A “Third Culture Person”, Bill was born 1940 in Costa Rica of missionary parents and lived in Latin America for 30 years, 17 of them with his wife, Yvonne, in Guatemala. Yvonne was born in Dallas, Texas, 1945. Together they served in Guatemala under Camino Global (then called CAM Int., now merged into AVANT), primarily assigned to leadership development at the Central American Theological Seminary. They also engaged in discipleship, mentoring, student work and church planting. Bill and Yvonne married in 1967, and they have three GenEx children born in Guatemala, and eight grandchildren. He and Yvonne partnered with a team to plant a vibrant Guatemalan church, which sent them to the USA and the global arena.

Bill has studied at the following educational institutions: Moody Bible Institute—diploma; North Texas University—B.A; Dallas Theological Seminary—Th.M.; University of Texas, Austin--Ph.D. in Latin American Studies and the Foundations of Education. In 2023, Seminario Teológico Centroamericano (where he served many years) awarded him the doctorate Honoris Causa en Educación Teológica.

Bill served on the faculty of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) in the departments of World Mission as well as the doctoral education program during the academic years 1982-1983 and 1985-1986. He has been visiting or adjunct professor in schools such as Seminario Teológico Centroamericano (Ph.D. in Theological Education program, Guatemala), Redeemer Seminary (Austin campus), Trinity School of Ministry (Anglican), Columbia International University, the European School of Culture and Theology (Korntal, Germany), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), Dallas Theological Seminary, Wheaton Graduate School and All Nations Christian College in England. For years he was Austin area professor of record for the course, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, and loved teaching the final lesson.

For 55 years Bill has spoken at church mission conferences, strategic Christian university lectureships. He has consulted on global mission change with mission leaders, local churches, mission agencies and missionary training schools around the world.

In September 2018, the North American mission network, Missio Nexus, awarded Bill the “Lifetime of Service Award” in light of his 55 years of service to the global movement of God and His Church.

As founder and president of TaylorGlobalConsult, at present he focuses his life on intentional mentoring, writing, and limited investment in speaking, consulting and teaching.

From 1986 to 2006, he served as executive director of the World Evangelical Alliance Missions Commission, developing a community of global reflective practitioners as well as leading of team of international staff. Part of his assignment was to coordinate seven international working task forces addressing worldwide missional issues. In June of 2006, in South Africa, he transferred that position to his Swedish-Brazilian colleague, Dr. Bertil Ekström, and assumed new roles with the MC.

For ten more years he served the WEA Mission Commission as Senior Mentor, coordinator of publications, co-leader of global missiology teams, writer, consultant and trainer. Based from his home in Austin, Texas, he also helps network strategic Western and non-Western mission resources, thus serving the global missions force, with particular commitment to global missiological issues.

At the end of 2016 he concluded his 30 years with the WEA Mission Commission, strongly assured of new callings at this season of his elder life.

In his work with the WEA Missions Commission, he directed six international strategic-issues events, and edited four publications emerging from those consultations.

• Consultation on Missionary Training, 1989, Manila.

• Consultation on Strategic Partnerships—Alliances, Manila, 1992.

• Consultation on Missionary Attrition, England, 1996.

• Global Missiology Summit, Iguassu, Brazil, 1999.

• Consultation on the Impact of Globalisation on World Missions. Langley, Canada, 2003.

• Global Mission Issues Summit, Western Cape, South Africa, 2006

He was the founder and editor until 2012 of the global missional roundtable magazine, Connections: the Journal of the WEA Missions Commission. While the journal was discontinued in print form, it is accessible on line here. All of the MC Commission publications are accessible here.

More recently, Bill completed the full revision and expansion of a local church world missions course in Spanish, Misiones Mundiales, for the SETECA-Guatemala lay training program.

He finished his longer memoirs (for family in particular), My Father’s Shoes: The Journey of a Global Pilgrim. He completed the manuscript called, Leading from Below: Lessons from the Crucible of Global Mission, recasting and rewriting the second half of My Father’s Shoes. That manuscript has been accepted for publication, and he is recasting and rewriting the personal stories that reveal his memoirs.

He then will turn his attention to write a book with the tentative title, Global Persecution: Normal Christian Discipleship. It is designed for Christians around the world who face the measurable increase of opposition, disdain, misinformation, harassment and persecution of Jesus followers around the world—both Global North (the West) and Global South.

