When various Anabaptist groups joined the global Protestant mission movement in the nineteenth century, their outreach efforts soon included education. To take one example, in the late 1800s a small group of mission-minded young people from Pennsylvania met to discuss how they might reach out to their neighbors through Sunday schools and service projects. This led to the initial formation of Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities (now Eastern Mennonite Missions, or EMM) in 1914, and in the 1930s the first Mennonite missionaries were commissioned to go to Shirati, in present-day Tanzania. The missionaries initially focused on planting churches and fulfilling the Great Commission (Matt 28:19–20). However, it wasn’t long until the need for literacy in the churches and communities became a critical focus, leading to the formation of primary schools and other forms of education. Since then, many other Anabaptist groups have engaged in similar mission efforts in their home communities and around the world.
In this issue of Anabaptist Witness, we intended to explore how Anabaptists and Mennonites define mission in relation to education, or education in relation to mission.