Propelled by Hope: The Story of the Perspectives Movement

By Yvonne Huneycutt

50 Years of Mobilizing for Frontier Missions  

“Do not despise the day of small beginnings.” These words from the book of Zachariah were prophetically spoken by famed missiologist Arthur Glasser to the inaugural Perspectives class in 1974. The mystery of transformation from a tiny classroom discussion into a sweeping frontier mission seems lost to time.  

The fascinating connection between the Perspectives movement, the frontier mission movement, and church planting movements is a story rarely told yet vital to understanding the spread of the gospel to resistant populations. Yvonne Huneycutt’s Propelled by Hope unfolds the hidden tapestry of these interconnected movements through sixty personal interviews and inspiring anecdotes. Huneycutt explains how the Jesus Movement transformed disillusioned youth into fervent volunteers for mission.  

Discover not just history but a spiritual journey that offers lessons, inspiration, and encouragement for today's believers. Whether you are a mission leader, a student of missiology, or someone seeking to understand God's movement in the world, this book will deepen your insight into the strategies, goals, and personal stories that have shaped modern missions. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Carey Publishing
• Release date: Jan 30, 2024
• ISBN: 9781645084662

Yvonne Huneycutt

Yvonne Huneycutt (DMin, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) has served the Perspectives movement since 1991, and she is currently on staff with Perspectives Global as an instructor, trainer, and author. Yvonne’s varied career experience includes the corporate world, local church ministry, missions, and managing a non-profit organization. She spent a decade on staff with the U.S. Center for World Mission. Yvonne resides in Texas with her husband Steve. 

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Cover: Propelled by Hope by Yvonne W. HuneycuttTitle: Propelled by Hope by Yvonne W. Huneycutt

Propelled by Hope: The Story of the Perspectives Movement

© 2024 by Yvonne Wood Huneycutt. All Rights Reserved.

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William Carey Publishing (WCP) publishes resources to shape and advance the missiological conversation in the world. We publish a broad range of thought-provoking books and do not necessarily endorse all opinions set forth here or in works referenced within this book. WCP can’t verify the accuracy of website URLs beyond the date of print publication.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the NASB® New American Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org.

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ISBNs: 978-1-64508-464-8 (paperback)

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Digital eBook Release 2024

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024930159

DEDICATION

To my Perspectives colleagues and friends who no longer walk beside us, but are now with the Lord. You lived for the name of Jesus and the glory of God to be shed abroad among the nations. We miss you.

Lee Purgason—Perspectives USA director

Victor Ibagón— Perspectivas Colombia and Perspectivas Consejo director

Melissa Barron—Perspectives USA and Perspectives Global staff

Sussi Servant—Perspectives USA and Perspectivas Peru staff

Rory Clark—Perspectives Global staff and co-editor of the French version of the Perspectives curriculum

——————————

To Dan Davis, the first pastor to see in me and call forth the calling God placed on my life in missions so many years ago at Hope Chapel in Austin, Texas. I am forever grateful.

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To all the servants of God who serve the Perspectives movement around the world. Thank you for your dedicated labor of love for his name.

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Most especially to my husband, Steve. Thank you for all the dinners you cooked when I was so focused in my office that I lost track of time! Your support through all the years of ministry, education, travel, and writing have been the wind beneath my wings.

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Part 1: The Beginnings

Chapter 1 The Historical Context in Which Perspectives Emerged

Global Realignments

Societal Trends

Negative View of Missions

A New Spiritual Vitality

Chapter 2 Responding to the Move of the Holy Spirit

Fuller Foundation

Zechariah 4:10

Lausanne ’74

In the Gap

Laying Foundation Stones

The Living God Is a Missionary God

Decline, Reorganization, and Expansion

The Remarkable Penn State Class

A Published Text at Last

Chapter 3 Developing Trends in World Missions 1980–2000

Paradigm Shifts

New Strategies

Activisim

From Mission Field to Mission Force

Momentum to Finish the Task

Key Mission Entities and Events with Frontier Mission Focus, 1975–99

Chapter 4 Growing Influence, Growing Pains

Extension and Expansion

Changing Audience

First Forays into Other Lands

Stabilization and Growth

The Perspectives Add-dition

A Shift in Focus

Follow the Fruit

Part 2: Into the Third Millennium

Chapter 5 Global Events and Cultural Shifts Impacting Mission

Re-mapping Global Populations

Migration, Urbanization, Globalization

Post-Western Christianity and Post-Christian West

Chapter 6 Frontier Mission Developments 2001–2020

What Is Mission?

