The Student Volunteer Movement entered these years of profound questioning without a stable leadership. In the decade following Jesse Wilson's resignation, four men served as acting or permanent General Secretary of the Movement. The General Council, an experiment in democracy begun after the Des Moines convention, was replaced by a smaller General Committee in 1936, which was in turn replaced by a different organizational arrangement in 1941. Amidst all this confusion, the Movement strove to identify the alternatives for its future existence. Most crucial during the late 1930s and the 1940s were the issues of how the Movement would relate to 1) the general student Christian movements (YMCA,YWCA, denominational student work and union movements), 2) conservative student Christian movements such as the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 3) the mainline denominational missionary programs, and 4) the evolving missions theory of the period.