On May 20, 2009 at 9:05 p.m., Ralph D. Winter passed away in his home in Pasadena, CA. He went peacefully, surrounded by three of his four daughters, his wife Barb, and a few friends.

Many of the staff of the USCWM and WCIU had just finished two days of prayer and fasting when they received the news of his passing. Soon, many friends and staff members gathered at the house. It was a bittersweet moment as they reminisced, sang many of his favorite hymns, and prayed together.

USCWM general director Greg Parsons felt prompted to read 1 Corinthians 15. As Dr. Winter’s body was being taken away, Greg came to verses 54 and 55:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”

The memorial service will be on Sunday, June 28 at 3:00 pm in the main sanctuary of Lake Avenue Congregational Church, Pasadena, CA. The family requests no flowers. Memorial gifts can be made to the Roberta Winter Institute and mailed to Betty Leung, USCWM, 1605 Elizabeth, Pasadena, CA 91104.

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I posted my tribute to Dr. Winter at my church’s blog: http://www.austinstone.org/what/md_blog/a_tribute_to_dr._ralph_winter/.

The first time I heard Dr. Winter speak was at a missions conference in Washington DC at Evangel Temple. I had read many of his articles and was a reader of Mission Frontiers, but it was great to finally hear him in person. He was urging young people to recruit others for mission rather than to go themselves…sadly I did not take his advice!

Many years later I was able to meet Dr. Winter a few other times, in group and individual settings. He was always polite and kind but delightfully provocative. Thank you God for Ralph Winter, welcome him into your glorious presence!

Someone asked me to post this here:

The most remarkable thing about Dr. Winter, to me, was his servant attitude and humble heart. I met him only a few times, and each time he treated me as if my little contributions as a housewife and church missions secretary were significant to the Global Cause at Large, and as if what I said was worth responding to.

A Christian leaders’ true heart is shown by how they treat a “nobody”. Dr. Winter’s great ideas about strategy would have been meaningless if he had not given everyone he spoke to the courage and encouragement to undertake great things for God, because Dr. Winter thought they were worth doing, and believed it could be done - by me.

and another,

“When western missionaries worked hard to plant and strengthen national churches, they often forgot that these new churches were to become missionary churches. Only a few believed otherwise, and Dr. Winter was one of them. What the Korean church is today in Christian mission owes greatly to his firm belief in the new churches in mission, and more importantly his action to advocate, educate and prepare them as early as in the 1960s in Korea. Dr. Winter, you have seen only a tiny beginning. I am proud to be part of this great new missionary movement, and I want to thank God for your prophetic life.”

Ralph Winter was one of the main speaker to Mission Korea 1992 where I got the mission call to the unreached people group. 

Now I am serving in one of the South Asian country for the minority people groups with Bible Translation.

The book “Operation World” also made a great impact on my life as I prayed through the book and got to know about the world in a new perspective. 

I just want to remind you that even from Korea a young man was touch by his ministry and serving God in a remote country because of his ministry. 

May God bless him and comfort his wife and family members.

I am confident that the Lord Jesus welcomed Dr Winter into His presence, saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Master!” In the new heavens and the new earth, when we recount the history of the greatest accomplishment of all time - God bringing all the nations to Himself - Dr Winter will be among the most prominent figures who by God’s power worked to fill the earth with His glory as the waters cover the sea.

I only met Dr Winter once. When he was about 80, after being diagnosed with an incurable cancer, during a period of remission, he came to Columbia to teach. He flew into Charlotte, and met with several of us that evening. Our conversation showed him to be what I already knew - an academic in the best sense of the word. Dr Winter was a man of ideas - and he was always looking for people to challenge those ideas, to engage him in debate over those ideas, to sharpen his thinking and to stretch him further. So when I thanked him for his profound impact on me and on the worldwide church, he brushed it off, and immediately began asking me questions. In short order, he discovered an area of disagreement: He believed each local church should be focused on one small slice of the demographic pie, in order to most effectively reach unbelievers like them; I believe God is most glorified when the local church transcends the cultural boundaries that so often separate believers. He wanted to debate the issue, and I gave him that pleasure, uncomfortable as I was - despite being a former academic myself, I was there that evening to honor him!

