International Mission Board (IMB) trustees honored Avery Willis as a visionary servant leader — and as an ordinary man whose heart belongs to God — in celebrating his retirement from 25 years of missionary service. God has moved in the most remarkable ways during Willis’ career, IMB President Jerry Rankin said.
“We could not overstate the significance of Avery’s leadership as senior vice president of overseas operations,” Rankin said during the Feb. 3 celebration in Richmond, Va. “When Avery came to that position 10 years ago, we had just reported 2,000 new churches started around the world; this past year we reported 16,000 new churches. Ten years ago, we rejoiced in reaching 251,000 new believers baptized, but this past year the reports exceeded half a million new believers, more than twice as many. In 1993, only about 1.3 percent of church members overseas were in discipleship training; today it’s 13 percent — 900,000 believers. During his tenure, the board has sent out, trained, equipped and nurtured more than 7,600 new missionaries.”
Willis would be the first to admit that those accomplishments were God’s, not his, Rankin said. “But we all know that as Avery walked with the Lord, as he provided vision, passion and strategic leadership, nurturing the leadership of others, modeling a servant leadership and walk with the Lord for all of us.”
Born in Lepanto, Ark., Willis and his wife, Shirley, were appointed by the Foreign Mission Board (now IMB) as missionaries to Indonesia in 1964. He worked as an evangelist and church developer for six years before transferring to the Baptist seminary in Semarang, where he served on faculty for two years and as president for six years.
During those years, God’s Spirit began moving in great power across Indonesia, sparking a revival in which 2 million people opened their hearts to Christ. Faced with the tremendous challenge of training so many new believers and church leaders, Willis helped pioneer innovative strategies for extension education and led the way in developing the prototype for what became the MasterLife discipling process. Millions of Christians in the United States and around the world have benefited from MasterLife, said John Kramp of LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, who worked with Willis promoting MasterLife and other courses in LifeWay’s Lay Institute for Equipping series.
“God put a message in Avery’s life,” Kramp said. “He used his gifts in writing and speaking and training to literally mobilize thousands and thousands of people to take up the cross daily and follow Jesus.”
A longtime friend said the seeds of Willis’ ministry were sown when, as a student at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Willis told God he would do everything he could to be a man whose heart belonged completely to Him. “We hear the expression that the world has yet to see what God could do with someone who truly and completely gave himself to the Lord,” said Harold Hendrick, a gospel radio broadcaster from St. Louis. “Avery and Shirley Willis are among those who, in role modeling and fruit bearing, have shown us what the world would see when one gives himself completely to the Lord.”
Emeritus Indonesia missionary Catherine Walker of Richmond, Va., recalled how Willis, then a new missionary in his early 30s, told her God had given him a vision of being a missionary to the whole world.
“MasterLife was written in Indonesian,” she said. “But one year on furlough he facilitated getting it into English, and as soon as that was done it began to be translated into other languages. I thought then, ‘This is beginning to fulfill his conviction God had given him.”
Willis said his desire has always been to be a mirror for God’s glory and reflect all praise back to God.
“Whatever has been done and whatever has been said is God’s work; it isn’t mine,” Willis said. “Any accomplishments go to Him.”
Though he has formally retired, Willis said, “This isn’t a retirement; it’s a refirement. I’m just quitting my day job so I can go serve the Lord in ministry.”
He plans to spend up to 30 weeks each of the next two years teaching overseas and helping develop “Following Jesus,” an oral version of MasterLife designed to disciple and train the unreached people who learn through storytelling. He will continue his speaking and writing ministry and will teach “Lead Like Jesus,” a book he co-wrote with Ken Blanchard.
The Willises have five children and 15 grandchildren: Brett Willis and wife, Gretchen, live in Llano, Texas; Randy Willis and wife, Denyce, live in Tulsa, Okla.; Wade Willis and wife, Suzanne, live in Franklin, Tenn.; daughter Krista and husband Cliff McAtee live in Euless, Texas, and are in the appointment process for career missionaries with IMB; and daughter Sherrie and husband Stephen Brown live in Kansas City, Mo., and co-pastor Northland Oaks Community Church there. (BP)
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