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  • Dr. Avery Willis interview 1998

    Dr. Avery Willis interview 1998
    Description:
    Dr. Avery Willis was the Senior Vice President for Overseas Operations of the International Mission Board. The interview begins with Dr. Willis giving a background of his call to missions and his life in ministry (00:00-05:47). He briefly speaks on the restructuring of the IMB into regions (05:48-07:34). Dr. Willis defines the “new paradigm” of missions of seeking to find what God is doing in bringing people to saving faith (07:35-09:22). Dr. Willis defines the “cutting edge” in missions as being on edge of lostness, and he argues why they IMB needed to be restructured to focus on people groups and to get more laymen involved in missions (09:23-13:45). Dr. Willis defines the difference between “harvest field” and “unreached,” and this is reflected in the move towards looking at people groups rather than nations (13:46-15:13). He believes that there is a biblical mandate to reach everybody including both categories of the “harvest fields” and the “unreached” (15:14-16:09). Dr. Willis speaks on the how the funding for resources going towards the evangelization of unreached people groups has gone up over time and mentions how resources and have been shifted specifically for unreached people groups (16:10-19:36). Dr. Willis makes the prediction that a larger percentage of people will be involved in international missions, the third world will be producing more missionaries, and the center of the church will move to the third world by 2010 (19:37-22:20). Dr, Willis’ closing comment is that the church must always be listening to God and discovering his strategy for reaching the unreached, and he believes that today is the great day for mission (22:21-23:52).
    Subject:
    Missions, Reorganization, Ethnic groups, and Evangelistic work
    Creator:
    Lewis A. Drummond Center for Great Commission Studies
    Owner:
    ddickerson@sebts.edu
    Language:
    English
    Date Uploaded:
    02/12/2026
    Date Modified:
    02/13/2026
    Date Created:
    1998-03
    Resource Type:
    Audio
    Identifier:
    Dr. Avery Willis Mar98_orig_1_1