Building the Denomination through Mission

Abstract

As American denominations emerged in the nineteenth century, the missionary movement played a key role in structuring the churches, especially by enlisting women’s involvement in purposeful Christian service. This article explores the important way that Women’s Missionary Societies were instrumental in shaping the outlook and activities of Lutheran church bodies in North America. Christendom of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was in part shaped by women in congregations, and in networks formed to support missionary work by women for women. This aspect of the missionary impulse taken up by women involved activities that transformed societies where they lived by educating girls and women. Back home, the support structures for mission shaped the growth of American Lutheran denominations.