Zambezi Industrial Mission

The Zambezi Industrial Mission was an independent Baptist mission founded in British Central Africa, now Malawi, in 1892 by Joseph Booth, an independent and radical clergyman whose aim was to create a self-supporting mission providing African converts with the educational, technical and economic skills to lead the development of their country towards independence. After disagreements with his colleagues, Booth left the mission in 1897, but it continued as a largely self-supporting Industrial mission until 1930. After this, it continued as a conventional mission church with growing numbers of congregations and members. After Malawi became independent, the work of the mission church was split into a locally led and funded Zambezi Evangelical Church, partnered by a UK headquartered Zambesi Mission with a local Blantyre office. In 2010, for the first time, a Malawian was appointed to the post of Blantyre-based ZM Field Director. In 2012, the church had about 150 clergy serving over 500 congregations with 100,000 members in Malawi, and was governed by a national Synod meeting bi-annually.

The idea of a self-supporting mission was pioneered in India by William Carey, a Baptist minister and founder of the Baptist Missionary Society. This combined missionary evangelism and teaching with agriculture and commercial activities. The Industrial Mission movement in Africa arose in the late 19th century because many missionaries considered that European mine-owners, planters, and traders treated Africans mainly as a source of cheap manual labour, and did not want them educated or trained beyond what was necessary to perform routine tasks. Industrial missions wished to combine industrial training with Christian teaching and thought that practical training, rather than an education which would turn-out clerks or book-keepers in subordinate positions, would be more likely to promote African development. After training in European agricultural methods to produce economic crops, or in useful crafts such as carpentry or making clothes and shoes and mechanical trades, it was expected that those it trained would remain with the mission, allowing it to become self-supporting. The aim of Industrial missions was to help Africans live successfully in their own society, not as wage labourers or sharecroppers dependent on European businesses. However, the main Christian denominations expected that their Industrial missions would be superintended by European missionaries.

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