Remembering the Life of Greg Livingstone

By Greg Parsons, PhD.

I have been mentored and motivated by a small number of passionate leaders who challenged me to leave the ordinary and attempt the necessary to advance God’s Kingdom. Greg Livingstone was one of those leaders — always urging engagement in the cause. While I was already committed to God’s purposes globally when I first met Greg, I told him that every time I heard him speak – formally or informally – I was ready to commit again!

Greg transferred into the presence of his Lord at his home in Altadena, California, on Saturday, July 19, 2025. He was 85.

Many of us heard him tell the story of how that vision unexpectedly came to him when, in 1959, as a student at Wheaton College, George Verwer roped him into attending an all-night prayer meeting! He agreed to pray for Libya, noting, “I didn’t even know where that was!” But that night began a lifetime of passion and involvement in reaching the Muslim world. After the prayer meeting, they formed a daily, noon prayer group at the college focused on prayer for Muslims. Greg would say “…was hooked. I knew I couldn’t do anything else.”

Early on, God gave him an idea for an agency that would send Gospel messengers only to Muslims—to all Muslim peoples. In 1982, he launched Frontiers with that mandate. Over the years, he mobilized thousands of workers into new fields of ministry. Bob Blincoe, former WCIU Board Chair and President Emeritus of Frontiers USA, reminisced that, as Greg would say their work was, “… a good beginning. But it’s too soon to celebrate, too soon to quit.”

The first offices of Frontiers were on the campus of WCIU and the U.S. Center for World Mission (now Frontier Ventures). Greg was first elected to the WCIU Board of Directors in September 1982 and as Chair in March 1983, serving until 1990. He later received an Honorary Doctorate from WCIU In September of 2019.

Indeed, Greg continued working to see the Gospel shared with Muslims until the end of his life, most recently, with a focus to see more workers sent from Latin America. After he left the leadership of Frontiers International in the U.K., he moved to a large country in SE Asia where co-workers had not seen much visible fruit. He had a burden to get “face time” with Muslims.

Janelle Stoops, Frontiers U.S. Director Team noted, “He would frequently email me to enthusiastically report that he was still working to recruit people to serve in some of the hardest to reach places. He never stopped. His passion for all Muslim peoples never dimmed.”

His autobiography title reflected the impact of that first all night prayer meeting. In You’ve Got Libya, Livingstone wrote, “[One of the] things [that has] kept me going all of these years … is that I keep focused on ‘that day’ – that day when I’m going to meet the Lord Jesus face to face. I want to hear Jesus say those most wonderful words: ‘You’ve run the race to win. Well done, good and faithful servant.’”

Greg H Parsons, PhD

Curator for the Ralph D. Winter Research Center and

WCIU Board Emeritus