The Plymouth Brethren or Assemblies of Brethren are a low church and non-conformist Christian movement whose history can be traced back to Dublin, Ireland, in the mid to late 1820s, where it originated from Anglicanism. The group emphasizes sola scriptura, the belief that the Bible is the only authority for church doctrine and practice. Plymouth Brethren generally see themselves as a network of like-minded free churches, not as a Christian denomination.
Indigenous churches are churches suited to local culture and led by local Christians. There have been two main Protestant strategies proposed for the creation of indigenous churches:
- Indigenization: Foreign missionaries create well-organized churches and then hand them over to local converts. The foreign mission is generally seen as a scaffolding which must be removed once the fellowship of believers is functioning properly. Missionaries provide teaching, pastoral care, sacraments, buildings, finance and authority, and train local converts to take over these responsibilities. Thus the church becomes indigenous. It becomes self-supporting, self-propagating and self-governing.
- Indigeneity: Foreign missionaries do not create churches, but simply help local converts develop their own spiritual gifts and leadership abilities and gradually develop their own churches. Missionaries provide teaching and pastoral care alone. The church is thus indigenous from the start. It has always been self-supporting, self-propagating and self-governing.
James Hudson Taylor was a British Baptist Christian missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission. Taylor spent 54 years in China. The society that he began was responsible for bringing over 800 missionaries to the country who started 125 schools and directly resulted in 20,000 Christian conversions, as well as the establishment of more than 300 stations of work with more than 499 local helpers in all 18 provinces.
OMF International is an international and interdenominational Evangelical Christian missionary society with an international centre in Singapore. It was founded in Britain by Hudson Taylor on 25 June 1865.
The Indian Pentecostal Church of God (IPC) is one of the largest Pentecostal Christian Denomination in India, with over 10,000 congregations worldwide. Its organisational headquarters located in Kumbanad, Kerala, India. IPC has similarities with the Kerala Brethren denomination in terms of its beliefs on orthodoxy and eschatology, as a large portion of IPC's founders and early members were from the Kerala Brethren. IPC tends to shy away from ecumenism, and some of its leaders reject high church liturgy as a method of worship, instead opting for low church congregational worship.
Benjamin Broomhall was a British advocate of foreign missions, administrator of the China Inland Mission (CIM), and author. Broomhall served as the General Secretary of the China Inland Mission,. A boyhood friend of James Hudson Taylor, he became husband to Hudson Taylor’s sister Amelia. As General Secretary of the CIM, he was involved in fund-raising and recruiting missionaries to send to China and acted as editor of the mission magazine, "China's Millions".
Maria Jane Taylor was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China, and "Mother" of the China Inland Mission with her husband, founder James Hudson Taylor. She was a pioneer missionary and educator there for 12 years. In 1858, she married Taylor and was an invaluable assistant and influence to him. In her time with the CIM, she was instrumental in training single women to be missionaries in China, when opportunities for women to serve had been previously dependent on having a missionary husband.
Mary Geraldine Guinness, often known as Mrs. Howard Taylor, was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China, and author of many missionary biographies on the history of the China Inland Mission (CIM).
Marshall B. Broomhall, was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China with the China Inland Mission. He also authored many books on the subject of Chinese missionary work. He was the most famous son of the anti-opium trade activist and General Secretary of the CIM Benjamin Broomhall and Amelia Hudson Taylor. Thus he was also the nephew of the founder of the mission, James Hudson Taylor.
Anthony Norris Groves was an English Protestant missionary, who has been called the "father of faith missions". He launched the first Protestant mission to Arabic-speaking Muslims, and settled in Baghdad, and later in southern India. His ideas influenced a circle of friends who became leaders in the Plymouth Brethren. Among these were John Nelson Darby, John Vesey Parnell, 2nd Baron Congleton, and George Müller, who had married Groves's sister Mary.
Grace Dyer Taylor was the eldest surviving daughter of James Hudson Taylor and Maria Jane Dyer, Christian missionaries to China. The event of her death of meningitis at the age of eight near Hangzhou has been cited by mission historians such as Ruth Tucker, Roger Steer, and John Pollock as being a turning point in the history of the China Inland Mission.
Frederick Howard Taylor a.k.a. F. Howard Taylor, was a British pioneer Protestant Christian missionary to China, author, speaker and second son of James Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, and Maria Jane Dyer.
Mary Ann Aldersey was the first Christian missionary woman to serve in China proper. She founded a school for girls in Ningbo, Zhejiang. Her pioneering the field of mission work for single women in China was the most remarkable outcome of her life.
Jane Elizabeth "Jennie" Faulding Taylor, was a British Protestant missionary to China with the China Inland Mission. She pioneered the work of single women missionaries in China and eventually married the founder of the mission, James Hudson Taylor, after the death of his first wife, Maria Jane Dyer. As Taylor's wife, she assumed many roles within the mission agency when Taylor was overseas—acting at times as a home director for the mission. She encouraged women, both married and unmarried, to participate in the work of the China Inland Mission in ways that had previously only been reserved for male missionaries.
Emily Blatchley was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China with the China Inland Mission. She pioneered the work of single women missionaries in China and served as personal secretary to the founder of the mission, James Hudson Taylor.
The Lammermuir Party was a British group of Protestant missionaries who travelled to China in 1866 aboard the tea clipper Lammermuir, accompanied by James Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission. Mission historians have indicated that this event was a turning point in the history of missionary work in China in the 19th century. This was the largest party of Protestant missionaries to date to arrive at one time on Chinese shores. It was also noteworthy that none of the members of the mission were ordained ministers, and only two had any previous overseas experience. In addition to this, there were among them nine unmarried women traveling to a place where single European women were rare for many reasons.
China’s Spiritual Need and Claims is a book written by James Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, in October 1865. It is arguably the most significant work regarding Christian missions to China in the 19th century. A manifesto of Taylor’s life and work, it describes in stark detail the desperate lack of Protestant Christian missionary endeavor among the people of China. The book was reprinted several times over thirty years and motivated uncounted numbers of Christians in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand to volunteer for service in east Asia. China’s Spiritual Need and Claims helped foster the widest evangelistic campaign since the time of Paul the Apostle. Charles Spurgeon noted in 1879:
The word China, China, China is now ringing in our ears in that special, peculiar, musical, forcible, unique way in which Mr. Taylor utters it.
The Lord's Recovery is a term coined by the Christian preacher Watchman Nee and promoted by Witness Lee that refers to a cumulative recovery of truths lost during what they refer to as the degradation of the church beginning from the second century. Although Nee and Lee recognized that there were recoveries before the time of the Reformation, their opinion was that the Lord's recovery began with Martin Luther in the Reformation because it was from then that significant recoveries were made.
Echoes of Service is a missionary support agency founded in 1872 based in Bath, England. Their main purpose is to serve missionaries around the world, and those commended from Christian Brethren assemblies/churches in particular, amongst whom missionary activity is common.
The Open Brethren, sometimes called Christian Brethren, are a group of Evangelical Christian churches that arose in the late 1820s as part of the Assembly Movement within the Plymouth Brethren tradition. They originated in Ireland before spreading throughout the British Isles, and today they have an estimated 26,000 assemblies worldwide.