Many Christians have heard of William Carey. Fewer are familiar with his partner in India, William Ward. While overshadowed by Carey’s fame even in his lifetime, Ward played a vital role with the Serampore mission team as a printer, preacher, pastor, and trainer.
His accomplishments include founding one of the first newspapers in India, printing portions of the Scriptures in nearly 40 languages, and writing one of the most important documents in the history of Christian missions, the Serampore Form of Agreement (SFA).
The Serampore mission contributed hugely to the great missionary expansion of the 19th century. The audacity of the team’s vision and the scale of their accomplishments set the pattern for much that would follow. Remarkably, the missionary principles guiding their work can be incorporated into contemporary missions with little change. One of the most critical principles in the SFA states the missionary task is incomplete until we’ve trained locals to lead a national church and carry the gospel to their people.
Train Leaders
First published in 1805, the SFA draws on Carey’s experience on the field, but it was composed by Ward. Before his call to missions, Ward had been a newspaper editor with a taste for radical social activism. Evidence points to his having authored a controversial manifesto that could have landed him in jail. By the time he joined Carey in India at the end of 1799, he was committed to a higher cause, but the SFA reveals he retained a passionate nature and gift for evocative prose.
Today, each statement of the SFA remains relevant, but article 8 is worth special attention. Ward called for the missionaries to form the “native brethren to usefulness, fostering every kind of genius, and cherishing every gift and grace in them.”
The Serampore team recognized that Europeans could never evangelize the vast Indian subcontinent alone. India would only be reached for Christ by Indian believers. Accordingly, article 8 describes missionaries’ duty “to advise the native brethren who may be formed into separate churches, to choose their pastors and deacons from amongst their own countrymen, that the word may be statedly preached, and the ordinances of Christ administered, in each church, by the native minister.”
Effective Preachers
The SFA outlines a system in which the missionaries would push forward, opening new areas to the gospel while assisting existing works. A combination of enterprises for translating and printing the Scriptures and establishing native schools supported these church-planting efforts. The Serampore missionaries understood that self-governing churches need literate members capable of reading the Scriptures and pastors trained to preach.
The Serampore team recognized that Europeans could never evangelize the vast Indian subcontinent alone.
To prepare Indian leaders, they included them on itinerant preaching expeditions. Carey, for example, took Pitambar Singh to Sukh Sagar and Krishna Pal to Jessore. Ward organized similar expeditions. In 1818, the missionaries established Serampore College to “train devout youth for the Christian ministry, to enhance the biblical understanding of those already engaged in preaching, and to support those who, due to societal exclusion, have fallen into poverty.”
The wisdom of this strategy became evident in 1806 when, following the Vellore Mutiny, the Serampore missionaries were barred from preaching. Still, Krishna Pal and Jagannath Das ventured into Burdwan, in northeast Bengal, with what Ward described as “the spirit of martyrs.” The missionaries could endure being silenced if men like these preached openly. The messages of the local believers were often more persuasive than their own. After hearing a young evangelist speak in Hindi, Ward wrote, “Oh, I saw that the Gospel was as sweet in this as in any other tongue! At his aptness and tenderness I could scarcely hold back tears.”
Recovering Ward’s Vision
John Clark Marshman, a missionary kid who grew up at Serampore, would write decades later about the SFA’s original emphasis on training national leaders, “It is lamentable to reflect that no systematic effort has been made by any missionary body to carry out these sound views during the subsequent half century of missionary labours, and that the attention of missionary societies has been too prominently directed to the multiplication of European labourers.”
As the Serampore missionaries aged, some newer missionaries believed the work was best left to Europeans. The effects on local churches were devastating; Marshman lamented the loss of 50 crucial years. He noted that “it is scarcely possible to estimate the impression which might have been produced in the country” if the focus had remained on training the Indians.
Two centuries later, we might ask if we’re doing better. By one estimate, only 5 percent of pastors worldwide have formal theological training. The Great Commission includes the imperative of teaching to obey all that Christ commands (Matt. 28:18–20). This requires education and, for some, academic training at the highest levels.
By one estimate, only 5 percent of pastors worldwide have formal theological training.
Thankfully, there’s a growing awareness of the need, and efforts are being made to provide solutions. Internet platforms have made possible the delivery of educational content in ways never dreamed of even 20 years ago. Reformed believers in my area of service, Latin America, have been blessed with programs including Integridad y Sabíduria, Seminario Carey, and offerings in Spanish from major American seminaries. Other organizations, such as Reaching and Teaching, Training Leaders International, and WordPartners have made theological training accessible to locals. Yet there’s much left to do in Spanish and an even greater need in other languages and cultures.
We live in a new missionary era. In Ward’s day, at the dawn of the modern missionary movement, missionaries were sent from the Global North to the South. Now, missionaries go out from everywhere to everywhere. While we still need pioneer missionaries from the North, one of the greatest services Americans can offer is theological training at every level.
Following Ward’s vision, we need a renewed effort to strengthen national churches and prepare missionaries from places like Latin America to carry the gospel to parts of the world Americans might only reach with great difficulty.
The Gospel Coalition