Research in History of Missions

I always liked history. I like to think chronologically and to see causal relations. In Sixth Grade, our Social Studies teacher, Mrs. Mattocks, was teaching Greco-Roman history. She gave a test. At the end of the test, she gave an extra credit question. She said she would give 25 extra credit points (!) to any student who could put a series of historical events in chronological order. She was confident that no one could do it. I was the only one who got it right. I don’t think I got it right because I had mastered the subject so much. Rather, I think in chronological terms, so I did not find that question difficult. I ended up getting 119% on that test— my highest grade ever. I loved reading books about the history of mathematics far more than I was interested in mathematics. I enjoyed history of engineering and design more than engineering or design. Now that I have moved from the “sciences” to ministry, I am interested in the history of Christian missions, and history of the pastoral care movement.

I have been teaching a class in Research in History of Missions. Because it is a research class, I chose to leave the students to the task of coming up with a topic, embracing a problem, purpose, research, and writing. I tried giving some good advice in how to do such research, the end result was a bit of a struggle.

Each struggled a bit with one aspect of the topic. If the three key words of the main words in the title (Research, History, and Missions) each one missed the mark a bit in one aspect.

The strongest paper was one that might be described as week on the “Missions” component. The student wrote on the history of a denominational group. However, because the group was founded out of very intentional missional effort in an area that would typically described as a mission-receiving region, I do feel that the task was essentially to my expectations. “Missions” is a poorly defined term, in my opinion, but there is a sort of culture that accepts certain things a pertaining to missions and certain things that don’t. Additionally, there are certain things that are explored by missiologists or are commonly accomplished by missionaries and things that are not. A second paper was a good paper on a very common missions topic. However, the student did not really embrace the “History” component. The topic was well explored as a present-day phenomenon, but not its historic roots, or how it changed over time. I gave some recommended sources to explore its history, but the student chose not to address them. I was frankly confused by this. It is a research class in history… why ignore the history. I do realize however, that a lot of people really tend to embrace the now. I come from a denomination that tends to not take history very seriously. Why? Well, I have my theories but it is not pertinent to this article. But to understand the present, one really must understand the past—- synchronically and diachronically. A third paper was an interesting paper but, for some reason, did not embrace the “Research” component. The topic was a very obscure one, but an interesting one. There would be almost no literary sources. The student wrote a good paper, but completely without footnotes or references. As noted, almost no literary sources exist. But does that mean that no sources were used? Did the student talk to anyone, interviewing them? Were there non-published local sources that were reviewed? Or did the student write completely from stock or personal knowledge? I don’t know since there were no citations. Research is needed not only because it is a research class, but such research must also be cited in the paper

I don’t feel like I did something WRONG. However, perhaps I did not take into account the individual characteristics of students. I also was also perhaps too flexible. When some were a bit slack in updating me, I did not put a lot of pressure on them. But if I had placed pressure on them, I may have caught some areas where their work was drifting off course.

For the future, I will have to remember this as part of my history to learn and grow.