History

The student ministry in South Africa was founded in 1896, through the

initiatives of key Christian leaders such as Andrew Murray and John R Mott in the context of the energy generated by the student Volunteer Movement at the turn of the last century.

In 1965 this movement sadly spilt into four racially based organisations as a result of the ideological pressures of apartheid.

It was therefore with great rejoicing that the Students' Christian Movement (working in historically black institutions) and the Students' Christian Association (predominantly white, English speaking) merged in 1997 to form the Students' Christian

Organisation.

The other two sections (predominantly Afrikaans speaking)

have also subsequently merged and SCO is currently engaged in unity talks with them.

Only those who have lived with apartheid in South Africa can really appreciate the miracle of God in restoring this unity.

Although white members are a minority within SCO, there is a unanimous commitment to make SCO an inclusive community and to forge relationships across cultural barriers.

We believe that this is a significant witness to the power of the gospel in our country.

Andrew Murray (9 May 1828-18 January 1917) was a South African writer, educationist and Christian pastor.

Murray was the second child of Andrew Murray (1794-1866), a Dutch Reformed Church missionary sent from Scotland to South Africa, along with his younger brother John Murray. Andrew was sent to Aberdeen in Scotland for his initial education together with his elder brother, John. Both remained there until they obtained their M.A in 1845. From there they both went to the University of Utrecht where they studied theology. The two brothers became members of Het Réveil, a religious movement opposed to the rationalism which was in vogue in the Netherlands at that time. Both brothers were ordained by the Hague Committee of the Dutch Reformed Church on May 9, 1848 and returned to the Cape. Andrew pastored churches in Bloemfontein, Worcester, Cape Town and Wellington, all in South Africa. He married Emma Rutherford Murray in Cape Town, South Africa, on July 2, 1856, and they had eight children (four boys and four girls). He was a champion of the South African Revival of 1860. He died on January 18, 1917, four months before his eighty-ninth birthday.

Over the years he has influenced many, including Jessie Penn-Lewis a key-figure in the 1904-1905 Welsh Revival in Wales. Murray served as the first president of the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Fellowship) and authored over 240 books.

John R Mott (May 25, 1865 – January 31, 1955) was a long-serving leader of the YMCA and the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF).

He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for his work in establishing and strengthening international Protestant Christian student organizations that worked to promote peace.

From 1895 until 1920 Mott was the General Secretary of the WSCF.

In 1910, Mott, an American Methodist layperson, presided at the 1910 World Missionary Conference, which launched both the modern Protestant missions movement and the modern Protestant ecumenical movement.

From 1920 until 1928 he was the Chairperson of the WSCF. For his labors in both missions and ecumenism, as well as for peace, some historians consider him to be "the most widely traveled and universally trusted Christian leader of his time" (Cracknell & White, 243).

Intimately involved in the formation of the World Council of Churches in 1948, that body elected him as a life-long honorary President.

His best-known book, The Evangelization of the World in this Generation, became a missionary slogan in the early 20th century (Cracknell & White, 233).