U.S. Center For World Mission - History

History

The USCWM was founded by the Winters in 1976, two years after Ralph presented a paper about hidden (or unreached) people groups at the 1974 Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization. During the presentation, Winter defeated the widely held idea among mission groups at the time that cross-cultural evangelism effort was no longer needed because every political country had heard the Gospel.

Using statistics and graphs, and with input from around the world, Winter showed that there were still 2.5 billion people who could not hear the Gospel in their own languages and cultural setting and therefore cross-cultural evangelism is not only needed but urgent.

The presentation became known as a watershed moment for world missions and many, including Pastor John Piper, believe it changed the global strategies of mission agencies thereafter.

After coming back to the United States from the conference, Winter felt that there needed to be a place where mission agencies can collaborate to complete the unfinished task. At first he tried to persuade Fuller Theological Seminary, where he was a professor, to create such a missions think tank. Fuller decided not to develop such a center so Winter took it upon himself to found the center.

He left his tenured faculty position at Fuller and along with Roberta and a receptionist, and only $100 in cash, began the task of purchasing the former campus of Pasadena Nazarene College to be the site of the USCWM.

Before the U.S. Center for World Mission was established, God was moving in the hearts of Ralph and Roberta Winter. While teaching other missionaries, the Winters gained keen insight into the task of world evangelization. They realized that even if every Christian in the world witnessed to everyone in his or her own culture, only half of the world's population would hear the gospel. Because of barriers of culture and language, the rest of the world was sealed off from the Gospel in people groups without a viable, indigenous, evangelizing church.

To establish a church among every Unreached People group is the driving vision and burden of the U.S. Center for World Mission. As the Center was getting started, many other ministries were formed along the way.

Even before the Center began, the need to make mission resources more available led to the founding of the William Carey Library Publishers. Because of WCL, valuable mission books and videos are published and distributed no matter what the quantity.

In 1974, the Institute of International Studies arose out of a need not only to train people as missionaries but also to provide an intensive foundation on what is happening in the world and what needs to happen. Now called the "Perspectives on the World Christian Movement", or "Perspectives" for short. With over 100,000 alumni globally, the course covers information crucial to any person interested in God's global purposes and has said to be a life changing experience for many who have taken it.

Building on these ministries, the Winters took the radical step by founding the U.S. Center for World Mission in 1976 in a few rented offices on the 35-acre campus of Pasadena Nazarene College. Their purpose was to pull people together to concentrate on the plight of the Unreached Peoples. To most effectively fulfill this purpose the U.S. Center went on to purchase the campus which was up for sale at that time. They had little financial backing but a great dream of a unique, missionary center. The money came in miraculous ways, primarily through small gifts of individual Christians around the country. The final payment for the campus was made in 1988.

Harassed for eleven years by huge property payments, the U.S. Center for World Mission nevertheless concentrated on spreading the vision for the unreached. The financial struggles themselves became a soapbox from which to proclaim the vision. The Center hoped to motivate thousands who could then build a movement that would bring tens of thousands in touch with God's heart for the unreached. The teamwork and prayer of the staff and thousands around the country helped to thrust this movement forward, building a network that is yet to be fully utilized.

The efforts to establish the U.S. Center have also led to the development of a wide-ranging movement to the frontiers of mission that now involves thousands of people and hundreds of missions organizations. The U.S. Center now seeks to serve this growing movement with resources, information, and strategic insights that can help the movement grow and effectively reach all the unreached peoples.