Oxford Group

The Oxford Group was a Christian organization founded by American Christian missionary Dr. Frank Buchman. Dr. Buchman believed that the root of all problems were the personal problems of fear and selfishness. Further, Dr. Buchman believed that the solution to living with fear and selfishness was to surrender one's life over to God's Plan.

Buchman was an American Lutheran minister of Swiss descent who in 1908 had had a conversion experience in a chapel in Keswick, England when he attended a decisive sermon by Jessie Penn-Lewis in the course of the 1908 Keswick Convention. As a result of that experience he would in 1921 found a movement called A First Century Christian Fellowship. By 1931 the Fellowship had become known as the Oxford Group. The Oxford Group enjoyed wide popularity and success, particularly in the 1930s. In 1932 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang, in summing up a discussion of the Oxford Groups with his Diocesan Bishops, said, "There is a gift here of which the church is manifestly in need." Two years later William Temple, Archbishop of York, paid tribute to the Oxford Groups which "are being used to demonstrate the power of God to change lives and give to personal witness its place in true discipleship."

In 1938, Buchman proclaimed a need for "moral re-armament" and that phrase became the movement's new name. Buchman headed MRA for 23 years until his death in 1961. In 2001 the movement was renamed Initiatives of Change.

Although Frank Buchman was originally a Lutheran, he was deeply influenced by the Higher Life movement whose strongest contribution to evangelism in Britain was the Keswick Convention. He had come to the Keswick convention in 1908 hoping to meet pastor F. B. Meyer, one the leading lights of the Keswick convention and one of the main advocates of silent meditation as a means to be inspired by God. Unfortunately — or fortunately — Meyer was not present, and Frank Buchman chose to attend the sermon by Jessie Penn-Lewis instead, which became a life-changing experience for him

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