Lausanne Movement

• Lausanne Website and Occasional Papers
• Internet Evangelism Day
• International Orality Network Establish
• Faith and Conflict
• Praise and Prayer

We're pleased to announce that the Lausanne website has been redesigned with a fresh new look and navigation menu!  It's our prayer that the new website will provide you with better access to Lausanne-related news, activities and documents.  While most of the content has been transferred from the old website to the new website, you may find documents that are not yet accessible.  Thank you for your patience as we complete this transition.

Lausanne Occasional Papers (LOPs) from the 2004 Forum for World Evangelization are now being posted on the Lausanne website.  Presently the papers are offered in Adobe PDF format.  In the coming weeks, the Papers will be available as text documents.  In addition, a CD-ROM that will contain all the LOPs will be available for purchase. 

If you have any questions about the website or LOPs, please email us.

The first worldwide Internet Evangelism Day, initiated by members of the Internet Evangelism Coalition, was observed on 24 April.  Many churches and other groups around the world created a web evangelism awareness program within their services or other activities.  Feedback from participants has been encouraging:

"I used the main presentation to talk about the Internet and some evangelism strategies, and asked people to come up with ideas for potential outreach sites on the Web.  It was really encouraging to see quite a lot of inventive and creative ideas!  We are working on re-developing our website at the moment, so hopefully will have a dual church/outreach focus to what we do." (church in Andover, UK)

"It was a real eye opener for many.  We used the drama skit One Billion Squares.  While being somewhat humorous, it made a good point.  During the fellowship time after the service, we had a computer set up showing various outreach websites.  We also had a long list of websites in our bulletin." (church in Muncie, Indiana USA)

"People were challenged and inspired!  We are going to review our church website, add evangelistic signature blocks to emails, and see how to use bulletin boards and chat rooms." (church in Dorking, UK)

 "We have been training a team of people as Internet evangelists over the last few months using the Online Training for Online Evangelists course develop by the Internet Evangelism Coalition.  So, on the 24th, we took time in the service to graduate and commission our newly trained evangelists and speak about Internet evangelism." (church in Ottawa, Canada)

A church in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, USA used the children to present a demonstration of sharing God's love online.  A handout for all the children was distributed, listing outreach sites for children that they could share with their friends.

Sixty-six percent of the world’s population either cannot read or prefer communicating by oral means, according to the newly formed International Orality Network (ION).ION leaders say that means at least 1.5 billion unreached peoples of the world face a Christless eternity unless literate Christians make significant changes in evangelism, discipleship, leadership training and church planting.  Dr. Avery Willis, Executive Director of ION, says “These people need a customized strategy delivered in a culturally appropriate manner in order for them to hear, understand and respond to the gospel and then reproduce disciples.”  Dr. Willis is the former Vice President of Overseas Operations International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

To address the challenges and opportunities of sharing the Gospel with an ever-increasing population that learns by oral means, ION will host the 2005 Consultation on Orality, September 13-15, 2005 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Anaheim, California, USA.  This three-day conference is entitled “A Story for the Nations: Making Disciples of Oral Learners.”  The gathering will bring together evangelists, ministry leaders, pastors and missionaries to rediscover principles for reaching the lost by presenting the Bible as Jesus, Peter and Paul did – through oral means.  Workshops include: The Background of Storytelling; Literacy Reality; The Theological Place for Storytelling; Hands on Storytelling; Music and Drama to Present Bible and more.  For registration and hotel information, please go to www.oralbible.com. 

The International Orality Network was formed by the merging of the Lausanne (Committee for World Evangelization) Task Force on Making Disciples of Oral Learners and the Oral Bible Network.  ION’s vision is “to make God’s Word available to all oral learners in culturally appropriate ways that enable church planting movements everywhere.”  ION endeavors to educate the church about the necessity of using means like chronological storytelling and dramatic narratives to convey the good news of Jesus.  When reaching out to oral societies, ION believes it is imperative to use communication forms that are familiar within the particular culture, such as stories, proverbs, drama, songs and poetry.

