March 01, 2023 by Rick Wood

As I write this, there is snow covering the ground and flocking the blue spruces surrounding my home. It is a scene worthy of a Christmas card. But soon the snow will melt, and those blue spruces will be burgeoning with new life and growth. It is the normal change in seasons that I anticipate and rejoice in each year. Likewise, Frontier Ventures and Mission Frontiers are entering a new season in the life of our respective organizations. In recent years, Frontier Ventures has sold off its campus properties in Pasadena, California which Dr. Ralph Winter purchased in 1976. Frontier Ventures has moved to a more decentralized organizational structure, which no longer needs such a large physical footprint in Pasadena.

I arrived on that campus in Pasadena in July of 1990 and Dr. Ralph Winter gave me the great honor of selecting me to be the managing editor for Mission Frontiers. I served under Dr. Winter for many years. It was a life-changing experience for me to be mentored by the most insightful and remarkable Christian leader I have ever known. In 2008, Dr. Winter again gave me the supreme honor of asking me to take over for him as editor of Mission Frontiers shortly before his passing. Like Dr. Winter, I have sought to blaze new trails in mission strategy in the pages of MF by focusing on the movements to Christ that are now transforming the world of missions.

But my work with Mission Frontiers has not been without its challenges. All my life I have had functional sight in just one eye and my vision has gotten worse with age. It is hard to do all the reading required to produce MF under these circumstances. But I have been able to function reasonably well until later last year when my vision took a sudden turn for the worse. By God's grace, my vision has largely recovered since then, but this incident has helped me to recognize that I cannot continue to carry the entire editorial burden of producing great content for MF by myself. A new season has come for me and Mission Frontiers. We are looking for the next editor and when we find that person, my ministry will transition into the new role of editor emeritus, where I will provide support and help smooth the transition.

If you know someone who would be interested in applying for this role, please contact us at editor@ missionfrontiers.org.

For those who are concerned that the focus of Mission Frontiers might shift from fostering Kingdom Movements in all peoples in this transition, please be assured that any editor that we select will share this same commitment to fostering movements. This is at the heart of the purpose and vision of Mission Frontiers.

I want to thank you, our readers, for allowing me to invest in your lives through the pages of Mission Frontiers over the last 33 years. It has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve you as the editor of Mission Frontiers. While transitions are rarely easy, I am comforted by the knowledge that Jesus is walking with me throughout all the changing seasons of life.

Women in Mission: the quiet majority
By DG WYNN, Guest Editor

Time and again, women with PhDs or decades of field experience have told me "but I'm not a missiologist" in response to invitations to write for MF. But those are the women whose writing I want to read. Their voices are worth hearing, and we the listeners will be the better for hearing them.

With that in mind, this issue on Women in Mission is neither a rant nor a token to mollify. It was an opportunity to create space for oft overlooked thinkers, leaders, and livers of missiology. It is about intentionally pulling to the forefront voices that represent roughly two-thirds of God's mission force.

Within this issue you'll find keen insight and strategy to spur movements to Jesus among the unreached. Other articles share how the Lord is moving in the world or show deep vulnerability as they touch on acute subjects that impact women-married and single. The collection of content is rich.
You've been invited to a feast. Dig in and enjoy.