans we follow the English. In the annual National Day celebration and other national affairs we never took part. Could you wonder why we Christians are then hated? We have lost our faces. Could you help to reinstate us? Da
Katharine Khin Khin, Methodists send and support one-third of the foreign workers affiliated with the United Church of Christ in Japan (Kyodan). Though 85% of pastoral support and over 60% of total income of the Kyodan come from Japan, funds from abroad are needed for pioneer evangelism, weak churches, conference expenses, training new leaders, and education....Of the 53 institutions of learning related to the Kyodan, American Methodists have contributed and...help maintain 25. "A
Progress Report on World |
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As I see the rapidly growing population of Latin America (600 million by A.D. 2000, 32 years from now), as I see the tremendous potential for communicating the Gospel in so many powerful ways—radio, television, hospitals, schools, literacy, agriculture, industry—I wish for my nation and my Church a renewed vision of the greatness, joy and glory which can be experienced by a people dedicated to God's purposes and fulfillment. James
Lloyd Knox, "Mission Evangelization is still at the heart of mission. It is now an aim shared with churches in over 70 countries in which the United Methodist Church is at work. To look at evangelization in Africa, Asia and Latin America is to look at the work of colleague churches and to celebrate the privilege of continuing with them the common task of calling all persons into the joy of new life in the Gospel....The All Africa Conference of Churches projects that by the year 2000 there will be more Christians in Africa than in Europe and North America....The Methodist Churches of Africa are part of this dynamic growth. A "new life"campaign is underway in Mozambique. Urban and rural evangelism is at the heart of the church in Angola. The United Methodist Church of Zaire is reaching into new areas with... evangelism and education. Charles
H. Germany, "A Look at |
The October 1959 issue of World Outlook featured pastor Sam Varnell of Piney Flats Methodist Parish in Tennessee on the cover of a special "Town and Country" issue. The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR)...continues to meet the needs of refugees from all over the globe. When UMCOR began in 1940, there were only two areas where the few hundred thousand refugees wandered—Europe and China. Today there are refugees on every continent and in more than 80 countries. Lilia
Fernandez, "The World |
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The July-August 1979 cover shows the Religious Nurture Center for the Developmentally Disabled, First UMC, Wichita, Kansas. (Photo by John C. Goodwin)
The May 1979 cover shows young residents at David and Margaret Home, a United Methodist institution in La Verne, California. (Photo by John C. Goodwin)
The cover of the March-April 1989 New World Outlook shows a Methodist pastor in Costa Rica. |
Young Costa Rican pastors, both lay and trained seminarians, are making inroads among the poor and the prosperous. Some church members are involved in literacy training. A church farm and retreat center has been revitalized. United Methodist short-term volunteers from numerous annual conferences in the United States have been helping to build nurseries and health facilities as well as new churches. Brenda
Webber, "Methodism in We need to target ethnic minorities in our recruitment efforts. We need to spend some time focusing on certain Black, Hispanic, Asian or other minority communities where we can develop relationships and nurture people to become missionaries. "Interview:
Dr. Sheila Y. Flemming," The program of Comprehensive Community-based Primary Health Care...has been developed on the understanding that health is attainable, accessible, and sustainable by people for themselves and their communities if they are given the opportunity....At the present, Comprehensive Community-based Primary Health Care is being implemented in more than 20 countries. Sarla
Lall, "Hope and Healing," December 1998: A United Methodist Church is being planted in Dakar, [Senegal] without a lot of noises. When we arrived in Dakar in March, the first Sunday we went to the worship service, not more than 15 people were present. Last Sunday, we were more than 40. We don't have a building but have been worshiping in the living room of someone's house until now. We hope that, with God's help, things will happen quickly for the planting of The United Methodist Church. Nkemba
and Mbwizu Ndjungu, "I'm not sure that you realize how deep your invitation reaches," said João Somane Machado, resident bishop of the Mozambique Annual Conference ...Bishop Machado was addressing representatives of the Troy Annual Conference, which...had invited the Mozambique Annual Conference to form a VIM team to visit Troy Conference and reinvigorate the people and churches for mission...."Always missionaries have come to Africa [Bishop Machado said]. But never, until now, have missionaries from Africa been invited to North America." Brenda
J. Arley, "Mutuality in |
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In 1991, the time was ripe for a rebirth of Christianity in Russia, and Methodists, whose ancestors in faith had been there in the nineteenth century, were ready and eager to return. John Lovelace, "The Russia Initiative," New World Outlook, July-August 1999 The 1990s saw unprecedented growth and global expansion in our mission....New United Methodist churches have been born in war and nurtured by refugees in Uganda, Sudan, and Rwanda. There is growth in our presence in Senegal, Honduras, Cambodia, and Nepal. New churches are being initiated in South Africa, El Salvador, Colombia, and Venezuela. Church growth and renewal is taking place in urban and rural areas across the United States. And the reclamation of churches in Eastern Europe, undertaken since the demise of the Soviet Union, has brought a growing church presence to Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia....We need to think of mission going from everywhere to everywhere, and we need to think of a church in which everyone is in mission—telling the world about God in Jesus Christ. Randolph
W. Nugent, "Mission in the Third Millennium," |
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Archive photos of past covers by George Goodwin. |
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