(Read the whole article)

(My favorite Ralph Winter quotes)

There’s a lot to say, but some initial thoughts that have come to mind-
Most of my academic training since Cornell (undergrad EE, which I only recently learned Dr. Winter was even a fellow alum from upstate NY too?) has
been very intimately related to the William Carey campus- including both Logos Evangelical
and International Theological seminaries which started out on the Pasadena campus
( http://tinyurl.com/LesXl8a and http://ITSLA.edu ), and of course Fuller ([1] http://www.fuller.edu),
culminating with Th.M earned last year at Promise Christian University ( http://tinyurl.com/pcuQfaitH ).
  And of course, the main thing I’ve been sharing [2] re: frontier missions, which we [5] have taken in/to East Asia Christian leadership training and Great Commission Center/Thomas Wang [4] finally translated a couple years back

For the KingDom of Kurios Yeshua haMeshiach,
- JEFferSon Lee, “ABC” (my Ne W"Ciu-over Name”)  http://tinyurl.com/abcjBlog1

  Notes-
    [1] Dr. C. Peter Wagner’s book about crest of <Third? > Wave recommends many resources from WCIU/USCWM.  Even my vocation/work for most of the 90s is related- having learned last year that Dr. Winter also went to the city’s largest employer, my former employer CalTech"s-ubsidiary” JPL/NASA)
    [2] I’ve often referred (for around a decade) & still believe to be the most enduring legacies: the Perspectives curriculum (including Vision for the Nations video-series) from USCWM, endorsed by Billy Graham, YWAM founder Loren Cunningham et. al.,
    [4] (a contributing author to the Reader which is even on google-books!) Search Perspectives on http://books.google.com ?
    [5] “Taking the best materials, sharing/partnering in Spiritual Gifts”- Canaan Missions Team (Full Gospel FGBMFI-LACC+ cover/ed) as well as B2Jgm (http://tinyurl.com/o94jft or wiki- http://tinyurl.com/q3jlcj) to a lesser extent, known by late&former; CMI director Jonathan Chao…  en1ci4pei4da2

Who can measure the influence of RDW on the 8000 disciple-makers in residence among Muslims in some 50 Muslim majority countries plus India, China and Russia?

Before I met Ralph at Penn State University in 1980 [where we shared the joint missions weekend of CCC, IVCF, and Navigators] I hadn’t heard a fresh thought in missions for years!  It was his vision and encouragement that sowed the vision of birthing FRONTIERS. 

He invited me to the USCWM, where I devoured every fertile thought-provoking idea coming out of the Zwemer Institute, WCIU, and the Center.  Very quickly, we saw what seemed to be impossible becoming open doors…and many from the USCWM became the first team leaders of Frontiers from Morocco to Malaysia; Mauritania to Muscat!

GREG LIVINGSTONE

My husband Obed and I want to send our deepest sympathy to the Winter family. We are sad for his wife and children and for our own loss of a good friend and colleague. 
We both meet Ralph in the early 1980’s.  I was a recent graduate from Westmont College, where Ralph’s brother Dr. David Winter served as President At Westmont I heard the call for missions and took a course at the US Center.  After graduation, I immediately joined the staff of the US Center and worked for the Perspectives Course and William Carey University.  Those were historic years at the US Center and I feel privileged to have known and worked with Dr. Winter and his staff.  I met my husband, Obed Alvarez, at the US Center at an IFMA / EFMA meeting.  We married and have lived and worked in Peru for the last 21 years.  Obed had met Dr. Winter when he came to Peru to teach at our Latin American School of Missiology in 1981.  Obed and Ralph became friends and colleagues after that and have since worked together with GNMS and most recently, for the Tokyo 2010 World Mission Conference.  Dr. Winter always inspired and validated the work of missions coming out of the Third World nations.  His teachings continue to revolutionize the way we all look at reaching the unreached for Christ.  We are grateful and privileged to have known him.
Obed and Cynthia Alvarez