New Agencies and Networks for a New Millennium

One Hundred Years of Progress

Changing of the Guard

Therefore Pray to the Lord of the Harvest

Globalization of Mobilization

The Harvest Force

The Harvest Field

Startling Discovery Unveiling Unfortunate Consequences

Exploring New Strategies

Fruitful Practices

Twenty-First Century Surprise

Collaboration for the Sake of the Name

College Student to Church Planting Movement

Chapter 7 Catalyzing a Movement

Struggling to Catch Up

A New Start: Fresh Faces in New Places

New Edition for a New Millennium

Auxillary Curriculum for Strategic Demographics

Coordinator Training Reboot

Launching Online

Back to the Mother Ship—Headwinds Ahead

Building for the Future

Perspectives Goes to Hollywood

Defining Identity

Long Overdue: Instructor Development

Chapter 8 Fruitful Frontier—Perspectives Global

FirstFruits Internationally

A Root Bearing Offshoots

The Necessity of Soil Preparation

Fruitful Strategy

Cultivating the Movement

Sowing and Reaping in Rocky Soil

Establishing the Movement

Promising Yield

Seeding into Other Asian Nations

Propagating into Other African Nations

Extending the Movement

Latin America: Ripe for Mobilization

Expecting A Harvest: French-Language Version

Divine Connections with Perspectives Instructors

Chapter 9 Moving with God into the Next Half-Century

USCWM Becomes Frontier Ventures

Perspectives USA Reorganizes for the Future

Perspectives Global Matures

Perspectives Curriculum Fifth Edition

2020: Unexpected, Uncertain, Chaotic, and Fruitful

Celebrating the Past, Looking to the Future

Conclusion

Appendix A Graphical Illustrations of the Unfinished Task

Appendix B Perspectives 16 Core Ideas

Appendix C Changing of the Guard

Appendix D Nigeria Communiqué

Appendix E Perspectives Family Covenant

Bibliography

Index

PREFACE

It is incredible to me that a complete history of this amazing course called Perspectives and the movement surrounding it has never been documented. The course is fifty years old, the reach and impact of the course is widespread, and yet no one has fully recorded its origins, motivations, and development. Due to my thirty-year involvement with Perspectives in a variety of roles, I reckoned that I am as equipped as any to attempt a recorded history.

The primary audience I had in mind as I wrote were the Perspectives directors, coordinators, instructors, and students who have encountered this movement in its developed stages and have no idea of the history or even the why of the course. Nor do they know the historical milieu, both in the church and in the world, surrounding the origin and expansion of the course. Most were not even born yet! What I consider second nature concerning the historical events of my lifetime and the important people and issues in missions are unfamiliar to them, requiring definition and explanation. Most participants in Perspectives outside North America have encountered the course in its maturity, so unfolding the Perspectives lineage becomes significant for them as well.

I initially intended to research and document only the history of the Perspectives movement. Once knee-deep in the project, however, I realized that to understand the why and what of Perspectives, one needed acquaintance with the frontier mission movement. Perspectives was birthed out of—and at the same time was a substantial contributor to—the genesis and development of frontier missions. Through the decades, Perspectives and the frontier mission movement have matured in tandem.

Researching authors and periodicals from each era of frontier mission development, I have documented in very brief format key issues, trends, people, events, and organizations. I am well aware that informed people will be dissatisfied with this overview; it leaves out many names and events and does not do justice to the ideas and issues involved. Volumes could be written on the history of frontier missions alone. My objective is to provide enough of an overview to grant context, to reveal the scope of innovation flowing out of frontier missions, and to disclose the breadth of the movement globally.

If you are one of the few who read footnotes, you will notice that the research for this book has occurred over a very long time! Initially begun as part of a doctoral project, I worked on the book in fits and starts over the years. Like many of my readers, I have been employed in the marketplace much of my life, while simultaneously contributing a chunk of my time to volunteering for Perspectives. I have only served Perspectives as a staff member slightly more than a decade. Due to job and ministry responsibilities, and a very long season of parental caregiving, this book has taken far longer to complete than I wanted.

I interviewed over sixty individuals in researching the history of Perspectives. In the process of conducting those interviews, I was struck by how many sensed a very clear call from God to serve the Perspectives movement. Their stories resonated with me, as I also experienced such a distinct call. There is great joy and fulfillment in serving with Perspectives, as ordinary people laboring together toward the same goal realize how a seemingly inconsequential contribution can have far-reaching eternal impact.

