Frontier Internship in Mission records

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