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The Monatsschrift für Innere Mission, a popular academic journal covering the complete area of protestant social work and inner mission in Germany, appeared during the period of the German Empire between 1876 and 1917. The journal is associated with the name and person of its founder and editor Theodor Schäfer (1846–1914), the director of an institute for protestant social work in Altona. The direction and contents of the journal correspond with his conception of a science of inner mission.

The Schäfersche Monatsschrift, as it was often simply called, lay claim to being an independent professional academic journal. As opposed to the Fliegende Blätter aus dem Rauhen Hause, that were founded by Wichern and had been appearing since 1844, and that had served as the central organ of the Central-Ausschuss für Innere Mission (Central Committee for Inner Mission) since 1849, the Monatsschrift largely dispensed with small news items and concentrated instead on longer theoretical contributions to win the attention of representatives from academic theology and leading personalities from active protestant social work. Because the theory of protestant social work did not exist as a separate university discipline, the essays consisted mainly of contributions to a theory of protestant social work in practice. This included analysis of social and religious states of distress, to which the inner mission reacted, the foundation of a modern protestant social work derived from church history and fundamental reflections upon the practical work. Beyond that the publishers put value on taking note of and discussing the specialist literature from reviews, book advertisements and short content descriptions found in the relevant journals. The interest of the readers in personal news and future events was covered in a column titled Chronik and in the years from 1882 to 1894 in a supplement named the Zeitung für Innere Mission.

Schäfer thought that the independence of the journal was guaranteed by the fact that it was not tied to any organisation or institution for protestant social work. Even when it was not the specific intention of the editor, it was clear from the beginning that the Monatsschrift would be seen as a counterpart to the Fliegende Blätter. This was clear from a theological standpoint through an emphasis on a Lutheran position, which however did not totally exclude opinions and contributions from Calvinists or from the area of the Prussian Union.

It is not entirely coincidence that the period in which the Monatsschrift appeared is that of the Empire. In the first place this was the most productive creative phase in the life of the editor Theodor Schäfer. However, it is also a fact that two central, high quality journals for inner mission could only exist side by side in these decades. The willingness and means, both academically and in practice, for a fundamental engagement with the inner mission was never so strong as in this period, in which the inner mission expanded massively and consolidated itself as a social force in German society. As Schäfer was forced by illness to withdraw, the Monatsschrift fell into a crisis and the beginning of the World War, shortly afterwards, caused its demise. It was continued as a quarterly till 1917 and then it was discontinued. In the fundamentally different socio-political situation of the Weimar Republic only the Central-Ausschuss, as national association, had the means to continue a general journal for inner mission.