January 01, 1996 by Ralph D. Winter

[I know it is confusing for training and education to be conducted by both our Mobilization Division and our Training Division. Why? If you want credit, a degree, things are much more complicated--and that's the Training Division's domain.]Mission Frontiers: Dr. Winter, is it true that the Mission Training Division is the largest division of the Center and involves the largest number of people?

Winter: Yes, more people by far than you see in the photo. We have left out almost 50 employees.

Mission Frontiers: Why is this division so big?

Winter: To see this "division" you need to get up in an airplane and look down at the entire campus and its properties. You'll see a specialized university that is doing some amazing things to impact key leaders in every part of the globe.

Mission Frontiers: Let's be personal. How and when and why did you move from being the CEO of the whole Center to focusing on just this one division?

Winter: Once we were out of the woods in paying off the property I turned over the general administration to the capable, younger hands of Greg Parsons. He has been the Executive Director since early 1990.

Mission Frontiers: What became your assignment at that point?

Winter: Besides continuing as Editor of this bulletin I have continued as General Director of the Frontier Mission Fellowship, which is the mission agency that controls two major projects--the U.S. Center for World Mission and its associated university. But I have specific responsibility for the Mission Training Division.

Mission Frontiers: What does that involve?

Winter: On the page to the right you can see the three main components of this division. All of them (in contrast to the Mobilization Division) offer academic credit for what they do.

Mission Frontiers: Is this a rational way to divide things up?

Winter: Partly. Our division needs to deal with the State of California due to the credit and degrees we offer. But it is also true that, in a way, we cut people in two. We want to deal with interested people at every level. At the Center we offer them pamplets, booklets, daily devotional readings, Sunday School materials, individual courses, degree programs. But, then, we cut this down the middle in two divisions arbitrarily divided by whether or not we need to negotiate with public authorities for authorization.

Mission Frontiers: Suppose I have a friend who is casually interested in missions. Where would you steer him?

Winter: We can offer him an easy-to-read booklet, like Breakthrough in Missions. Or an exciting book like Catch the Vision. Or a day-long seminar like Destination 2000. Then there is the daily devotional, the Global Prayer Digest. We could even recommend a marvelous new 13- week Sunday School course, like Vision for the Nations. All this is under the Mobilization division, incidentally.

Mission Frontiers: But what if my friend is seriously interested?

Winter: Okay that is where we need to move from the Mobilization Division to the Mission Training Division, remember? While the 13-week Vision for the Nations program soaks up about 45 hours, our division's Perspectives course (see opposite page) soaks up about 150 hours, unless it is audited without credit. Then, we have an even more intensive curriculum which takes 1,500 hours to study, offering a

Master's degree. A newer version of of this unusual curriculum enables Wycliffe to take people with only two years of college and begin to use them on the field while they finish their B.A. degree on the field! We also deal with those who would like to be mission pastors, with a Ph. D. program in missiology.

1. Perspectives Study Program: 556 professors, 480 field coordinators, 25,000 alumni. Add 100 other schools, three languages.

2. World Christian Foundations Curriculum: Covers the content of college and seminary, available for individual part-time study anywhere in the world (adopted by accredited colleges and seminaries). Can lead to a B.A. or to an M.A.

3. Specialized University: B.A. through Ph.D. anywhere in the world; 30 acres, 100 buildings (Pasadena) to use/take care of

Perspectives Study Program

Thousands have had their lives revolutionized by this course!

This program runs at about 80 locations each year (in the USA alone). It convenes for group study one night a week for fifteen weeks. A different professor comes each week.

It has four sections, Biblical, Historical, Cultural, and Strategic. Each week there are readings from a 1,000- page reader with guidance from a 300-page study guide.

In the 20 years it has been running a number of other versions of the course have been developed. One by Jonathan Lewis, another by Meg Crossman, other versions in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, plus Spanish and Portuguese translations. Korean and Russian versions are in progress.

A simpler version called Vision for the Nations, designed for high school and adult Sunday use, is now available as a neat, highly professional $99 kit with thirteen video presentations on four cassettes, plus a hefty students guide, a leaders guide, etc. See pages 26-27

The standard program is half mobilization, since many take it without opting for credit, although it is always possible to receive a transcript of credit from a regionally accredited school on either the undergraduate level or the graduate level.

It was born following the Urbana meeting of December 1973 as an attempt to offer young people interested in missions a solid foundation on which to decide. "Perspectives" is not vocational preparation for missions, however. It is really only what every serious Christian ought to know about global Christianity, how it started, developed across the ages, where it is today, and what the choices are whether you go or stay.

World Christian Foundations Curriculum

Let's start with a question: what does the mission movement urgently need?

1. It needs a serious course of study that can be fitted into a busy life, without going and sitting in school.
2. Such a program needs to lead to a standard degree, from a regionally accredited school.
3. It needs to give the serious lay believer all the basic ingredients of a seminary education.
4. If WE do it, then it must possess a global and mission perspective.
5. It ought to lead to an M.A. degree. If a person has only two years of college it should lead to a B.A. degree.
6. It ought to be the common denominator of most mission agencies as a basis for field service, in case the Lord leads in that direction.
7. It ought as well be a superb basis for any kind of full-time Christian service.
8. Now, details: It ought to be something you can begin at the beginning of any month.
9. It ought to be available anywhere in the world.
10. It ought to involve a weekly meeting with a qualified mentor--so that students aren't working all alone. Two years, part time.
11. It ought to be available in a group setting wherever there are enough people in any one place.
12. It ought to be an experience which provides a solid basis for what people go on later to learn, not just things to memorize now.

Note: this is a far more extensive program than Perspectives. It is a fascinating condensation of the entire college and seminary curriculum plus many other things.

Specialized University

Why, when there are so many Christian schools struggling to stay alive would your already-burdened missionaries go to the trouble of establishing one more?

Well, don't you think that the international mission enterprise needs at least one university which is attentive exclusively to its needs?

What about Biola University? One of my former students, Clyde Cook, is President. He is a former missionary--and so is the Senior Vice President, Sherwood Lingenfelter, etc.

What about Columbia Bible College and Biblical Seminary and Graduate School of Missions? My good friend (and former missionary) Ken Mulholland (Chairman of our board) is the Dean of that Graduate School. Isn't that enough?

What about Taccoa Falls College, a missionary-minded college if there ever was one. On and on.

My humble observation is that these are all--of necessity--schools with financial needs first and servants of the mission industry second. They have to be. (And most of their students aren't going into missions). What about us? Our professors are themselves missionaries, for the most part. They raise their own support. We can survive without any tuition coming in at all.

What ordinary school could set aside from five to ten people to work for five years to revamp from scratch the entire liberal arts curriculum so that it contains global and missionary insight at every point? See the last column.

Or, what other school has developed a very high quality Ph.D. program which operates anywhere in the world and is designed specifically for missionaries and leaders unable to come to the USA?