August 01, 1989 by

What Now?

Mission Frontiers made a random sampling of several Lausanne II participants. What follows are a few of their candid viewpoints on “What difference will it make?”

Trickle–Down Value?

“The challenge of the 21st century has been brought to the fore. The church worldwide now recognizes that about a third of the world’s population has never even heard the name of Christ, while yet another third has never really had a valid opportunity for the Gospel to be clearly explained to them.” —John Richard, Evangelical Fellowship of Asia, New Delhi, India

“Some thought this would be a $10 million funeral for Lausanne. But God worked in a great way, not for vindication of Lausanne, but for acceleration of the movement Lausanne represents.

“For the first time, there was a real ‘closure’ emphasis globally—a world-scale conference saying: ‘Let’s finish the work of evangelizing the world by the year 2000. Let’s see a vital, growing, multiplying, congregational, church-planting movement, appealing from Scripture in hope, in every human community by AD 2000.’ Learning things and implementing plans are not what this was for. It was a global event, for a trickle-down effect. If we really are going to do something of global, magnificent significance in getting the world evangelized, this is just the kind of event we would expect to happen!” —Steven Hawthorne, Caleb Resources, U.S.

“Lausanne II was an historic meeting which will serve to redirect Lausanne I and bring it up-to-date. There was tremendous cooperation between Charismatics and non-Charismatics. A strong call was given in the plenary meetings for cooperation between all bodies.” —Steve Grant, DAWN Ministries, U.S.

“Since the plenary sessions were held mornings and evenings, with workshops and national meetings in late afternoons, thousands of face-to-face rendezvous took place daily, by two’s and three’s. These ‘chats’ may prove to be the most productive elements of the Congress.” —Greg Livingstone, Frontiers Agency, U.S.

“As a ‘movement’ it is difficult for me to understand what Lausanne can do. Since 1974 it has been a closed group of a few hundred individuals working in Commissions and Task Forces; it has not become an effective mass movement, nor a structure for volunteerism. It did not seem from Manila that they were breaking out of that mold, though the U.S. group was trying to find a way to open up the process, at least through larger committees.”
—Dale Kietzman, William Carey International University, U.S.

Third World Power

“The Kenyan participants were inspired in several areas:

• Involvement of the entire Church in the task of evangelization, including identifying and sending missionaries to the unreached in Kenya.
• Formation of a prayer movement for national and world evangelization.
• An on-going Lausanne Committee to deliberate and refresh ourselves on the topics of evangelization.”

—Steven Githumbi, LCOWE Secretary for Kenya, Nairobi

“The number of missionaries from the Two-Thirds World shows that Christian missions is no longer just a Western enterprise, but one for the whole world. This makes reaching the goal by the year 2000 very possible.”

—Kietzman, U.S.

“As a result of Lausanne II, we in Venezuela plan to:

• Bring in DAWN (Discipling A Whole Nation) to work alongside us in setting goals to evangelize Venezuela.
• Bring together leadership to finish the task in this century.
• Organize soon another national evangelical congress to promote unity of the Body and relay the Lausanne II message.
• Continue to promote sending missionaries to other parts of the world.
• Come to grips with our own social and political responsibilities in our own nation.”

—Samuel Olson, pastor and seminary president, Caracas, Venezuela

“There was obvious recognition that the Two-Thirds World has the manpower and anointing to reach the world. They have the vision and are saying, ‘Let’s do it!’”
—Dirk VanKonynenberg, Partners International, U.S.

Social Change
“The theme was: ‘Proclaiming Christ Until He Comes.’ What do we do till He comes? Do we try to work for social transformation? No, we don’t, as much as we proclaim Him till He comes. We’re never really going to put the world together again—it’s a Humpty Dumpty egg, and all the king’s men can’t put it together again. But the King is coming, and He can put it together again!”
—Hawthorne, U.S.

“Concern for the poor was heard. It may have been run into the ground, along with ‘West-bashing,’ but the really important thing was that the note was sounded: ‘God is calling us to reach humans. This means social responsibility as well as spiritual.'

“It was a personal frustration that there was no dealing with Liberation Theology, which is a major issue of our time. Justice is a biblical theme. Liberation Theology drifts into Marxism and attempts to reach valid goals with questionable means. But we need to learn from it, learn compassion and justice.”
—VanKonynenberg, U.S.

Challenge of the Future
“I believe that Lausanne II has given an even greater fillip to the AD2000 movement than the Singapore Global Consultation in January, 1989. More and more Christians around the world will take to effective evangelism that results in the planting of churches. They will not rest content with the mere proclamation of the Gospel; they will want worshiping and witnessing units to be planted among the people groups of the world. More than ever before they have now come to see that God has no better raw material than themselves to see that some from every group stand before the Lamb of God one day!”
—Richard, India

“God is raising up a laity throughout the world that refuses to be confined to the institutional church. There are over 100 agencies seeking to help the laity in their witness and ministry in the marketplace—among truck-drivers, pilots, nurses, and businessmen. The institutional church can fight this movement, deny it, or help it.”
—Erwin Kolb, Lutheran (Mo. Synod), U.S.

“There are five crucial needs facing the U.S. as we attempt to mobilize the Christians of our own country:

• A call to holiness, to the integrity of the Church and its leaders, out of the spiritual doldrums and notorious moral lapses, leading to repentance, confession and revival.
• Promotion of generic mission, tying together all local missions.
• Strategy of enlistment for prayer.
• Catching on of the Adopt-a-People program.
• A new spirit of cooperation across all present boundaries and barriers.”

—Luis Bush, Partners International, U.S.

