The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, more commonly known as the Lausanne Movement, is a global movement that mobilizes Christian leaders to collaborate for world evangelization. The movement's fourfold vision is to see "the gospel for every person, disciple-making churches for every people and place, Christ-like leaders for every church and sector, and kingdom impact in every sphere of society".
Born out of the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization (ICOWE) in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Lausanne Movement began with the vision of Billy Graham to multiply mission efforts by bringing Christian leaders and influencers together for the task of evangelism. John Stott was one of the founding members and the first to chair the Theology Working Group, who worked to produce the Lausanne Covenant, the movement's statement of theology and practice for world evangelization. Later documents produced over the subsequent two congresses include The Manila Manifesto (Lausanne II, 1989), which exists as an "elaboration" of the Covenant, and The Cape Town Commitment (Lausanne III, 2010), which is a confession of faith and a call to the global church for action.
Since 1974, the Lausanne Movement has become a platform for the convening of evangelical leaders, and has hosted a number of global congresses, gatherings, and catalytic networks that have impacted the scope of world missions and facilitated the expansion of Christianity in modern times. This has been achieved by connecting leaders across regions, issues, and generations to collaboratively and prayerfully work towards the advancement of the gospel.
History The history of the Lausanne Movement includes two indirect events leading up to the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization, otherwise known as Lausanne I.
A first precursor was the Congress on the Church's Worldwide Mission, held at Wheaton College in 1966. The 1966 Wheaton Congress was organized by the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association and the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association. During the conference's final address, a number of important issues facing the evangelical church were outlined. These included the need for evangelical unity regarding the inerrancy of Scripture, reigniting the urgency of Christ's return, as well as the critical need to challenge syncretism, universalism, and controversial evangelistic strategies. In addition, the address affirmed the need for the multiplication of local churches, and the presiding importance of 'foreign missions', as well as the need for unity (but not union) in evangelical witness, the church's priority to address social issues, and the urgency of a universal commitment to world evangelism.
Berlin Congress on World Evangelism The second event leading up to the inception of the Lausanne Movement was the 1966 Congress on World Evangelism in Berlin, organized by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christianity Today. During his address at the Berlin Congress, Billy Graham laid out a framework for understanding different biblical methods of evangelism that could form a strategy for global evangelization. Subsequent talks at the congress, led by church leaders from around the world, explained the shift in the center of Christianity from the West to the South and East, and touched on global and local needs, issues, and opportunities. The conference inspired further regional conferences in Southeast Asia, Latin America, the United States, and Australia.
Against a background of deep concerns among evangelicals regarding the doctrinal and missiological developments in the World Council of Churches, Billy Graham reiterated many of the major concerns of the 1966 Wheaton Congress. While Graham rejected what he called modern theology and humanistic interpretations of the gospel, he emphasized that confusion about evangelism was the primary hindrance to world evangelization. Without negating the importance of ecumenism and social action, he asserted the church's clearest mandate was to save souls.
The 1966 Berlin Congress highlighted the changes in global Christianity and alerted Billy Graham, and all those in attendance, to challenges and perspectives outside of the Western world that were completely different to the Western evangelical concerns of theological liberalism, humanism, politics, and race relations. The global church needed a larger, more diversely constructed strategy for world evangelization, and they needed a platform which could represent the challenges and needs of the church around the world.
Furthermore, mission in the World Council of Churches (WCC) during the 1960s and early 1970s had become marginalized by being largely reinterpreted in socio-political terms. This had consequences and implications in many different areas of missiology, not all of them immediately obvious. It was against this backdrop, as well as the Second Vatican Council, the spread of liberation theology, and the growth of the charismatic movement, that Billy Graham and John Stott saw the need to institute a movement such as Lausanne.
