Mission Groups

The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuit Society sent members abroad, derived from the Latin missionem (nom. missio), meaning "act of sending" or mittere, meaning "to send".

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as social justice, education, social gospel

social justice WORLD MISSION GROUPS
 * The term "social justice" was adopted by the Jesuit Luigi Taparelli in the 1840s, based on the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. He wrote extensively in his journal Civiltà Cattolica, engaging both capitalist and socialist theories from a natural law viewpoint. His basic premise was that the rival economic theories, based on subjective Cartesian thinking, undermined the unity of society present in Thomistic metaphysics; neither the liberal capitalists nor the communists concerned themselves with public moral philosophy.

World Council of Churches WCC 1948

Council for World Mission (CWM) 1977

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.
 * For the World Mission Council, see Church of Scotland.