Church, John Edward (Joe)

Date of creation: 1924 to 1989
Extent: 50 boxes papers + c.500 published items
CCCW Catalogues: JEC alias JECD (papers, including some detailed lists of sections), JECP (photographs), JECS (colour slides), JECC (sound recordings); other lists of books and pamphlets
Keywords: East African Revival, Ruanda Mission, Uganda, Rwanda

Dr Joe Church (1899-1989) was a missionary doctor with the Church Missionary Society’s Ruanda Mission from almost its creation, mainly at Gahini 1927-37 and again 1947-61. During this period he was the leading European missionary working with Festo Kivengere, Blasio Kigozi, Yosiya Kinuka, William Nagenda, Simeoni Nsibambi,Erica Sabiti and other African leaders of the Revival both in Rwanda, 1938-46 and 1961-72 in Uganda, and from 1946 on evangelical tours or ‘crusades’ in Nyasaland, Ethiopia, Palestine, England, India, Pakistan, and Brazil, or attending conventions on the Keswick model in South Africa, France, Germany and Portugal. The collection comprises his extensive collection of correspondence, journals, evangelical writings, photographs and sound recordings very deliberately preserved as a record of his life and work, as well as published material (including complete run of Ruanda Notes 1923-81) not readily elsewhere available, much with additional annotation. It includes much material for other missionaries, notably Decima (wife), Howard (brother) and Elisabeth Church, Lawrence Barham, Percy James (Jim) Brazier, Harold and Margaret Guillebaud, Roy Hession, Arthur Pitts-Pitts, Leonard Sharp, Algenon Stanley Smith, and Theodora Skipper. Further material is in the Oral History Archive.

Further resources:

• .pdf catalogue of this collection