EMQ » April – July 2025 » Volume 61 Issue 2
Propelled by Hope: The Story of the Perspectives Movement
By Yvonne Huneycutt
William Carey Publishing, 2024
270 pages
US$35.00
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Reviewed by Brent H. Burdick, DMin, adjunct professor of missions, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Charlotte, North Carolina, and director of the Lausanne Movement’s Global Classroom.
If you were to try to be the first to design a way to strategically impact and accelerate global evangelization, to mentor and disciple laypeople and the next generation of missionary leaders, and finally, to “awaken God’s people to his purpose, mobilizing his church to strategic engagement with him in the outworking of his purpose” (xvii), you would be disappointed – because it has already been done! The Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2024, and its influence on global missions during those decades is unmatched globally and historically. Yvonne Huneycutt chronicles the history of this singular visionary discipleship movement of missions training. Thousands of people around the world have taken the Perspectives course and have been forever altered spiritually for God’s purposes in their lives.
In many ways, the book reads like a missions primer as Huneycutt discusses the cultural and religious milieu out of which the movement emerged during the mid-1970s. Missions trends, strategies, and methodologies are examined and evaluated in view of cultural shifts and societal attitudes during the period. Thus, even if the reader is not particularly interested in Perspectives, there is much to digest regarding how missions have changed and developed in the last five decades.
Birthed in the heart of the esteemed missiologist Ralph Winter, Perspectives was developed in response to the move of God during Urbana ’73 and the first Lausanne Global Congress in 1974. Due to rising student interest in missions, Winter started a summer Institute of International Studies, which eventually became the Perspectives course. Offered in churches or colleges, Perspectives helps students encounter new understandings of the mission of God as revealed in Scripture.
Perspectives is not a typical missions course, however. Through inspiring articles, top-notch speakers, and a well-developed curriculum, each participant can connect their unique story to the glory of God for his purposes in the world. This empowers participants to recognize God’s heart for the unreached. Typically, they cannot help but respond with a commitment to cross-cultural service for a lifetime.
For 50 years, the Perspectives course has been transforming lives for global gospel purposes. Reading the history of the people and events that contributed to its existence through Propelled by Hope is a must-read for all who have a heart for the world and cross-cultural service.
For Further Reading
The New Global Mission: The Gospel from Everywhere to Everyone by Samuel Escobar (InterVarsity Press, 2013).
Mission in Praise, Word, and Deed: Reflections on the Past and Future of Global Mission by Edward L. Smither and Jessica A. Udall (William Carey Publishing, 2023)
EMQ, Volume 61, Issue 2. Copyright © 2025 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
