Frontier Internship in Mission records
Abstract
Records of the Frontier Internship in Mission program, including correspondence, intern files and reports, photographs, and administrative and historical documents.
Dates
- 1961 - 2008
Creator
Language of Materials
Materials are primarily in English, with some in French and Spanish.
Conditions Governing Access
The materials are open for research.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged into five series: I. Correspondence; II. Interns; III. Minutes and reports; IV. Administrative materials; and V. History.
Extent
36 Linear Feet (25 boxes and 219 volumes)
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Biographical / Historical
The Frontier Internship in Mission (FIM) program was launched in 1961 by Margaret Flory as a response to a need for more non-paternalistic and collaborative avenues for Christian missionary work. The program focused on nine “frontiers” of mission identified at the 18th Quadrennial Student Conference on Christian World Mission in Athens, Ohio, in 1959: technological upheaval; racial tensions; new nationalism; militant non-Christian faiths; modern secularism; responsibility for statesmanship; the university world; displaced, rejected, and uprooted peoples; and communism. The frontiers were constantly re-evaluated and updated to address issues as they arose. From the outset, FIM was designed to be interdenominational, international, and interracial in both who it sent and the people they were sent to. FIM projects each focused on one of the nine frontiers, and interns usually served for two or three years, integrating themselves into the local community that had called them. After the initial period of activity, roughly 1961-1974, FIM leadership shifted to a more collaborative structure, with an International Coordinating Committee (ICC) comprised of fifteen voting members, all leaders of a different international ecumenical organizations, with five of those fifteen from the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF). The ICC also included, as non-voting members, the FIM Coordinator and three representatives from among the FIM partner churches and agencies. In 2008, as part of a phasing-out plan for FIM, the ICC shrunk to seven members.
Sources:
Focer, Ada. "The Frontier Interns," Christian Century, September 26, 2018.
Collection materials
Custodial History
The FIM archives were handed over to the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) in 2008, to be kept with the WSCF archives at the World Council of Churches library. In 2018, they came to the Yale Divinity School Special Collections as part of the WSCF archives (RG 46F).
- Title
- Guide to the Frontier Internship in Mission records
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Elizabeth Peters
- Date
- 2020
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Part of the Yale Divinity Library Repository