The ION consists of 15 task forces each directed by a world missions leader, including Steve Douglass, President of Campus Crusade for Christ International and Samuel Chiang, C.O.O. of Trans World Radio.  Joining together in this strategic partnership are: Campus Crusade for Christ International; Epic Partners; Hosanna/Faith Comes By Hearing; The God’s Story Project; International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention; The JESUS Film Project; Progressive Vision; The Seed Company; Scriptures in Use; Trans World Radio; Wycliffe International; and Youth with a Mission.

With more than two billion adherents worldwide, Christianity is both the world's largest and, in some regions, its fastest growing religion, and most of its growth is in the developing world.  In parts of Africa and Asia, the growth of Pentecostal, evangelical and/or unique and indigenous forms of Christianity brings Christians into contact and often conflict with Muslim and other communities.  Michael Nazir-Ali, the Pakistani-born Anglican Bishop of Rochester, who has been mentioned as a possible Archbishop of Canterbury, joined Mark Noll, one of st1:country-region>America's most distinguished historians of religion, to discuss the implications of these important changes. 

Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Report

“His last command our first concern,” was the theme at a Missions Conference in my church some years ago.  That theme continues to ring in my ears.  May God’s love for those who do not know Him stir our heart to prayer and create in us a deep hunger to find loving, creative and effective ways to tell others about Jesus and all He has done for them! 

My brothers and sisters, over 1.5 billion people in the world today have never heard that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

The task of world evangelisation is a God given assignment for the whole church.  Through LCWE, we are actively seeking to engage the “whole church in taking the whole Gospel to the whole world.”

“He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Luke 10:2).

Lausanne Committee for World Evangelisation
Please pray for:

• Details concerning the Working Group Chairs meeting May 25 in Boston.  Please pray for the Holy Spirit to lead our Chairs as they travel, collaborate, discuss, and strategize the next steps for Lausanne.
• Lausanne leadership as travel arrangements, reports from Senior Associates and Issue Groups, and presentations are being prepared for our June gathering in Hong Kong.  Please pray for the Spirit to prepare the hearts and minds of our leaders, to inspire and lead the movement.  Please pray for open and clear communication channels, building of community within the leadership, and a renewed, reinvigorated commitment.
• The Spirit to move in the hearts of International Deputy Directors and national leaders distributing LCWE communications in the coming months and in those who will receive them.  With the publication of the LOPs as well as the post-Forum magazine and DVD, please pray for the Spirit to move powerfully through these Lausanne publications in gathering momentum and mobilization for the task of world evangelization around the world.

International Deputy Directors
Please pray for each one for wisdom and guidance for a right balance in use of time; taking up the right opportunities to further the Lausanne movement; ability to clearly promote the purpose of Lausanne
Please pray for:

• The right person to be found for each IDD to act as their prayer coordinator to gather the prayer points and liaise with the Intercession Working Group.
• Wisdom as leaders work through the Issue Group papers and determine which issues will be the subject of regional seminars/conferences.

A Lausanne Younger Leaders Gathering will convene September 25-30, 2006. Planning is underway for this historic event.
Please pray for:

• The planning committee especially for Rick Sessoms and Paul Stanley that they may great wisdom and discernment from the Lord.
• Those responsible to guide the participant selection process.  They need God's wisdom to identify and select 500 younger (25-35 years old) Christ-centered leaders from around the world. 
• The Program Group who will coordinate the event. 
• Funding so that deserving younger leaders will be able to attend.  
• The regional Young Leaders who attend the meeting - that they are truly representative of their region; that they have a clear understanding of what is happening in their region and the issues facing the young people of the region.

Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism
Please pray for:

• The quiet meeting of Jewish Mission CEOs, 9-13 May.  These leaders will be convening for the purpose of joint prayer, to consult on international mission challenges and to seek opportunities for networking and collaborative mission effort.
• The effective use of the Lausanne Occasional Paper that came from the 2004 Forum Issue Group #31.  It has been warmly received by the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism membership network.
• The International Coordinating Committee of the LCJE, and especially their International Coordinator, Dr. Kai Kjær-Hansen, as the planning for the next meeting of the International LCJE membership takes place.