Other publications as author and editor include:

• La Familia Autenticamente Cristiana, Second edition, co-authored with Sergio Mijangos, Editorial Portavoz, 2002.

• La Pirámide del Amor, Second edition, co-authored by Dina Saldívar de Escobar, Ediciones Las Américas,1993.

• Misiones Mundiales, SETECA-CLASE, 1984 edition, co-authored with Eugenio Campos. Basic 10-lesson course in world mission for the Spanish-speaking church.

• Internationalizing Missionary Training, Ed. (Paternoster/Baker, 1991).

• Kingdom Partnerships for Synergy in Missions, Ed. (William Carey Library, 1994

• Crisis and Hope in Latin America, An Evangelical Perspective, co-author with Emilio Antonio Núñez (revised edition), WCL, 1996.

• Too Valuable to Lose: Exploring the Causes and Cures of Missionary Attrition, Ed. (Spanish and Portuguese editions) WCL, 1997.

• Send Me! Your Journey to the Nations, (Ed., with Steve Hoke) William Carey Library, 1999.

• Global Missiology for the 21st Century: The Iguassu Dialogue, Ed. (Portuguese edition) Baker, 2000.

• Global Mission Handbook: A Guide to Cross-cultural Mission, (with Steve Hoke), Inter-Varsity Press, 2009.

• Sorrow and Blood: Christian Mission in Contexts of Suffering, Persecution and Martyrdom, lead editor, with Tonica van der Meer and Reg Reimer, William Carey Library, 2012.

• Misiones Mundiales, A Spanish-language grass-roots 20 lesson study course fro the local church. SETECA, 2013

• Spirituality in Mission: Embracing the Lifelong Journey, John Amalraj, Geoffrey Hahn, William Taylor, Editors. William Carey Library, 2018.

In 2018, God brought into existence a unique new ministry based in Guatemala, called the CRUX Institute. CRUX is a singular apologetics platform that addresses and defends the Biblical view of marriage and gender, Christian ethics and Christian thinking. This new venture of creative faith was launched on May 10, 2019 in Guatemala City.

Its director is Lic. Gonzalo Chamorro M, a brilliant younger theologian and visionary, formerly on the faculty of SETECA. The Guatemala executive board is formed of personal and long-term friends of the Taylors, and he is honored to serve with them. The board of TGC has released Bill to invest 50% time in the CRUX Institute as together they gaze into the future. CRUX Institute will develop a strong presence in radio and social media, seminars and consultations, as well as a publications division.

BILL & YVONNE

Bill’s life partner, Yvonne Christine DeAcutis Taylor, is a native-born Texan from Dallas, and they have ministered together in cross-cultural mission since marriage in 1967. She studied at Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, and graduated with a university degree in liberal arts/music from the University of North Texas.

She is Bill’s full colleague, serving him as his muse, critical thinker and sounding board, editing his writings, and ministering with him locally and internationally.

A long-time student of Christian spirituality in the various historic streams of Christianity, God’s calling on Yvonne has for many years been to focus on areas of spiritual formation and personalized mentoring.  God called her in the 1970’s into a ministry of dedicated intercession as a “watchman on the wall”.  Since then, her deep study of Biblical Theology, Church History, Celtic Christianity, Spiritual Theology, Hebraic Roots of the Christian Faith, and timeless Christian classics on the spiritual life have all informed her intercession and her watchman calling.  

She loves the richness that has come into her life through cross-cultural living, global ministry, and the beautiful servants of God that she and Bill have been privileged to meet and serve with. Her training as a classical musician and her love for the fine arts have formed an important part of her life and work.  She cherishes her role as a mother and grandmother and being able to serve/love/pray for her family.  A special joy and blessing over the years has been the opportunity, along with Bill, to invest in the younger generations through friendship, mentoring, teaching, and discipleship into a lifelong devotion to Christ and watching them be wonderfully used by God in His Kingdom work in the world. 

Finding themselves in a later stage of life, Bill and Yvonne desire to serve and strengthen Christ’s global Church, locally and globally, to qualitatively invest in younger missional leadership, and to finish their own race with faithfulness and integrity.