May - August 2009

Editorial Greg H. Parsons, Guest Editor

This is the first issue of Mission Frontiers without Ralph Winter's involvement. I've pondered what to focus on in this space, which he filled so many times from 1979 till early 2009. Dr. Winter would not have wanted us to focus on him, so throughout this issue, we decided to emphasize what God has done through the life of one man, multiplied to so many. download pdf of this story

Creative approaches to life and work seem too rare. All of us can think of people we know who are "a little different" in a creative way. Sometimes they are a bother. Why don't they just do it the acceptable way everyone else does? Why do they always come up with another, different idea? Sometimes, when we are around them, we are tempted to utter those seven words that can kill any new idea: we have never done it that way before. download pdf of this story

Family Tributes

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It is hard to overstate the influence that Ralph Winter has had on Bethlehem Baptist Church. During the summer of 1983 both John Piper and I were confronted with the "statistics of missions" as outlined in the Hidden Peoples Pie Chart. We were thinking of adding another full-time pastor to our staff when a young couple from Bethlehem sent us a letter challenging this decision. They wrote in the letter, "How can you justify adding another full-time Christian worker in a church that already has two in a city that has a thousand churches?" download pdf of this story

Birth of a Movement - TEE Ross Kinsler

Ralph Winter played a key role in the birth of Theological Education by Extension (TEE), while on his first assignment as a Presbyterian missionary in Guatemala (1956–1966). download pdf of this story

The U.S. Center for World Mission Greg H. Parsons

Ralph Winter's vision for the U.S. Center for World Mission was to create a forum in which mission leaders and agencies could collaborate together in the advance of God's Kingdom. It was also a laboratory for experimenting with new structures, projects and movements, as well as an incubator for nurturing these new beginnings into effective tools for global mission. download pdf of this story

"This is a one-in-thirty-years idea," my father, Dr. Winter, responded when I told him that my sons needed the content of his World Christian Foundations Master's Degree before entering college, not after. "It does no good to hope they will take the WCF Master's after they have lost their faith in a barrage of academic myths and skepticism at a university," I explained. download pdf of this story

After founding the Presbyterian Center for Mission Studies in 1973, Dr. Winter saw the need for another organization that could be more focused on mobilizing members of the United Presbyterian Church, USA for frontier mission. download pdf of this story

Ralph Winter has significantly shaped the priorities and practice of many mission agencies and even more local churches around the world. One of the well-known avenues of influence for Winter's ideas has been the Perspectives course. download pdf of this story

Founded in 1969, William Carey Library (WCL) celebrates this year its 40th anniversary of ministry. In the late 1960s, the faculty at Fuller Seminary's School of World Mission saw the need to start a publishing function, in order to make the school's steady stream of theses available to a wider audience. They asked Ralph Winter to figure out how to do that. Dr. Allen Swanson, one of Dr. Winter's students, recalled: “One day he [Dr. Winter] came into class waving a thesis manuscript in hand (mine) and announced what a tragedy it is to leave such writings to collect dust in library archives, and thus was born “mini-publishing" and the William Carey Library…." download pdf of this story

Ralph Winter undertook many strategic initiatives during his eventful life. One of these was the founding of the American Society of Missiology. By the 1960s, mission studies in North America were in transition. Mainline Protestant missions were declining as was mission studies in their seminaries. Evangelicals had depended on Bible institutes and colleges to train most of their missionaries in non-accredited programs. Indeed, the term “missiology" was largely unknown in North America. download pdf of this story

Ralph Winter believed that ministerial schools both at home and abroad tend to go wrong in three ways. First, they attract the wrong students. Second, they offer the wrong curriculum. Third, they present their course work and diplomas in the wrong package. download pdf of this story

A Mission Media Publishing Capacity
Date Conceived: 1968

The Problem: The need for a specifically mission oriented publishing company.

RDW's notes: Many publishers simply select books they think they can sell 5,000 copies of or more. That means smaller groups of people, no matter how important, are not well served by the traditional publishing process. In 1969 the WCL was founded to support the research of people at Fuller Theological Seminary. They were producing at least 40 books a year which weren't getting published and thus weren't able to be shared around the world with others facing similar problems. So Roberta and I established the William Carey Library—not just to publish books but as our first letterhead had it, “media software." WCL was established first of all as a short-run publishing company that would publish books others couldn't figure out how to publish, serving both the builders and promoters of mission as well as missionaries around the field. download pdf of this story

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On May 5, 2009, just two weeks before he went to be with the Lord, Ralph D. Winter, Founder and General Director of the Frontier Mission Fellowship (FMF), named his successor. The Frontier Mission Fellowship is the evangelical missionary order which oversees and staffs such projects as the U.S. Center for World Mission and William Carey International University. download pdf of this story

Dear FMF staff member (and others who read this):

As you know, the FMF executive team has wisely urged me to indicate in writing what should happen if I unexpectedly die or am suddenly incapacitated. Also, as you know, an order of the type we are is one in which a successor is chosen by the incumbent, and that in the case of a new General Director there is no automatic succession according to seniority. For this reason it is important for the choice to be made in advance of any unexpected event, thus preventing confusion. download pdf of this story

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