A term applied in Seventh-day Adventist history to establishments of two different types.
a. Centers for evangelism and distribution of publications.
b. Welfare missions of one kind or another, ministering to the underprivileged.
Evangelistic Type. Beginning about 1883, Seventh-day Adventists established a number of so-called city missions for the purpose of promoting evangelism in the large cities. These were, as J. H. Waggoner said, quite in contrast with what were (and are) generally known as city missions, of the welfare type; rather they were prototypes, in a sense, of the modern evangelistic centers. S. N. Haskell, who promoted these evangelistic missions, described their function as a center for pastoral work, the distribution of publications, the giving of Bible readings, and also the maintaining of good relations with the press ( Review and Herald 61:278, Apr. 29, 1884; cf. 61:410, June 24, 1884, and 61:807, 808, Dec. 23, 1884).
Pioneer city missions were opened in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. The Chicago mission was sponsored by the International Tract and Missionary Society for a year (1884) on an experimental basis and financed by the Michigan and Wisconsin conferences, then it was turned over to the Illinois Conference. Missions of this kind came to be established also in key cities in other conferences. Generally located in a residential area, such a mission provided a reading room or small lecture room, also living quarters for the staff, who distributed tracts, took subscriptions for periodicals, sold books, and thus found interested persons to whom they gave Bible studies in the homes or at the mission, and whom they invited to public meetings in the mission. Converts were organized into Sabbath schools to form the nuclei of future churches. (This was the method of beginning SDA work in Washington, D.C., for example. See Potomac Conference .)
Almost from the beginning, these missions gave in-service training in city evangelism to workers, especially to those who gave Bible readings, and who soon came to be known as Bible workers-later called Bible instructors.
These missions were intended to be supported by the colporteur work of the staff and by donations of food supplies or money from church members elsewhere. However, they proved to be such a heavy financial burden to the conferences that few lasted past the 1880s. In Chicago, the training function was carried on in the Central Bible School.
Welfare Type. After the evangelistic-type of city missions was discontinued the term was used in the next decade for establishments to serve the needy. Beginning in 1893, an extensive slum mission work was conducted in Chicago under the sponsorship of the SDA (later, International) Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association, led by Dr. Kellogg of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, for which workers were trained in several medical missionary training schools operated by the Battle Creek Sanitarium ( see Yearbook of the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association, 1896, pp. 116–133; General Conference Bulletin , 1901, p. 175). The Chicago medical missionary institutions included a workingmen’s home, where a penny-a-meal cafeteria, inexpensive overnight lodging, and supplies of clothing were provided for poor and homeless men; a rest home for unwed and destitute mothers; an evangelistic mission among the poor; several dispensaries; a community health and recreation center for mothers and children in the stockyards district of the city; an employment agency for released prisoners; and a mail-order catalog store, the profits of which helped to cover the expenses of the charitable work and at the same time provide goods at lower prices to customers in isolated communities. The mission published a monthly promotion magazine, the Life Boat . Missions of a similar type were established by SDA s in many other places.
The General Conference Bulletin of the fourth quarter 1900 reports city missions in 24 cities in 17 states and three countries outside the United States (Australia, New Zealand, and Sweden). Emphasis came to be placed on well-organized public evangelism, which resulted in the formation of many city churches. However, so great was the investment of money and effort in these missions that Ellen White warned against overinvesting in such work at the expense of the main emphasis of the church on the proclamation of the SDA message. By 1903, when the Battle Creek medical organization began to drift from denominational control, interest in slum missions had waned.
Welfare work was continued by the Dorcas Welfare Societies, and in recent years has been sponsored by the Department of Church Ministries in Community Services centers conducted by local churches.