Venture Center

The Venture Center was a collaborative Christian mission base located on a 15-acre campus in Pasadena, California. It has moved to a virtual "hub" approach, and sold the campus in 2019. The Venture Center sought to connect other like-minded organizations around prayer, research, innovation, media, education, strategy, and mobilization with a continued focus on unreached people groups. The U.S. Center for World Mission (now named Frontier Ventures) archives now reside at the Ralph D. Winter Research Center, which houses collections (archive papers and library) of Ralph D. Winter and Donald McGavran and other special collections. Many Christian ministries had their genesis at the center or resided for a season before moving on to new locations throughout the world.

Founders

The center was founded by Ralph D. Winter (1924-2009) and his wife Roberta Winter (1930-2001), who served as Presbyterian missionaries for 10 years to the Mam people, a Mayan tribal group in Guatemala.
After that, in 1967, Ralph Winter served as professor at the School of World Mission (or SWM, now called School of Intercultural Studies) at Fuller Theological Seminary until 1976, when he founded the U.S. Center for World Mission (now called Venture Center) on the former Nazarene University campus in Pasadena. This was also formerly the site for the Pacific Bible College and Pasadena College (1897-1976).Preachers, Pastors Pay Tribute to Dr. Ralph D. Winter
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The Venture Center and its affiliated ministries are run by members of Frontier Ventures, which was founded by Ralph D. Winter.

History

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. It is now called the "Perspectives on the World Christian Movement", or "Perspectives" for short. With over 100,000 alumni in North America alone, 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 founded the U.S. Center for World Mission in 1976 in a few rented offices on the 17-acre campus of Pasadena Nazarene College. Their purpose was to pull people together to concentrate on the unreached people.
The U.S. Center went on to purchase the campus which was up for sale at that time. They were involved in a bidding war with the Church Universal and Triumphant. The money came primarily through small gifts of individual Christians around the country, and through the efforts of televangelist Dr. William Davis who promoted the project on national television and traveled across the country to meet personally with wealthy Christian donors. The final payment for the campus was made in 1988.

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 Center 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. In 2015, the US Center was renamed the Venture Center.

Venture Center Ministries

* Mission Frontiers magazine
* Global Prayer Digest
* Joshua Project
* Roberta Winter Institute
* INSIGHT (an acronym for: INtensive Study of Integrated Global History and Theology. One or two year college-level course.)
* International Journal of Frontier Missiology
* William Carey International University
*Perspectives Global
*Prime
* William Carey Library Publishers
*Perspectives (Perspectives on the World Christian movement) a 15-week course.Perspectives
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See also

* Providence Christian College in Pasadena, California

Notes

Further reading

* (A published PhD from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David)
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External links

Frontier Ventures
Missionary Order which is located on the Venture Center
William Carey Library
Mission Resource Publishing website
Perspectives
Perspectives on the World Christian Movement website
Fuller Theological Seminary
Official website of Fuller Theological Seminary
Lausanne Movement for World Evangelization
Official website of the Lausanne Movement for World Evangelization
Mission Frontiers
Mission Frontiers website

Christian missions
Evangelical missionary societies
Christian organizations established in 1976
Organizations based in Pasadena, California
1976 establishments in California