Founders
Ralph D. Winter (1924-2009) and his wife Roberta Winter (1930-2001) served as Presbyterian missionaries to a Mayan tribal group called the Mam people in Guatemala for 10 years. Roberta was a registered nurse who graduated top of her class.
In 1967, Ralph served as professor at the School of World Mission (or SWM, now called School of Intercultural Studies) at Fuller Theological Seminary for 10 years. Among other things, he taught the historical development of the Christian movement. Roberta was very involved in Ralph's teaching.
Dr. Winter was named among the top 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America by TIME magazine.
He was a strong influence on Pastor Rick Warren Warren who learned from Winter that a church should not be judged by how many people it seats, but rather by how many people it sends to mission fields. Basing his church on that model, Warren said his church has now sent thousands of people to some 100 nations, and is first church to send people to every country in the world.
Pastor John Piper is quoted as saying, "Nobody in the area of missions had a greater impact on me. Ralph Winter was probably the most creative thinker I have ever known. I mean, on any topic that you brought up, he would come at it in a way you have never dreamed of. He saw all things in relationship to other things that you would never think of relating them to."
Pastor Jack Hayford said of Winter, "I have never known a more diligent servant of the gospel; one so marvelously wrapped in the giftpackaging of a profound scholar, missionary, pioneer thinker and friend."
A colleague of his at Fuller Seminary, C. Peter Wagner, said, "History will record Ralph Winter as one of the half-dozen men who did most to affect world evangelism in the twentieth century."
The famous evangelist, Rev. Billy Graham said, "Ralph Winter was a man of God who gave a vision to many Christians of a world in need of the gospel. I used to meet with him on many occasions, often in small group prayer. Some of my vision for world evangelization came from my interaction with him, and I am grateful.
The US Center, and its affiliated ministries, is run by members of the Frontier Mission Fellowship (FMF) which was founded by Dr. Winter.
Current General Director Dave Datema is the hand picked successor of Dr. Winter and the current General Director of the FMF.
Read more about this topic: U.S. Center For World Mission
Famous quotes containing the word founders:
“It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“A spot whereon the founders lived and died
Seemed once more dear than life; ancestral trees,
Or gardens rich in memory glorified
Marriages, alliances, and families,
And every bride’s ambition satisfied.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.”
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)