CMS passes “1,000th student” milestone
CMS passes “1,000th student” milestone
Photo: The 2025 intake of CMS pioneer students includes some returning for further stages of study
Enrolment on Church Mission Society’s Pioneer Mission Training programme has now passed 1,000 students since it launched in 2010.
Starting with nine students in Oxford 15 years ago, the programme has grown into a thriving training network with learning hubs across the UK, providing options from undergraduate certificates through to PhD level. There are now multiple streams of study, including emphases on African Christianity and Asian Christianity through the new Acts 11 Centre for Global Witness and Human Migration.
The Pioneer Mission Training programme equips people called by God to respond creatively to the Holy Spirit’s initiative beyond the boundaries of traditional church. Alumni have gone on to launch ground-breaking mission projects across the UK such as a boxing church, an outreach to automotive enthusiasts, gatherings on brand new housing estates and myriad missional enterprises that combine bright business ideas with sharing the love of Jesus.
Commenting on reaching the 1,000-student marker, James Butler, leader of CMS’s Pioneer Mission Training, says. “It’s great to be celebrating this significant milestone for the Pioneer Mission Training Programme. All the training we do at CMS is done with a mission lens; we live and breathe mission. We are delighted to have a diverse teaching team and diverse student cohort giving huge value to all our students as we all learn together to follow God and engage in his mission.”
Courses combine elements of theology, church history, mission and evangelism and are rooted in the practical, such as the popular Make Good module in missional entrepreneurship, which helps participants explore how pioneering can become financially sustainable.
Diana, a pioneer priest, said: “The best course I’ve ever done. It helped me to think really clearly about the missional dimension of YEAST Scrapstore, which I was starting at the time. Now we are a charity which owns our own building and are gathering all sorts of people around us through being intentionally missionary whilst not being churchy.”
Angel, studying for an MA on the African Christianity route, said, “Studying with CMS helped me knock down walls that I had built around my own heart, to see more clearly the fields that are before me, and helped to fill me with new courage and determination.”
Another student, Liz, said: “The course has given me permission to be me. I had always thought you had to be a certain type of person to do things in the church.”
James Butler concluded: “Through our programmes we seek to give people the theological understanding, practical tools and spiritual formation to thrive in their calling, and engage with God’s work in the world, particularly for mission on the edges of society. Many of our students speak about having the ‘gift of not fitting in’ so I encourage anyone who identifies with that to consider studying with us to discover where God may be leading them.”
Known widely for decades as an innovative global mission community, CMS launched Pioneer Mission Training in 2010 in recognition that the UK is now a vital mission field. The course was founded by Jonny Baker, CMS Britain hub mission director. With increasingly online study options available, in recent years students have joined in from around the world: Peru, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Thailand, north America and across Europe.
