Our roots

In 1824, prominent evangelical Christians founded in Berlin the „Society for the Promotion of Evangelical Missions among the Heathens“ (or Berlin Mission Society). Ten years later the first missionaries were sent to South Africa, where they founded the mission station „Bethany“ among the Koranna people. In the course of the 19th century, further missions were opened throughout Southern Africa, East Africa, and in China. In 1873, the mission house in Berlin's Georgenkirchstrasse was built, which came to be known popularly as „Factory of Apostles“.

Due to the First and Second World Wars the contact with some of the churches founded by the society was restricted or broken off entirely. After 1945, these mission churches became independent. In response to a call of the General Assembly of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi in 1961, missionary work became an integral part of church work.

The Berlin Mission Society continued its ecumenical missionary work in what was then East Germany, under the umbrella of the East German Church Federation. The Ecumenical Missionary Centre maintained contacts with churches in Tanzania, Cuba, East Asia, the Middle East, and the socialist countries in Eastern Europe.
 
In West Berlin, Berlin Mission was founded in 1974/75, which incorporated the Berlin Mission Society. Other founding members included the Jerusalemverein (Jerusalem Society, founded in 1851), the German Mission for East Asia (founded in 1882) and the Alliance of Evangelical Churches (formerly Evangelical Church of the Alliance). After its foundation Berlin Mission also took over responsibility for the Talitha Kumi school from the Kaiserswerther Diakonieverband. Berlin Mission took seat in the former home of the Gossner Mission in Berlin-Friedenau and kept up the society's contacts to partner churches, particularly in South Africa, Tanzania, East Asia and the Middle East.

After Germany's re-unification the Ecumenical Missionary Centre of East Berlin and Berlin Mission of West Berlin merged to become a single society under the name of Berliner Missionswerk. In 1991 the society moved back into its old headquarters, by then renovated. The mission house is part of the Evangelical Centre of the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-schlesische Oberlausitz, and is located in Georgenkirchstrasse in the Berlin neighborhood “Friedrichshain“.