Female Mission Strategists: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective

Abstract

Although women have been very prominent in foreign missions for more than a century, they have generally played a secondary role in the field of missiology. Most mission boards and seminary faculties have been male-dominated, except for a time in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when women formed their own “female agencies” and training schools. During this period women made significant practical and scholarly contributions to mission strategy. With the demise of the women's missionary movement, however, such opportunities sharply declined. That is now beginning to change. In recent decades women have once again become more involved in the strategy of missions, especially in areas involving women's work, cross-cultural communication, literature, education, lifestyle, urban ministries, and mission specializations.