For so many, completing a Perspectives course marks the beginning of a new journey with God. Periodically, as I tell the story of the Perspectives movement, I will pause and share individual journeys, including bits of my own. Tens of thousands of personal stories could be told which illustrate the dramatic impact of this course. Most stories that I will share are drawn from one single area—the Perspectives students I served in Tennessee—during one single decade. When I reflect that such stories are multiplied across decades and thousands of locations, I stand in awe of God’s amazing works.

In uncovering Perspectives’ history, I have been impacted by the impetus the historic Student Volunteer Movement has bestowed upon the course. The sense that another student mission movement was in the making was a defining motivation to the early founders and students. Now a fresh generation of young people has arisen. They are at home in an intercultural world and are the first truly global generation. Many desire to give their lives to a cause greater than themselves. Would God do it again? Is he raising up a new student volunteer movement passionate for his name to be known among the nations?

To that end, I offer this volume. My desire is that you, my readers, may not merely learn the history of Perspectives and the frontier mission movement, but that you will be inspired to join the movement! For those who are already a part of this movement, may you be sustained in your labor for Christ’s name, seeing that you are part of something much grander than your small corner of the world. Together let us press on, co-laboring with God until Jesus receives the full reward of his suffering and God is rightfully glorified through the worship and adoration of a redeemed people from every tribe, language, people, and nation.

INTRODUCTION

I sat bewildered and amazed. What is this teaching? How could I just now be hearing such significant information? After all, I was raised in the church—in a strong, mission-minded denomination. I served in church staff positions. I had a seminary degree, for goodness’ sake! How did I miss this? This is revolutionary. My perception of missions was shattered in the space of two hours. My insight into Scripture was enlarged in the space of two weeks. My understanding of God, myself, the world, and my role in it was transformed over the course of a semester.

Welcome to the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course! My experience may be radical, but it is not unusual. Thousands bespeak a testimony that echoes my own. From college students to college professors, from business executives to stay-at-home moms, from pastors to lay leaders, from missionary candidates to seasoned missionaries—we have done more than take a class, we have entered a movement. A movement that has reshaped more than just our lives. A movement that has reshaped the mission endeavors of churches and organizations. A movement that is reshaping the world through the kingdom advance of God’s people.

Launched in 1974, Perspectives has intersected the lives of an estimated three hundred thousand course alumni across the globe. In addition to the myriad who have taken the Perspectives course or derivatives of the Perspectives course, tens of thousands have used the Perspectives Reader as a textbook in college and seminary classes. There is no way to calculate the additional hundreds of thousands of individuals who have been directly influenced by those who have studied the Perspectives material and embraced the call and promise of God for world evangelization.

Perspectives on the World Christian Movement is a course comprised of fifteen lessons woven together into an integrated paradigm which unfolds God’s declared purpose in this world and his active work toward the fulfillment of that purpose. Although often described as a missions course, in reality it is not; it is a vision and discipleship course. The intended purpose of the Perspectives course is to awaken God’s people to his purpose, mobilizing his church to strategic engagement with him in the outworking of his purpose.

The uniqueness of Perspectives that undergirds its enduring legacy is found in two surprising elements. The first is that it is almost entirely a volunteer movement. It is propelled forward by millions of volunteer hours supplied by thousands of eager volunteers promoting, organizing, teaching, and conducting courses around the world. Most of the full-time staff raise their own support to have the privilege of serving the ministry. The course produces an outcome of God’s people voluntarily engaging God’s purpose in a multitude of ways for the rest of their lives.

Why would so many give so much of their time to this movement? The answer is found in the second sustaining element—the paradigm of the course—which often catches believers by surprise. The paradigm, which will be explored in greater detail in this book, is essentially the unfolding of a grand story. A Great God is writing a Great Story, in which he creates a Great People of Blessing within every people, inviting them into his Story to co-labor with him in bringing about his Great and Global Purpose.

God’s people are not objectivized into useful tools to dutifully accomplish his mission; rather, God grants dignity and purpose to his people by gracing them with a Great Work in a relational partnership with himself. The outcome of this story is Great Glory for God. Because God’s purpose is certain, God’s people engage with him in Great Hope, knowing that they are giving their lives to an ancient and eternal and sure purpose. They are propelled by hope.

This, then, is the Perspectives story: a volunteer movement of God’s people propelled forward by hope in the sure completion of God’s purpose.

The Perspectives movement and the frontier mission movement are inextricably intertwined. Therefore, a broad-sweeping overview of the frontier mission movement, with its concepts and outcomes, is included in this story. This overview is not intended to be all-inclusive, but enough of an outline to acquaint readers with the gist and breadth of frontier missions. The story of Perspectives, on the other hand, is told in greater detail, serving as a documented history of this incredible movement. Interspersed throughout the narrative are stories of lives transformed through their encounter with Perspectives.

