The mission agency underwent several name changes and re- organizations from its creation in 1846, but finally settled on Board of Missions around 1910. The material in this sub-series represents administrative and financial concerns of the entire board. Much of the financial and administrative concerns where continued by the Board of Missions of the Methodist Church after merger in 1939.
The roots of the General Board of Church and Society go back to 1912 and the creation of the General Board of Temperance by the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1960 the Methodist Church merged three agencies, the Board of Temperance, the Commission on World Peace and the Board of Social and Economic Relations into the Board of Christian Social Concerns. This agency was merged, in 1968, with the Commission on Christian Social Action of the Evangelical United Brethren, to form the Board of Christian Social Concerns of the United Methodist Church. The agency's name was changed in 1972 to the Board of Church and Society.
Until 1980 the organization of the Board revealed a direct continuity with the three predecessor boards of the Methodist Church. There was a division of General Welfare and Alchohol Problems, a division on World Peace and a division on Human Relations and Economic Issues. In 1980 the Board began working with new structures which were not formalized until 1991 into new divisions; the Ministry of God's Creation, the Ministry of God's Human Community, Resourcing Congregational Ministry and United Nation's Ministry. However, these divisions did not appear in practice until 1991. Between 1980 and 1990 the United Methodist Directory shows no divisions in Church and Society, only departments. In all cases the departments continue department names in existence under the previous administrative organization of the Board. For a more complete description see the Church and Society agency history.
The General Conference of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ of 1841 created a Missionary Society for missionary work at home and abroad. This organization's purpose was to promote and encourage missions, but had no administrative or operational authority to conduct mission work.
The General Conference of 1853 reorganized the Missionary Society and revised its constitution and its name was changed to the Home, Frontier, and Foreign Missionary Society.
Two missions were created in Southern Missouri and Canada and arrangements made to send missionaries to Africa. In 1855, William J. Shuey, Daniel C. Kumler, Daniel K. Flickinger sailed for Africa and set up missionary work at Freetown, Sierra Leone. Missionary work was established in China in 1889, Japan 1895, Puerto Rico 1899, and the Philippines in 1901. The General Conference of 1905 ordered the division of the Home, Frontier and Foreign Missionary Society into two separate organizations the Foreign Missionary Society and the Home Missionary Society. When the Church of the United Brethren in Christ merged with the Evangelical Church in 1946, the missionary societies of both churches were formed into a Board of Missions.
The Evangelical Church was formed in 1922 by the merger of the Evangelical Association of North America and the United Evangelical Church. The merger was a reunion of the two churches. They had split in 1894, when a third of the membership of the Evangelical Association withdrew and formed the United Evangelical Church.
The Evangelical Association of North America was founded by Jacob Albright. In the 1790s.
In 1894 the church divided, mostly along language lines. The smaller and mostly English speaking group took the name, the United Evangelical Church. The two denominations reunited in 1922.
In 1946, the Evangelical Church merged with the Church of the United Brethren in Christ to form the Evangelical United Brethren Church.