1966 World Congress on Evangelism

The 1966 World Congress on Evangelism, held in West Berlin, Germany, was an important event in the history of 20th century Christianity.  At this meeting Protestant Evangelical Christians (theologians, evangelists, church leaders) from around the world met, most for the first time.  They began to build relationships and exchange views that led to much closer cooperation and future conferences, such as the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization (Lausanne I).

Although the Congress was sponsored by two American organizations - the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christianity Today magazine - and was planned and financial largely by Americans, the papers at the conference gave many indications of the explosive growth of the church in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the shifting center of gravity of the church from the Western to nonwestern cultures.

The Billy Graham Center Archives has available at its website dozens of audio recordings, texts of papers, and photographs from the meeting. All of these documents are available at:

One interesting aspect of the Congress was the attendance of the Waorani tribesmen Yaeti Kimo and Gikita Komi of Ecuador, along with missionary Rachael Saint.  The Waoranis had been involved in so-called Auca Incident ten years earlier, when five American missionaries trying to plant a church among the Waorani had been murdered.  Both Kimo and Komi had become Christians since then and were at the conference to share their faith.  The website includes recordings their presentation to the Congress and of their press conference.

Other speakers for whom there are recordings and/or texts at the web site include:

Billy Graham, John Stott, Francis Schaeffer, Corrie tenBoom and many others.