Dr. Ralph Winter, the originator of the Perspectives course, used to say that Perspectives joined a movement of God that was already in progress. This book begins, therefore, with a historical overview of the major trends in American culture and in missions leading up to the mid-1970s. I then document the early development of the Perspectives course, up through 1981, with the publication of the first Perspectives Reader and Study Guide.

The Perspectives course not only joined a movement of God but itself became a movement, contributing to and accelerating major mission trends. So we will pause in the middle of our story to highlight the developing trends in world missions between 1980 and the year 2000. Those were formative decades in shaping future mission outreach, particularly in the frontiers of mission. Grasping the larger context, the stage is set to continue the story of the expansion and development of the Perspectives course in the final two decades of the twentieth century.

Part 2 ushers us into the twenty-first century, with all its change and chaos but also its increasing fruitfulness for the kingdom of God. Again we will examine the historical and global context impacting how we do mission, noting tectonic shifts in the new millennium. The frontier mission movement matured, continuing its global expansion with new expressions yet at the same time encountering opposition, necessitating consultation and clarification. The mission field became the mission force, and God surprised everyone with cascading people movements to Christ. With broad strokes of the paint brush, I attempt to capture significant developments in frontier missions during the next two decades.

The Perspectives movement also continued to mature and expand. Rapid momentum of classes and students brought with it struggle, restructuring, and new initiatives to develop tools and people. The transformative paradigm for which Perspectives is renown was more clearly defined, enabling the students to engage in even richer ways. Deepening theological and missiological insight, now not just from the West but from many regions of the world, contributed to further curriculum development. Global growth focused the need for a stronger course identity. Picking back up with the Perspectives story, I trace the developments from 2000 to 2020 in the North American course and organization. A significant section is given to the wonderful spread of Perspectives globally, most of which has occurred in only the past decade.

The three-year period of 2020 to 2022 is forever etched in our memories. The global pandemic impacted Perspectives as it did everything else. During this time Perspectives USA restructured once more to position itself for future growth. Despite national lockdowns, many global programs reported surprising advances. The challenge of recovering from the pandemic is where we conclude our story.

I often encourage my Perspectives students to be history-makers. But it is more than that. As we engage God’s global purpose, we are not just making history—we are fulfilling it. The hope for which we labor is that heaven is richer and fuller and God is more glorified because of our praying and giving and going and supporting and living for God’s eternal purpose: that all tribes and tongues will know, worship, and adore him.

PART 1

THE BEGINNINGS

1

The Historical Context in Which Perspectives Emerged

The day of the missionary is over. We have completed the missionary task; all that remains is local evangelism by the national church.

Or so went the thinking of much of the Christian church as the 1960s came to a close. The celebrated fact of the time was the recognition of the younger churches—those planted by earlier mission efforts—on every continent and in almost every country. This led many to believe that Christ’s Great Commission was nearly fulfilled and all that remained was a mop-up job to be done by the national churches within each country.¹ Furthering this popular belief was a call by some in the younger churches of the Third World, as they were then called, for a moratorium on missions.²

Global Realignments

What occasioned this sentiment that the missionary vocation was no longer welcome or appropriate? A principal answer lies in one of the most massive global political realignments in history. In his remarkable book, The Twenty-Five Unbelievable Years, 1945–1969, missiologist Ralph Winter recounts how rapidly the world shifted from a colonial-dominated landscape to a vast array of newly independent nations. By the cessation of World War II in 1945, Europeans had virtual control over 99.5 percent of the non-Western world. In an astonishingly brief twenty-five-year period, Western nations had lost control over all but 5 percent of the non-Western population of the world. In a tide of rising nationalism, missionary presence was often equated with colonial rule; therefore, in the minds of many in both the non-West and the West, as one form of Western dominance was shed, so should the other.

Such rapid change brought with it unrest, resulting in regional conflicts. Many newly independent nations turned to authoritarian governments, often embracing Marxism and coming under the shadow of the Soviet Union. The long war in Vietnam raged as America sought unsuccessfully to push back the communist forces in Southeast Asia. Coming on the heels of the recent harsh repressions of Chairman Mao in China, there was a sense that communism was winning the Cold War.³

