As the 1950s progressed and the Student Volunteer Movement became increasingly involved in ecumenical ventures it became clear that the Movement would have a distinct contribution to make to the student Christian scene only if it focused its concerns quite specifically on education and recruitment for world missions service under established mission boards and agencies. The distinction implied by this focus, between the Church's general mission in the world and its "missions", was not agreeable to all, but without such a distinction the need for a Student Volunteer type movement became much less apparent. Those striving to maintain the SVM's distinctiveness felt that the Movement still had a role to play in concentrating on the "frontiers" of the Church mission to the world. There were still many places around the world where strong indigenous churches had not been established and the SVM could help to provide Christian messengers to those areas. Furthermore' it was felt that even the stronger indigenous churches overseas would increasingly welcome the assistance of Western missionaries. As a missionary to China had written to John Mott, "Members of the younger Christian churches have actually taken over the responsibility for determining the future character of the Christian movement and, having worked at this job for a period of years, they now realized its complexity and the need for comradeship." Another "frontier" which the SVM Newsletter suggested for the Student Volunteer Movement's attention in 1957, was confrontation with atheistic communism.