Sixth Asia Lausanne Congress on Evangelism (ALCOE VI)

· Philippines

150 church leaders representing 19 countries of Asia met from 22-26 May 2006 for the Sixth Asia Lausanne Congress on Evangelism (ALCOE VI) sponsored by the Asia Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization (ALCOWE) at the Caliraya Recreational Center, Laguna, Philippines and together sought “A New Heart for the Evangelization of Asia.”Welcoming us to the Philippines, Bishop Efraim Tendero directed our attention to Acts 5: 27-32. He spelled out three reasons why we should get involved in evangelism:

  1. to obey the executive order of the Father
  2. to present the exclusive offer of the Son and
  3. to experience the explosive power of the Holy Spirit.

Dr Jong Yun Lee, Chairman of ALCOWE, in his keynote address, spoke of the total identity crisis faced in Asia and called us to open our spiritual eyes and to hear what God is saying. He said the church must recover joy, maintain sanctification, proclaim the truth and fulfill the missionary task entrusted to us by the Lord Jesus Christ.

We were reminded of the Lausanne Movement and how Christians of widely different backgrounds and persuasions have been able to accept the Lausanne Covenant as the basis of cooperation. Taking the missionary ministry of the triune God as the starting point and Jesus as the model of ministry, the Covenant affirms a holistic Gospel where evangelism and social responsibility cannot be dichotomized while strongly maintaining the primacy of evangelism. The Lausanne Movement was looking ahead to greater things that God had in store for the Church as it purposed to declare the whole Gospel to the whole world in word and deed and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We were reminded of Abraham and his obedience to God’s call. We were reminded of the Old Testament prophets who called God’s people to fulfill His universal purpose for the redemption of the nations through building communities of love, peace and justice in obedience to the Great Commandment. We were reminded of Jesus and his commission to the church to go into all the world in his authority and with his presence to proclaim the whole Gospel. We were reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul that the Lord who had started the good work would faithfully continue to empower us till the work was fully completed.

We worshipped God together, prayed for one another, committed ourselves to praying for the suffering church in North Korea, we heard reports of signs of God’s work amongst people of some unreached people’s groups and strengthened to continue in the task of proclaiming the Gospel.

Standing with Christians all over the world joined together by our Lord Jesus Christ in the spirit of the Lausanne Movement characterized by humility, prayer, study and partnership:

We commit ourselves afresh to the task of evangelization under God’s sovereignty within our diverse contexts and to see our involvement in the task by first being the church that God wants us to be and then doing what God commands us to do and reaching out to more of the unreached people groups.

We commit ourselves to developing effective strategies for our local contexts to proclaim the Gospel in our nations by implementing transformational development models of ministry that empower people, caring for the environment, developing younger generation of leaders, and disseminating Lausanne materials.

We pray that God will awaken our passion for God and the people as we pray and work together for the evangelization of Asia, anticipating the coming Kingdom when God will reconcile all things under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

By Dr. David S. Lim, Chair, Preparation Committee and National Coordinator, Lausanne Philippines, originally appeared in the Lausanne Connecting Point newsletter in July 2006.