C.T. Studd — The Cricket Star Who Gave His Fortune Away

Who He Was Charles Thomas Studd was born on December 2, 1860, in Spratton, Northamptonshire, England, the son of a wealthy retired indigo planter who was dramatically converted at a D.L. Moody meeting and whose conversion transformed the Studd household. C.T. became one of the most celebrated cricketers in England — a member of the Cambridge XI and eventually of the England Test team — before being shaken at the age of twenty-one by the near-fatal illness of his brother George into taking his faith with complete seriousness. He was one of the “Cambridge Seven,” a group of seven Cambridge athletes who in 1885 publicly resigned their sporting careers and sailed for China under Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission, inspiring a generation of young people to consider missionary service. He gave away his entire inheritance — approximately twenty-nine thousand pounds — to various Christian causes, keeping nothing for himself. He subsequently served in India, returned to England, and at the age of fifty launched the Heart of Africa Mission (now WEC International), going personally to central Africa where he served until his death in the Belgian Congo in 1931 at seventy.

His Vision for Missional and Sacrificial Ministry C.T. Studd’s theology of sacrificial mission could be compressed into the most famous sentence he ever wrote, composed on the back of an envelope during his missionary career: “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” This was not bravado but a considered theological position: if the gospel was true — if hell was real and Christ had died to prevent people from going there — then the comfortable arrangement of Christian life around personal spiritual development and denominational maintenance was a category error of catastrophic proportions. The urgency of the mission made every lesser priority look small.

The act of giving away his entire inheritance was Studd’s most radical missional statement, and he made it deliberately, publicly, and joyfully. He had heard the rich young ruler’s story told many times; he did not intend to walk away sorrowful. Jesus had said: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21, NIV). Studd took these words as addressed to him specifically. He sold and gave and followed. He divided his inheritance among the Moody campaigns, the Salvation Army, George Müller’s orphanages, and several other causes, and sailed for China with no financial safety net. He later testified that the joy of that giving had been worth more than the money he had kept in the years before he gave it.

His theology of the grain of wheat was the controlling image of his missionary career. He had heard John 12:24 so many times that it had become not a familiar verse but a personal vocation: “Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:24, NIV). Studd understood his life — his comfort, his wealth, his health, his reputation — as the grain of wheat. He was prepared to fall to the ground, to die to himself, in whatever way the mission required, trusting that the death of self-interest was the only reliable seed-bed for genuine kingdom fruit. His willingness to go to Africa at fifty, in poor health, with no institutional support, was the most explicit expression of this theology he ever offered.

Studd also had a burning theology of the unreached as the primary missionary priority. He was not interested in strengthening churches that already existed in places where the gospel was available. He was consumed by the darkness of places that had no light at all. He shared Paul’s specific ambition: “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written: ‘Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand’” (Romans 15:20–21, NIV). The unevangelised interior of Africa drew him as a compass needle is drawn to north. He followed that pull to his death, and WEC International — which now operates in over sixty countries — is the fruit of the seed he planted.

His later years were controversial. His personal austerities and his demanding expectations of his co-workers caused significant friction within his own mission. He was not an easy man. But even his critics acknowledged that the self-sacrifice he demanded of others was a fraction of what he demanded of himself. He had long since settled the question of personal comfort. He had given everything to the mission — youth, wealth, health, family proximity, physical ease — and he did not regret it. He held to Paul’s calculation: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18, NIV).

He had done his own arithmetic and reached the same conclusion. Whatever it cost to be a missionary was not worth comparing to what it was worth.

A Prayer: Lord who gave everything for us, free us from the tyranny of keeping and the anxiety of losing. Where we cling to wealth, comfort, and security as though they were salvation, loosen our grip. Give us Studd’s joyful abandon — the liberation of the person who has decided that the grain of wheat must fall into the ground.

And where You call us to run the rescue shop near the yard of hell, give us courage to open the door. Amen.