In June of this year, 75 senior leaders from The Lausanne Movement met together to review developments over the two years since Cape Town 2010 and to clarify and solidify our vision for the next decade.
We rejoiced at the:
- Reception accorded The Cape Town Commitment across the world. This wonderful document, which summarises evangelical convictions and sets out a blueprint for The Lausanne Movement and the wider church in the next decade, has already been translated into over 20 languages. It has spawned several study guides, graduate level curricula for use in mission and theological colleges and other resources for the global church.
- Excitement generated by Mission Africa. This series of mission outreaches took place in over a dozen countries in Africa prior to Cape Town 2010. African leaders have enthusiastically endorsed the idea of hosting similar missions across Africa in the next five years. During July such a mission took place in Rwanda and was attended by leaders from at least 15 Francophone countries. Plans are being developed for further evangelistic missions in other African nations in the coming years, and similar events are being discussed in the Caribbean and in Russia.
- Development of many collaborative partnerships across the world as a result of interactions which took place at the Cape Town Congress.
At our meeting in June we sensed that it was important to articulate our vision for the next decade and in doing so we reaffirmed the vision of Lausanne as focused firmly and clearly on world evangelization.
Lausanne is a global movement that mobilizes evangelical leaders to collaborate for world evangelization. Together we seek to bear witness to Jesus Christ and all his teaching, in every part of the world—not only geographically, but in every sphere of society and in the realm of ideas.
We affirmed that The Cape Town Commitment is our blueprint for the next 10 years, with the implications of this Commitment being worked out differently in each region according to perceived needs. As we move forward seeking to challenge “the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world”, we sought to answer the question, “What is the distinctive and unique contribution of The Lausanne Movement to world evangelization?”
With this in mind, we agreed that we would focus on the following six areas:
1. Development and Investment in Younger Leaders, including a global younger leaders gathering in 2015.
2. Occasional Regional Consultations, on issues related to evangelization in individual regions.
3. Lausanne Global Leadership Forum, the first of which will take place in India (June 2013) when we bring together 350 key evangelical leaders. The Forum will:
- Report progress since Cape Town 2010 on the issues related to the Calls to Action in the Cape Town Commitment
- Give leaders an opportunity to enlarge the awareness and understanding of their issues amidst a group of influential global evangelical leaders, possibly enlisting additional advocates
- Stimulate further insights and creative ideas from interacting with people from other specialties and perspectives
- Explore additional possibilities for collaboration within the Movement
- Identify areas where more focused and/or coordinated action is needed in each issue area related to the Calls to Action
- Contribute data and insights important to an overall assessment of the state of The Lausanne Movement
4. Provision of Human Resources for the Global Church, including 12 International Deputy Directors and 36 Senior Associates, who specialise in areas such as Diaspora, Freedom and Justice, Religious Liberty, Children’s Ministry, Partnership, Proclamation Evangelism, and Women’s Ministry. We see these leaders as people whom God has raised to be a source of encouragement and help as they serve the global church.
5. Global Consultations on Key Issues, to provide reflection on cutting edge missiological issues facing the Church. We will focus on issues arising particularly out of the plenary sessions in Cape Town and those emphasized in The Cape Town Commitment. 2012 and 2013 Consultations include:
- Creation Care and the Gospel (October 2012, Jamaica)
- Nominalism (2013, Italy)
- Gospel, Identity and Ethnicity (2013, Africa)
- Gospel, Prosperity Theology and Poverty (2013, Latin America)
- Further Global Consultations will be hosted in the future on Israel and the Palestinian question; Media and the Gospel; the Gospel and the City; the Gospel and the Workplace; and the Gospel, Truth and the World of Academia, Business and Politics.
6. Resources Online, through Social Media and in Print. We recognize that particularly in the western world increasing numbers of people access information through the Internet and we therefore commit ourselves to a high quality website (lausanne.org ), Lausanne Global Conversation (lausanne.org/conversation) and Social Media presence. Additionally, The Lausanne Global Analysis (November 2012 launch) will “deliver strategic and credible information and insight from an international network of evangelical analysts so that Christian leaders will be equipped for the task of world evangelization.” Also, we will seek to develop the Lausanne Library under the general heading of missiological issues in the 21st Century through which we will publish high quality books arising out of our Global Consultations.
We trust that the Movement over the next decade will become increasingly internationalized, will be characterized by partnership with other evangelical bodies, will engage in the promotion of young leaders, will provide resources and materials of enduring worth to the global church, and will become an increasingly respected evangelical voice on missiological issues pertaining to the challenge of world evangelization.
Our earnest prayer is that the Lord of heaven and earth will see fit to use our humble efforts to contribute towards the extension of His Kingdom and the growth of His Church to the ends of the earth.
To that end we would appreciate your prayerful support and the prayerful support of all God’s people as we seek to make a contribution towards the fulfilment of this vision.