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Dr. Ralph Winter
History of Perspectives
1973
At the Urbana '73 student missions conference, 28% of those attending indicated that they were eager to commit their lives to missions. This was over a 300% increase from the 8% who signed the decision card at Urbana '70. Realizing that students would base their decisions to serve in missions on the information they had available, Dr. Ralph Winter, then a professor at the School of World Mission at Fuller Seminary, designed a course which would help fill in the information gaps which likely existed for these students.1974
Held in Wheaton, IL in the summer following Urbana '73, the first course was called the Summer Institute of International Studies (SIIS). It gave an overview of missions from Biblical, Historical, Cultural, and Strategic perspectives. Over nine weeks, a series of guest professors came to each spend a week with the students, share meals with them, and also share their passion for God's global purposes.1976-2001
While the course preceded the formation of the U.S. Center for World Mission, as the USCWM was founded in 1976 in Pasadena CA, many among the small staff came from the SIIS alumni pools. After three more summer SIIS offerings, the course developed a semester-long format as well as the intensive month-long summer program. In 1980, the first extension class was held at Penn State University. The Perspectives Reader text was published in 1981, and is now known to be the most widely-used missions text in all colleges and seminaries as well as in the course once known as SIIS, now called Perspectives. To equip future course coordinators, a training workshop to facilitate ongoing extension classes began in 1983. As the training also grew by extension, in 1986 this coordinator training began to be held at numerous extension sites throughout the United States. By the late 80s, over 8,000 people had taken the course, and exponential growth continues. At the latest count, nearly 50,000 have taken the formal course, and another 100,000 have used the text or major excerpts.
Related Link:
Perspectives on the World Christian Movement Copyright 2000 U.S. Center for World Mission.
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