Focus on the world: the Keswick Convention and mission

Abstract

In a copy of Pierson’s (n.d.) work, The acts of the Holy Spirit, presented to the hostess of Salisbury House in Keswick (UK), are the signatures of 11 missionaries from all over the world who attended the Convention in 1904. These are just a few of the many missionaries who visited the yearly Keswick Convention (KC). Many missionaries were a product of the genial spiritual climate which prevailed in England after the 1859 revival. Since 1885 the KC has been the catalyst for a fresh era in missionary work. Keswick and mission became inseparable, and the KC became a factor in the life of the universal church. Throughout the years missionary operations have been given a place in its program. So many missionaries trace back their call for mission work to Keswick and reckon the momentum of their life to be fully devoted to God, lies there. This led Keswick chairman Reverent Aldis just after World War II to say, ‘I supposethe KC has done more than any other movement in the Churches to call men and women to the mission field.’ In 2014 the Convention website reads: The KC is passionate about mission and has been supporting, encouraging and hosting missionaries and their families from overhundred years! We see this as a key area of Keswick’s ministry and one in which many havebeen keen to support in their giving (KM 2014). The vision of those in the last decades of the 19th century is the issue of this article as well as the question in what way the KC is still trueand faithful to that vision in the first decades of the 21st century.