U.S. Center for World Mission

The Venture Center is a collaborative mission base located on a 17-acre campus in Pasadena, California. The Venture Center currently functions around seven hubs of frontier mission focus, which include prayer, research, innovation, media, education, strategy, and mobilization with a continued focus on unreached people groups. The U.S. Center for World Mission archives reside at the Venture Center’s Latourette Library and house collections by Ralph D. Winter and Donald McGavran. Many ministries had their genesis at the center or have been resident for a season before moving on to new locations throughout the world.

Ralph D. Winter (1924-2009) and his wife Roberta Winter (1930-2001) served as Presbyterian missionaries to a Mayan tribal group called the Mam people in Guatemala for 10 years. Roberta was a registered nurse who graduated top of her class at USC.

In 1967, Ralph served as professor at the School of World Mission (or SWM, now called School of Intercultural Studies) at Fuller Theological Seminary for 10 years. Among other things, he taught the historical development of the Christian movement. Roberta was very involved in Ralph's teaching, filling in for him and helping to grade papers.

In 1976 Dr. Winter founded the U.S. Center for World Mission, now called Venture Center on the former Nazarene University campus in Pasadena, this was also the form Pacific Bible College and Pasadena College (1897-1976).

Dr. Winter was named among the top 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America by TIME magazine.

He was a strong influence on Pastor Rick Warren Warren who learned from Winter that a church should not be judged by how many people it seats, but rather by how many people it sends to mission fields. Basing his church on that model, Warren said his church has now sent thousands of people to some 100 nations, and is first church to send people to every country in the world.

Pastor John Piper is quoted as saying, "Nobody in the area of missions had a greater impact on me. Ralph Winter was probably the most creative thinker I have ever known. I mean, on any topic that you brought up, he would come at it in a way you have never dreamed of. He saw all things in relationship to other things that you would never think of relating them to."

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