Executive Summary

Grounded in the lessons of mission outreach of the past and connected to current efforts, the Ralph D. Winter Research Center will advance strategic collaboration and effective networking of mission leaders, thinkers, scholars and activists into the future.

This will be accomplished through both online availability and face-to-face collaboration at the facilities of the U.S. Center for World Mission (USCWM) and William Carey International University (WCIU).

Summary

For more than 36 years, the Frontier Mission Fellowship (FMF), through its major ministries of the USCWM and WCIU, has sought to identify barriers and pursue solutions towards the extension of the Kingdom. The task of effectively reaching some 2.9 billion individuals in unreached groups worldwide requires innovative strategies to overcome linguistic, cultural and other barriers to the Gospel—the kind of strategies that result when mission leaders and scholars are able to learn from their predecessors, interact and partner together. Yet, often, those who desire this kind of networking and research have little access to resources or collaborative opportunities.

The FMF and WCIU are passionate about filling this gap and believe the Ralph D. Winter Research Center can be an effective platform for expanding influence. This Center is built upon a physical and digital library of unique mission resources and historic archives, which we aspire to make accessible globally online. Based on that foundation and through regular strategic seminars, mission leaders and field practitioners have access to a wealth of insights to inform strategies for the future. By hosting or facilitating these strategic events and opportunities for collaboration—in Pasadena and regionally around the world—the Research Center will help to cultivate new strategies, foster partnerships and serve existing efforts resulting in more effective Kingdom advance.

The Center is designed to increase the quantity, quality and accessibility of frontier missiology research materials and stimulate global interaction among frontier missions researchers, so that, “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” Habakkuk 2:14.

An Analogy

The Ralph D. Winter Research Center will be like the Hubble telescope. The telescope does not “do astronomy” but it has enabled astronomers to do astronomy. As a tool, it has singlehandedly done more for astronomy than anything else. It is a platform for rightly gifted and trained people to accomplish things they could not do without it.

It also gave us views of the universe we could not see before. It takes us beyond our individual human limits, and give us new perspectives on our world and the world out there.

The Ralph D. Winter Research Center is helping people see beyond their individual limits and discover solutions to the problems that face our world.