In July, 1980, shortly after my wife, Delores, and I had received the letter of acceptance to join the USCWM we met Dr. Winter at our former mission headquarters in Fort Washington, PA.  We arrived in Pasadena that August and joined in the life of the center.  In October, at Dr. Winter’s invitation, I had the opportunity to join the staff of William Carey Library as book production manager.  When then manager Roger Schrage had decided to resign, he and I met with Dr. Winter to discuss my taking the position.  Dr. Winter really took a step of faith when he offered it to me because he knew very little about my background and experience.  I took over in February 1981 and soon discovered that it was God’s place for me.  I have always been grateful for Dr. Winter’s trust, and the faith step he took in seeing God’s purpose for the ministry.  In the next 17 years I had many sessions Dr. Winter in discussing plans, ideas, and projects.  I hope I was faithful to the Lord Jesus in it all and was able to participate in the full vision for William Carey Library.  I “retired” in December 1997 and in the years since them every time I had a conversation with Dr. Winter we shared about WCLs ministry.  What an impact he had on so many lives.  Now his Heavenly Father is revealing the extent of the Spirit’s ministry through him.

I am a missionary in Northeast Thailand in part because of Dr. Winter’s influence and work.  I would not be the missionary I am today without his efforts and influence.  He will be missed in the Body of Christ, but it’s now up to our generation to carry the torch.

One of the global Missionary leaders I fell in love with when I became a missionary 16 years ago was Dr. Ralph Winter. How excited I was when I eventually met him at LCWE in Pattaya, Thailand in October 2004. Shaking hands and taking a photograph with this indefatigable old man was a moment I will never forget.
I join Dr. Ralph Winter’s daughters, the numerous Staff of USCWM and millions of missionaries and mission enthusiasts globally to thank God for the life of this great vessel who served his generation by the will of God. May his remembrance continually be sweet.
SOLA ADEBAYO

As I write this I am looking at the Perspectives Reader, “Edited by Ralph D. Winter…”  My wife and I just completed the Perspectives course and readings; in fact, we’re still working on a related project.  Before this course, I didn’t know who Ralph Winter was.  During the course I was so awestruck by his writings that I searched and found his website where I could e-mail him, and decided to do so.  I copied two of our pastors and completely embarrassed myself and probably them as well.  I felt moved by the Spirit to write and express my appreciation and admiration for this man who I could see had had such an influence on the leaders of my church home of the last couple of years… a place where I have been inspired and astounded repeatedly.  Subsequently, I finished reading the Perspectives book, and to the end, I was so impressed each time I read one of Dr. Winter’s articles.  The clarity of vision this man had. 

Sadly (for us), a couple of days ago, one of the pastors I copied on that message to Dr. Winter let me know that it may have been one of the last e-mails he read… that he had just passed away the evening before. 

I look forward to meeting Dr. Winter someday, hopefully only a few short decades from now.  I would like to express my appreciation for what a profound impact his work will have had on my life… and that of my family… and, I pray, on the people I help to minister to in God’s grace after being so deeply affected by I man I never met in person. 

Surely God has a special place reserved in heaven for this man.

What I loved about Dr. Winter was the tongue in cheek way he would show how foolish it was to miss what God was doing in the world. In the morning meeting 100 people would seriously listen to him, while I would chuckle as he poked fun at those who just didn’t see God’s bigger picture. Ranting and raving would seem to be the order considering how the church has missed opportunities, but his light hearted way encouraged you to listen to what he had to say…...One thought he repeated from G. K. Chesterton was “If something is worth doing,...it is worth doing badly!” This shocking thought liberated me to attempt things that were sure to bring failure if God was not in it. It cut away all my perfectionist’s excuses…... His wartime life style is brillant and still influences how I live. My children are both serving God and I am sure his life influenced us. Thank God for someone willing to speak up for the unreached.

I first met Dr. Winter in 1980 in Scotland where he introduced the concept of Hidden Peoples based on Matt. 24:14.  I went back home to my newly created mission agency and re-named it Mission to Unreached Peoples in light of God’s perspective on the “nations” of the world.  Since that time, our focus has been to take the gospel to every nation through every means possible.
The Perspectives Course that came out of the USCWM has also had a profound impact on my life.  I have used it in several of its versions to impact the countries in which I’ve lived and the churches I have attended.  I’m currently planning to adapt it for the house churches of China who need to better understand God’s perspective on missions and their possible role in His work.
Dr. Winter was a humble man of God who changed the focus of missions in our generation.  We started with 16,750 unreached people groups and we’ve checked off many of those peoples in the past 30 years.  May God give us the grace to finish the job so we can all go be with Jesus just like our dear brother is doing right now!