North American Consultation on the Role of the Church in the HIV/AIDS Pandemic
Please pray for:

• This November 10, 2005 Consultation to be held at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.  This consultation will be held in cooperation with the Global Missions Health Conference which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Lausanne and the GMHC will be hosting the event together.  Details will be posted on the Lausanne eNews as soon as all the speakers are confirmed. 

Fourth International Lausanne Researchers Conference 
Praise God: 

• 45 people from 15 countries attended, in spite of immigration difficulties for some participants.
• It was good to share methodology, to learn of how research is helping mission, understanding where the church is going, enabling better communication leading to conversions, providing data for strategic decisions, etc.
• The papers were a fascinating set which will be put on a new web site that is being started.
• A Lausanne Researchers Group is in the process of being created.  There was also consensus that another Conference should be held, possibly in three years time.  

Please pray:

• For wisdom and guidance as we discuss a follow up conference on our issue.  We have booked to the Tao Fong Shan Christian Centre in Hong Kong centre (34 beds) for September 30th 2006 through October 7th 2006, and would like to invite you all to a follow up mini-conference.

Lausanne Committee – Wales
Christians in Wales have recently been celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 1904 spiritual awakening.  It has been good to praise God for what is past, and to remind ourselves of the principles of times of revival in some special work of God.
Praise God for:

• The prayer initiatives and for the coalition of leaders who are working towards strategies for evangelism in order that every man, woman and child in Wales shall have the opportunity to receive Christ.

Please pray:

• That they will be effective as a national facilitator in the progress towards the survey of church life and subsequently establishing strategies for mission throughout our denominations.
• That over the next 12 months they might successfully impact local church leaders’ thinking and working priorities in relation to some of the 2004 Forum issues.

Unreached People Groups (UPGs)           
Praise God for the good response to a seminar for intercession for the UPGs recently held in Southern Germany.  
Please pray:

• That material of Lausanne on UPGs can be translated into German.
• For the Strategic Planning Session for the UPGs of Indonesia for 2005-2010 of the National Research Network in Indonesia (NRN) on May 24–26, 2005.

Ethnê06
Ethnê06 preparation and planning is moving forward with a convening group meeting coming shortly in June.
Please pray for:

• The process of finalizing the convening group, invitation list, logistical arrangements for security and the venue, and program decisions . . . that in all things leaders flow in unity and with the mind of Christ.
• The Ethnê06 5-minute overview video is in production now with a goal of having six languages ready in time for the Global Day of Prayer and Transform World Indonesia.  Please pray for God’s enabling and for His heart to be imparted through the video and for it to be spread far and wide and be used by Him to thrust forth many new labourers.

Global Day of Prayer - May 15
Praise God:

• Over 160 countries are involved.
• More than 100 cities and communities in the USA are taking part in the GDOP.   
• Waymakers report that 375.000 copies of the prayer guide have been distributed.
• John Robb reports from Egypt: “One of my colleagues in the International Prayer Council who took part in the recent Egyptian prayer conference reports that over 10,000 people gathered in Alexandria… It started in 1997 with only 47 people the first year, but by 2003 there were 1,500, in 2004 some 5,000, and this year
  over 10,000.  They also had an Internet website where they registered about 100,000 hits over the four days of the conference. He wrote: “It is just amazing to see the prayer explosion in Egypt all over the nation.  They will participate full scale in the Global Day of Prayer, youth prayer meetings for ten days and meetings all over the nation on 15 May.  Evangelicals, Copts and Catholic people have begun to work together.”

Please pray for:

• Station clearance domestically, mobilization domestically and internationally (many are taking great risks), connections technologically on May 15, the interest of news organizations, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit for the glory of Christ and for finances.

“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).