Council for World Mission
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The Council for World Mission (CWM) is a worldwide community of Christian churches. The 31 members are committed to sharing their resources of money, people, skills and insights globally to carry out God's mission locally.
CWM was established in 1977 in its present form. It grew out of the London Missionary Society (LMS, founded 1795), the Commonwealth (Colonial) Missionary Society (1836) and the (English) Presbyterian Board of Missions (1847). Most member churches have backgrounds in the Reformed tradition. Many are United churches.
The Council was created as an experiment in a new kind of missionary organisation. No longer were the resources to come just from Europe. The Council's churches voted for a democratic structure in which everyone could contribute and receive from each other as equals.
CWM believes that the local church has the primary responsibility for carrying forward God's mission locally. As a global body, the Council exists to help resource-sharing for mission by the CWM community of churches.
The Council has four permanent programmes - financial sharing, personnel sharing, mission development and education, and communication - which give encouragement, provide training opportunities, share information and give practical help to the churches' mission programmes.
The organisation has 31 members in: the Pacific (9), Europe (5), East Asia (6), Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean (5), South Asia (4), and the Caribbean (2).
