The Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization was held in Seoul-Incheon, South Korea Sept. 22-28, 2024. The gathering of 5,200 delegates in person in the conference hall – and another 5,000 virtual delegates drawn from 212 countries – was the fourth such gathering, the first being in 1974. The Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization was started by Billy Graham and John Stott and has evolved over the last 50 years to become a picture of the World Christian community. I attended Lausanne 4 virtually – the shorthand being L4VX (the X being for Collaboration).
The theme of L4 was: “Let the church declare and display Jesus together.” As Michael Oh, Director of the Lausanne Movement, demonstrated in his opening address, every word in the statement matters.
This call is to the whole church as a collective: across geography, across culture, across language, across the division of clergy and laity as the body of Christ to declare and display Jesus. The church has a story to tell, a narrative to declare, about Jesus. But too often our declaration has been uncertain, hesitant, non-existent. The declaration the church is invited to is not aggressive or arrogant, but it is courageous, winsome and whole-hearted. To display Jesus means to live the Jesus way of humility, integrity and simplicity, that the world would know that the people of church, especially its leaders, have been with Jesus. The church is to do this together, as the body of Christ together, clergy and lay people together. No one within the church is to say to other persons in the church, “I don’t need you” (1 Cor. 12). Too often, the relationship between pastors, preachers and church workers on the one hand and those who are not pastors, preachers and church workers on the other hand has been one of mutually saying to each other, “I don’t need you.” Lausanne 4 began with repentance of the ways the church has failed to live into the vision: “Let the church declare and display Jesus together.”
Let the church declare and display Jesus together.
The leaders of L4 used the theme to draw attention to three specific areas: collaboration as a value and practiced in the collaborative groups and to be lived out in the wider life of the church; recognizing and giving equal place to the witness by followers of Jesus who work in the marketplace (agora); and nurturing and making space for young leaders, defined as those under 40. (This last focus would please the late Dr. Ian Rennie, who often noted that many of the significant leaders in the history of the church began their leadership before they were 30 years old.)
Before turning to three central themes, it is important to note the persecuted church was also a focus, with an entire day set aside to thinking about and praying for the persecuted church. For the first time ever, delegates from mainland China were present in Seoul at a Lausanne Congress gathering. A powerful presentation by Sara Akharan, who spent 37 days in an Iranian prison, made clear how at risk the followers of Jesus are in many parts of the world.
Collaboration
A central part of Lausanne 4, both in-person and virtually, were the collaboration groups drawn together around one of the 25 gaps needing to be addressed in the church’s task of fulfilling the Great Commission, gaps identified by studies commissioned by the Lausanne Movement over the last five years. I selected Polycentric Witness as the gap that most drew me. Polycentric Witness is a recognition that the declaration of the good news of Jesus is no longer unidirectional, from Christian Europe and North America to unbelieving Africa and Asia. In fact, the witness to Jesus is now by everyone to everywhere. For example, Sarah Breuel, who spoke at Lausanne 4, is a Brazilian pastor who with her husband is planting a church in Rome, Italy. She indicated there are 40,000 Brazilian missionaries serving outside of Brazil.
The collaboration groups met for 90 minutes every day for four days. The Collaboration group I was part of had a core of seven regulars with 3-5 who were group hopping. My group included three theological faculty from Brazil, the Philippines and the US; a Bible translator from India; a Nigerian pastor serving in Ghana where he edits a Christian magazine for Africa; and a Mandarin speaking young Chinese woman desperate to return to China to do Bible translation work. One of the group hoppers was a Ghanaian working in Togo as a business consultant who has a ministry among young men; another was a woman who raises funds to deliver resources to village churches in Africa so that they can operate their own children’s outreach programming. I was the boring one in this collection.
The discussion was rich, moving, and at times heart-breaking. There is not enough space to report in detail what was said; I will give two things that I was left with.
The church has a story to tell, a narrative to declare, about Jesus. But too often our declaration has been uncertain, hesitant, non-existent.
First, if the white, Anglo-Saxon church in Canada (read that includes The Presbyterian Church in Canada) does not open its doors to the Christian community from the rest of the world that is arriving here, the rest of World Christianity is going to leave us behind. Opening the doors does not mean saying, “Come join us and become like us.” Opening the doors means saying, “Please come teach us how to declare and display Jesus because we have lost our first love.” (Rev. 2:4)
Second, while Fergus Ontario does not offer many opportunities to collaborate with congregations that worship in languages other than English, I was challenged to recognize that St. Andrew’s, Fergus cannot be an island cut-off from the rest of the churches in town. I felt convicted to work to build connections not just with the congregations that are easy to work with, but also with the ones that will take time and patience to build a relationship. This long-term and at times frustratingly slow work is essential to the witness of the good news in Jesus Christ who calls the church across denominational to declare and display him together.