Not only did communism seem to be gaining ground around the world, but Christianity seemed to be losing ground in the West. In American society the Vietnam War fed the youth revolution of the 1960s, fostering anger and disillusionment with the establishment. Racial injustice and segregation in church and society betrayed the truth of the gospel. American Christians watched hopelessly as a whole generation dropped out into an alternative culture of drugs, sex, and rock and roll. David Howard, InterVarsity director of the Urbana student mission conventions in the early 1970s commented that

the student world of the 1960s was marked by activism, violent upheavals, and negative attitudes. The anti-government, anti-establishment, anti-family, anti-church attitudes were also expressed in anti-mission reactions. Seldom have missions been looked upon with less favor by students than during that decade.⁴

Societal Trends

Secularism replaced the Judeo-Christian worldview in American media, government, and educational systems. What could not be proved by science was considered a private belief system and little by little was extracted from the public square. Major denominations and seminaries removed belief in the supernatural, including the resurrection of Jesus, from their interpretation of Scripture, demythologizing the Bible into something modern man can accept. Salvation takes on a whole new meaning when the immortal soul is dismissed. Indeed, the very meaning of salvation was the theme of the World Council of Churches’ Bangkok assembly in 1973. They defined salvation exclusively in this-worldly terms as a struggle for economic justice and human dignity against exploitation and oppression, solidarity with the marginalized poor, and hope against despair.⁵ The purpose and goal of mission accordingly turns upon the definition of salvation. Simultaneously, salvation in Catholic circles began to be equated with socio-political liberation. Arising out of Latin America and emerging from the reforms of Vatican II (1962–65), liberation theology focused the mission efforts of the church on working for political and economic liberation for the oppressed and marginalized masses, even if it meant revolution. Liberation theology overflowed its geographical and ecclesiastical boundaries, becoming both a popular and controversial theological approach to missions in the 1970s.⁶

Alongside secularism, an equally damaging societal trend in the early seventies was the rising tide of religious pluralism (understood in its original sense that all religions contain equal truth and validity). The world was shrinking due to astounding advances in technology. Familiarity with those of other religions made it harder to conceive of an acquaintance going to hell for holding a non-Christian belief system. The plurality of religions and the outworking of secularism produced a relativism of truth.

Religious pluralism and relativism obviously have disastrous consequences for missions and evangelism. Why proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to others if it is not ultimate truth and they are saved through their own religion anyway?

Negative View of Missions

The combination of these and other factors in the 1960s—a collective guilty conscience over colonialism, rapid moral degeneration, alluring materialism, the struggle for racial equality, shocking political assassinations—permeated the American church at the turn of the decade with a spirit of negativism and despair. With the nightly news showing horrible footage from Vietnam, popular books making dire predictions about global overpopulation, reports on the seriousness of the drug problem in public schools, the ubiquitous fear of communism, and the cataclysmic threat of the arms race, the entire country was in a funk.

Ralph Winter reflects on those days:

I wrote a book in 1969 called The Twenty-Five Unbelievable Years. The title of every chapter was negative on the grounds that I did not think it would arouse interest if it took an optimistic approach. That is how bad the negativism was in popular Christian culture at the time. That’s why McGavran’s famous lecture, The Sunrise [not the sunset] of Missions, was so shocking to so many people.⁷

A common question was, Is there a future for the missionary enterprise? The seminaries of liberal denominations were terminating their mission programs.⁸ The deeper issue for liberal denominations was a questioning of the entire theological basis for mission. Liberal theology and religious pluralism had shifted much of the church away from the conviction of the Christian responsibility to evangelize.

Another momentous issue concerned the tension between the mission and the younger churches. The hesitation and delay in transferring authority and responsibility from the missionary to national church leaders was causing great consternation on the part of many in the newly independent countries. Some in Africa were calling for a complete withdrawal of all European and American missionaries.⁹

At the close of the 1960s the view of missions among evangelical students was similarly grim. Students on Christian-college campuses seemed to have the most negative view of all! To get a clear picture, I will quote at length from a 1970 article in Evangelical Missions Quarterly. As I read this article, I was struck by how well it described my own view of missions as a student in the 1970s … and the view I continued to hold until I took the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course in 1989. The authors of this article catalogue the contemporary student impressions of missions.

Missions as out of it. Many students consider missions not much more than a dead cause because missions seem so irrelevant to the issues and problems of the day. … Students still accuse missionaries of being drab. In emphasizing devotion to God and sacrifice for His work, many evangelical missionaries seem to deny certain essential aspects of personality and beauty. … Missions as traditional and inflexible. Students fear that missions strategy and policies have not changed in the last twenty years. Frequently the terminology they hear from the missionary on the campus is very much the same that they heard as children; this gives rise to the suspicion that perhaps the whole enterprise is static and unimaginative. … Missions as non-personal. Youth are desperately scared that they might get involved in an organization where they are just another cog, going around in circles