“We need:

• to mobilize for generic mission by means of regional centers as well as by other means.
• to inform the Church everywhere about what is happening in other parts of the world.
• to involve the North American Church.”

— Kietzman, U.S.

“My hope is that Lausanne II will pick up and carry forward the impetus of the Singapore Global Conference. The task of World Evangelization is ‘do-able’ in our time! It was not before—not in 1956, nor in 1980. Today we have the ‘horsepower’ to do it. For instance, the ratio of Christians to unreached peoples is rising, and is now high enough to mount a successful campaign.” —VanKonynenberg, U.S.

“There was established the first non-stop global prayer-chain in history, and the commitment was ‘until Jesus comes.’ When the day of July 20 dawned, it was a sort of an unending day—a conscious, unending prayer-chain around the world praying for revival and world evangelization.”
—Hawthorne, U.S.

“The Lausanne Movement will be under increasing pressure to discard the Lausanne Covenant and thus accommodate all sorts of ‘Christians.’ This will drive a wider cleavage between LCWE and the World Evangelical Fellowship than at present. For example, Lausanne has to respond to the request ‘that the next World Conference on Missions and Evangelism be on a similar model to the “Encuentro Conference,” and be held simultaneously with the World Council Conference on the same site.’”
—Richard, India

“There should have been more plenary speakers from the Two-Thirds World. They were a majority by far at the Congress, and those of us from the West could have learned a great deal from them had more of them been given the opportunity to speak. If they had, no one would have had to get up and admonish us ‘to be equal partners with the Church in the Two-Thirds World,’ which did happen. I hope the Western Church can learn from this mistake in judgment.”
—Ruth Teasdale, Global Prayer Digest, U.S.

And your perspective on Lausanne II? Write MF “Letters to the Editor,” 1605 Elizabeth St., Pasadena CA 91104. tiers.

Address your correspondence on Lausanne or other globally significant mission topics to: Letters to the Editor, Mission Frontiers 1605 Elizabeth St. Pasadena, CA 91104

Lausanne II: An Overview

by Keith Carey

More than 3,580 participants from over 170 countries met at the Lausanne II meeting in Manila last July. Their theme was ãProclaim Christ Until He Comes,ä with a sub-theme of ãCalling the Whole Church to Take the Whole Gospel to the Whole World.ä

In order to get the whole church involved, attendance at the conference was by invitation only. Lausanne planners invited leaders who had been left out in the past, specifically women (20%), younger leaders and those who reside in lands where oppression and suffering for Christians are the norm. Brad Smith of MARC explains, ãWe realized that these people had much to teach us from their own experiences about grace, faithfulness and the power of God, about worship, about cooperation, and about suffering for Christ.ä

To help participants proclaim the whole gospel, plenary presentations covered 31 topics, sometimes with two speakers on the same topic. The Congress offered 425 workshops on various topics of social concerns such as poverty, the role of the laity and the use of media.

The Unreached Peoples track of workshops emphasized taking the gospel to the whole world. Other tracks in this vein were Unreached Cities, Research, Information Sharing and AD2000 and Beyond.

One participant called the conference a ãjumpstartä for the world Christian movement that may have saved ten years in completing the Great Commission. Jim Reapsome, editor of Pulse magazine, commented, ãWhen all was said and done, Manila was eminently worthwhile because it called the worldwide church÷not just the Western church÷to face the task of world evangelization with urgency, sacrifice and unity.ä

A report on the Congress (ãpaperback reportä or ãfull storyä compendium) is available for order from theLausanne office. For details on cost, write or call: Lausanne II in Manila, P.O. Box 2270, Monrovia, CA 91017, 818/303ö8811 ext. 7508.

Europe Seeks Renewal

by K.K., U.S.

A strong feature of Lausanne II was regional networking through three national meetings scheduled for participants from each country. Europeans not only met in their national meetings, but also on one occasion for a continental meeting. This meeting reflected efforts of unity toward world evangelization that were gained at the European Leadership Conference on World Evangelism (ELCOWE), a Lausanne Committee sponsored event held in September 1988 in Stuttgart, West Germany. Highest European attendees at Lausanne II were West Germans and Britishers, with all Eastern and Western European countries represented except Luxembourg and Albania.

The greatest concern of European evangelicals was the ãre-evangelization,ä or spiritual revitalization, of their continent. Speaking at the Europe meeting for the European Lausanne Committee after last yearâs meeting, Rev. Ian  Coffey of England raised questions relevant to the topic: ãWhat are the barriers to the gospel in Europe?ä and, ãHow do we reach the secularists, the Roman Catholics, the state system of atheism in Eastern Europe?ä He suggested these questions could help form the agenda for the next proposed ELCOWE meeting, possibly in 1992 in an Eastern Bloc city like East Berlin or Budapest. The director of the 1988 Stuttgart meeting, Dr. Viggo Sogaard of Denmark, hoped to see the development of a ãLausanne network for Europe.ä Consensus held that the network would not be a new organization but an entity to aid cooperation between existing European mission agencies.

Comments at the Europe meeting about the entire Congress were positive. One Hungarian said that the ãnational meetingsä had brought greater spiritual unity among the Hungarians present, saying, ãWe have learned to love each  other.ä A Norwegian said the most significant influence of the Lausanne congress for his countrymen had been getting back to the theological basics of the gospel.

As far as looking beyond their own cultures, Norwegian Kirsti Mosvold of the Norwegian Sontal Mission told press agents that people-group thinking has had a great impact in Europe, while Dr. Horst Marquardt, director of Trans World Radioâs operation in Germany, felt that most German believers are not familiar with the concept of unreached peoples.