Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions

Missionary Survey As An Aid To
Intelligent Co-Operation In
Foreign Missions

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Missionary Survey As An Aid To
Intelligent
Co-Operation In Foreign Missions, by Roland Allen This eBook is for
the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.net
Title: Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In
Foreign Missions
Author: Roland Allen
Release Date: September 3, 2004 [EBook #13360]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
MISSIONARY SURVEY ***

Produced by Ted Garvin, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.

Transcriber's Note: In order to maintain appropriate line length, some
tables have been transposed, i.e. rows are columns and vice versa.

MISSIONARY SURVEY AS AN AID TO INTELLIGENT
CO-OPERATION IN FOREIGN MISSIONS
BY
ROLAND ALLEN, M.A. SOMETIME S.P.G. MISSIONARY IN
NORTH CHINA AUTHOR OF "MISSIONARY METHODS, ST.
PAUL'S OR OURS," ETC.
AND
THOMAS COCHRANE, M.B., C.M. LATE PRINCIPAL OF UNION
MEDICAL COLLEGE, PEKING, AND HON. SECRETARY OF THE
LAYMEN'S MOVEMENT, LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY
1920

PREFACE.
This book, written by Mr. Allen, bears both our names because we
studied the material together, and settled what should be included and
what excluded. We discussed and disputed, and finally found ourselves
in complete agreement. We therefore decided to issue the book in our
joint names, on the understanding that I should be allowed to disclaim
the credit for writing it. But the book would never have been written at
all save for the inspiration and help of Mr. S.J.W. Clark, who, in his
travels in nearly every mission field, has brought an unusually acute
mind, trained by a long business experience, to bear upon mission
problems, and has done more hard thinking on the question of survey
than any man we know.
Let anyone who doubts the need for survey study the present
distribution of missionary forces. He will find little evidence of any
plan or method. In one region of the world there are about four hundred
and fifty missionaries to a population of three millions, while in another
area with more than double the number of people, there are only about
twenty missionaries.
After travelling in the latter region I asked one of the senior workers
what in his opinion would be a large enough foreign staff, and he
indicated quite a moderate addition to the existing force. Suppose I had
suggested a total of a hundred missionaries, he would have declared the
number far too large. Perhaps he was too modest in his demands.
Conditions in one area differ from those in another. But such a wide

difference in distribution and in demands makes the need of survey to
ascertain facts and conditions absolutely imperative, especially when
we remember that to the force of four hundred and fifty in the territory
with the smaller population, missionaries will probably continue to be
added and unevangelised regions will have to wait.
After surveying one of the better staffed divisions of the mission field,
a missionary declared that not more missionaries were needed, but a
more effective use of the force at work; and fortunately in that
particular field central direction is beginning to secure that end. But
usually there is no central direction and no comparison of plans
between neighbouring missions on the field, although several missions
may be located in the same town or city; and two Mission Houses in
London may be almost next door neighbours, and may have missions in
the same city in the Far East, and may yet be entirely ignorant of each
other's plans for work in that city. They might be rival businesses
guarding trade secrets! Hence it is not strange that when late in the day
a survey of a city in China is made in which there are about two
hundred missionaries, it is found that not one of them is giving full time
to evangelistic work! Across the city of Tokyo a line could be drawn
west of which all the foreign workers live, while east of it there are nine
hundred and sixty thousand people without a single resident
missionary!
But not only is intermission planning, based on survey, sadly lacking;
few missions have thoroughly surveyed their own fields and their own
work, and fewer still have surveyed them in relation to the work of
others. The result is that policies are adopted and staffs increased in a
way which--for all administrators know to the contrary--may be adding
weight where it should be diminished, and may be piling up
expenditure in the wrong place.
It should be pointed out, however, that survey is beginning to