The original goal of the mission that began dedicated to China has grown to include bringing the Gospel to East Asia.

Following the departure of all foreign workers in the early 1950s, the China Inland Mission redirected its missionaries to other parts of East Asia.

Recruitment of missionaries not based on education or ecclesiastical ordination, but spiritual qualification; deployment of single women in the interior and Christian professionals 6.

Headquarters on the field, director rule; leaders and workers serving shoulder to shoulder "We wish to see churches and Christian Chinese presided over by pastors and officers of their own countrymen, worshipping the true God in the land of their fathers, in the costume of their fathers, in their own tongue wherein they were born, and in edifices of a thoroughly Chinese style of architecture.

Including the five missionaries previously sent to Ningbo -James Joseph Meadows, Jean Notman, Stephen Paul Barchet, and George and Anne Crombie, these eight were already in China when Taylor returned in 1866.

The early 1900s saw great expansion of missionary activity in China following the Boxer Rebellion, during the Revolution of 1912 and the establishment of the Chinese Republic.

A musician and an engineer named James O. Fraser was the first to bring the Gospel message to the Lisu tribes of Yunnan in southwest China.

The Warlord period brought widespread lawlessness to China and missionary work was often dangerous or deadly.

Their biography, "The Triumph of John and Betty Stam", inspired a generation of missionaries to follow in the same steps of service despite the trials of war and persecution that raged in China in the 1930s and 1940s.

The Chinese church was beginning to develop into an indigenous movement, with the assistance from key leaders such as John Sung, Wang Ming-Dao, Watchman Nee and Andrew Gih.

Phyllis Thompson wrote that between 1949 and 1952 in the immediate aftermath of the Chinese Communist Revolution, there was a "reluctant exodus" of all of the members of the China Inland Mission.

[6] The leaders met at Bournemouth, England to discuss the situation and the decision was made to redeploy all of the missionaries into the rest of East Asia.

In addition to reducing some languages to written form, the Bible was translated, and basic theological education was given to neglected tribal groups.

The publication and distribution of Christian literature were prioritized among both the rural tribes people and the urban working classes and students.

According to Taylor in 1989, "The fellowship has no desire to re-establish itself there (in China) in the form it used to have", but he also affirmed that "OMF is still deeply committed to the Chinese people.

Ever since our ‘reluctant exodus’ we have called the church worldwide to prayer for our brothers and sisters in China, and to share in proclaiming the gospel and nurturing millions of new believers through radio broadcasts and the provision of Bibles and Christian literature.