The memorial service for Dr Ralph D Winter has been scheduled for Sunday, June 28, in the main sanctuary of Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, California.

The service had been given a tentative June 27 date after the influential missiologist’s death this past Wednesday but was confirmed for June 28 on Friday.

News of Winter’s passing has been trickling steadily to believers across the world and the thousands who were inspired enough by his visions to contribute toward the establishment of the US Center for World Mission.

“His vision of the advance of the gospel was breathtaking,” recalled pastor and author John Piper, who had Winter as a professor during his time at Fuller Seminary.

Winter, who founded USCWM and William Carey International University, was instrumental to the major shift in perspective within the mission movement from going to countries and individuals to penetrating “unreached peoples”, or those who had been bypassed.

He was named by Time magazine in 2005 as one of America’s 25 most influential Evangelicals. He founded and served several organisations, including the International Society for Frontier Missiology and the Frontier Mission Fellowship, among others.

Late last year, Winter received the Lifetime of Service Award at the North American Mission Leaders Conference, a major annual mission gathering co-sponsored by The Mission Exchange and CrossGlobal Link.