Christians in the Agora
Agora, the ancient Greek word for the marketplace, has been adopted by the Lausanne Movement to refer to Christians declaring and displaying Jesus in their workplace, in their secular employment. Each day a Bible expositor from a different region of the world took the delegates through an aspect of the book of Acts. Julia Garschagen, who is based in Germany and with ministry experience in Peru, took us on a tour through Acts reflecting on the occupational backgrounds of those who became declarers and displayers of Jesus. The Minister of Finance from an African country (Acts 8:26-39), a social worker and weaver (Acts 9:36-42), a military officer in the Roman army (Acts 10:1-48), a leading civil servant on the island of Cyprus (Acts 13:7), a merchant dealing in high fashion (Acts 16:11-15), a jailer (Acts 16:25-34), and a trio of literal tentmakers (Acts 18:1-4) – all these people had jobs besides, outside of being preachers, pastors, and church workers.
If the world is going to hear the good news of Jesus in their context, a significant part of that declaration and display of Jesus will be by people who in their work-a-day lives tell the story.
If the world is going to hear the good news of Jesus in their context, a significant part of that declaration and display of Jesus will be by people who in their work-a-day lives tell the story of Jesus. In order for that to take place not only do Christians in the marketplace need to be encouraged to gossip about their story of Jesus. Clergy, preachers and pastors need to support, encourage and validate those in the marketplace who tell their Jesus story, recognizing these voices as being among those who have been called by the Holy Spirit to declare and display Jesus.
Younger Leaders
Significant attention was given to the ways the Global Church is called to nurture, support, and make room for younger leaders. This was not a call to put more energy into youth group ministry; this is a call to nurture leaders ages 20-40. The goal is not nurturing them so they will be leaders at some future date, rather the goal is creating space for these persons to be leaders now.
A panel of younger leaders at Lausanne, drawn from the majority world (Asia, Africa, Latin America), suggested four key patterns, attitudes, ways of being that provide space, make space for younger leaders. I have framed them as questions.
Friendship: Do older leaders (those 50 years of age and above) have friends – not employees, not fellow committee members, but friends – who are under the age of 40?
Vulnerability: Are older leaders (those over 50) demonstrating a vulnerability and honesty about their challenges, concerns, even anxieties? The façade of perfection, the façade of “I have this and I can get us through” is a façade that younger leaders can see through. What younger leaders want to see is leaders who model vulnerability and trust in the Triune God of grace in the midst of uncertainty and even crisis.
Will white, Anglo-Saxon leaders make space for leaders from the rest of the world church to find places from which to lead?
The next two are related and built on a new pattern among younger leaders: leadership is a group reality. It is not leader and followers; it is collective leadership. This shift challenges the way older leaders have functioned.
Mutuality: Do older people in the church (those over 50) enter into real conversation with those under 40, where the views of the younger actually shape the thinking of the older? When younger people lead, is the support voiced as: “They are young, but they still lead so well” or is it “They are good at leading” without reference to age? The reference to age is sometimes said in a way that diminishes the younger leader.
Collaboration: In working together do people get to bring their gifts in whatever area that may be, or are they pigeon-holed because of assumptions on the basis of age? Do the older leaders in the group act as the gatekeepers of ideas, with the younger leaders present to carry out the plans the gatekeepers approve?
These questions challenge the ways the church thinks about younger leaders and how they are allowed to flourish. In the flourishing of younger leaders, the church demonstrates that together it desires to declare and display Jesus.
Conclusion
I end with three questions and a final story from Lausanne 4.
Will leaders over the age of 55 make space for leaders under the age of 35 to step into?
Will white, Anglo-Saxon leaders make space for leaders from the rest of the world church to find places from which to lead?
Will clergy be willing to recognize the ministry leadership that Christians in the workplace are living out?
The closing communion service at Lausanne 4 was led by a Korean pastor and a Japanese pastor co-celebrating together. This was stunning. Korea was captured and held as a colony of Japan for a significant portion of the 20th century. That Christian leaders from these two countries could celebrate communion together reminds the church of the powerful reconciliation present in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A reconciliation made manifest at the table of communion/eucharist/Last Supper. This act was a living out of the call, “Let the church declare and display Jesus together.”
