Why Pasadena?

The reason Pasadena matters to global missions is the late Dr. Ralph Winter -- a prominent global mission figure of the late 20th century.  In 1974, Dr. Winter gave a speech at the Congress for World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland - an event organized by Billy Graham.  His speech was a watershed moment for global missions in that it shifted global mission strategy from a focus on political boundaries to a focus on distinct ethnic people groups. Winter argued that instead of targeting countries, mission agencies needed to target the thousands of people groups worldwide, over half of which have not yet been reached with the gospel message.  Winter introduced the term unreached people groups (UPGs) and advocated that a new form of cross-cultural evangelism was essential to completing the Great Commission.

Forty years ago, Dr. Winter purchased a Pasadena campus to work three mission fronts at once:  mission research, mission mobilization, and mission training.  Many departments came into existence on the campus to aid in one or more of these mission fronts.  Roberta Winter, Dr. Winter's wife, called the location a "Missions Pentagon" in her 1987 book "I Will Do a New Thing."  In a more elaborate comparison, Roberta compared the Pasadena campus to the town of Rivendell in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.  Like Rivendell, the campus was to be a "place where visions can be born, where fragile dreams can become reality, where battle plans can be laid for great battles ahead, and faith renewed in ultimate, inevitable success."

Dr. Winter created on this Pasadena campus the US Center for World Missions (USCWM) and the William Carey International University.  In 2015, the USCWM was renamed Frontier Ventures and the entire campus received the name of Venture Center.  The Venture Center, also known as "a Center for World Mission", is a space dedicated to fostering community and collaboration among Kingdom-minded groups and individuals seeking to catalyze breakthrough among the unreached peoples of the world. The Venture Center seeks to catalyze Kingdom breakthroughs. The Center's goal is to create a collaborative environment that encourages creativity in several key areas of frontier mission focused activity—in prayer, research and strategy, innovation, media, mobilization, training and education. The Spiritual heart of the Venture Center is the 70-year old John R. Mott Auditorium. Mott Auditorium is home to a night and day house of prayer, a local missional church, revival conferences, and yearly student mission mobilization events.

It is insightful to read what Dr. Ralph Winter had to say about this Center for World Mission back in a 2004 Book called "The Impossible Challenge: The Founding of the US Center for World Mission." In the "Introduction" to this book, Dr. Winter forcefully answers the question asked to him many times over the years -- Was it worth the risk to create such a center? Here was Dr. Winter's answer:

"Who else speaks for missions in general? Think of all the misinformation and resulting skepticism people generally have about the 'foolish cause' of missions. In actual fact the work of Christian outreach to the nations of the world across the last 2,000 years has been humble, sacrificial, sometimes foolish, often brilliant, but nevertheless the most influential single force in the story of humanity. In this life no will ever know the full story. Missionaries have often, as Hebrews 11 puts it, been men and women 'of whom this world was not worthy.' Indeed, for some of us, the story of the expanding Kingdom is THE story of the human race, it is THE story of the Bible, it is THE ultimate 'heavenly vision' undergirding missions. In this perspective no one anywhere is doing anything truly important if it is not part of the battle to restore creation, to restore the glory of God in all the earth. From that embattled ultimate purpose there is no retirement, no absence of a call, no reason for non-involvement. It is inescapable. We live for Him or die in vain."

November 5, 2016 will be the 40th anniversary of when this 17-acre campus was purchased by Dr. Ralph Winter and the deed was signed. 

For more information on this historic 17-acre Pasadena campus go to this website:  Venture Center