John Lawrence Thurston

John Lawrence Thurston (August 4, 1874 – May 10, 1904) was an American Congregationalist missionary organizer and pioneer member of the Yale Mission to China, later known as the Yale-China Association. thumb|John Lawrence Thurston Thurston first gained prominence through leadership in the Yale Missionary Band, an interdenominational missionary education movement that toured throughout the United States in the late 1890s.

He later helped conceptualize and organize the Yale Mission to China, an educational and missionary enterprise established in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion. Though his direct missionary career in China was brief due to severe illness, Thurston played a foundational role in shaping the philosophy and institutional direction of the Yale-China movement.