Lausanne I In July 1974, over 2,500 participants, including evangelists, missionaries, mission leaders, theologians, pastors, and national church leaders from 150 nations gathered in Lausanne, Switzerland, for the First International Congress on World Evangelization. TIME magazine described it as ‘a formidable forum, possibly the widest-ranging meeting of Christians ever held’. The congress drew a substantial number of leaders from the evangelical communities of Africa, Latin America, and Asia which were emerging at the time. Leighton Ford, program chair of the First Congress, wrote, ‘It was not an easy task to discern which topics in the tumultuous world we needed to deal with, and what speakers and leaders could best help us discern directions for the future. We wanted to achieve genuine diversity of viewpoints, while remaining firmly committed to biblical authority. We did not want the predictability of only offering a platform to well-known personalities. Our desire was to have a true interchange of thoughts, concerns, and ideas, and to build relationships. That was indeed a challenge with such an international group.' This has remained the framework for all of the subsequent congresses the Lausanne Movement has held.
Outcomes of Lausanne I The Lausanne Covenant arose as a result of the congress. It defined the necessity and goals of evangelization, unified evangelicals from diverse backgrounds and shaped much of their endeavors for the rest of the century. The Covenant was drafted by an international committee chaired by John Stott and publicly signed by leaders and participants at Lausanne I.
Secondly, Lausanne I highlighted the subject of unreached people groups (UPGs). Acclaimed as ‘one of the milestone events in missiology’, Ralph Winter's plenary address in 1974 introduced the now widespread term. At a crucial point in church history, Winter contended that cross-cultural mission needed to be the primary task of the church, as thousands of ethnic groups remained without a single Christian witness and with no access to Scripture in their native language.
Thirdly, the global congress brought to the church's attention the topic of holistic mission. The congress urged the necessity of both evangelism and social responsibility in mission at a time when the church was facing polarization towards one or the other. The voices of Latin American theologians Samuel Escobar and Rene Padilla were among the clearest to be heard on addressing the issue. This created a significant paradigm shift in evangelical thinking at the time, and today the widespread acceptance of holistic or integral mission, which incorporates evangelism as well as social responsibility, can largely be attributed to the 1974 Congress.
From single congress to movement The 1974 Lausanne Congress ended with a call by delegates for a continuation committee. Under the leadership of Leighton Ford, the continuation committee's first meeting was organized in 1975 in Mexico City.
The committee articulated the aim of the movement as furthering ‘the total biblical mission of the church, recognizing that in this mission of sacrificial service, evangelism is primary, and that our particular concern must be the [then 2,700 million] unreached people of the world.’
Four initial working groups were established, each one focused on one of the following topics: intercession, theology, strategy, and communication. Later, four more working groups were added, focusing on leadership development, resource mobilization and technology, and combined business, government, education, media, and medicine. The formation of these issue groups, along with the appointment of regional leaders and committees, sought to put into action the deliberations of the congress in Lausanne.
Furthermore, by the 1980s a large number of major evangelical mission agencies in North America and in many other countries had reframed their statements of faith in light of the Lausanne Covenant. This meant that the emphasis on world evangelization through the Covenant’s 15 sections spread quickly and the essence of Lausanne gained momentum, sparking what became known as the Lausanne Movement.
Lausanne II, Manila 1989 Following the First Lausanne Congress (Lausanne I), the international working groups, issue groups, and regional committees continued to collaborate and host regional congresses and smaller gatherings. Then in 1989, the Lausanne Movement hosted its most ambitious event since Lausanne I in Manila, Philippines. More than 4,000 participants from 173 nations, far more than the number of United Nations members at the time, gathered in Manila. Many commented that such expansive global representation provided a foretaste of heaven.
Compared with the First Lausanne Congress, Lausanne II enjoyed notable involvement from the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, women, and laity. Since Lausanne I, Billy Graham’s involvement in the Lausanne Movement had been limited due to his focus on his particular form of evangelism. Where Lausanne I had been organized and funded almost entirely by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Lausanne II was much more independent, and was organized by the Lausanne Committee and funded by those who embraced the “spirit of Lausanne.”
The Manila Manifesto As a result of the Second Lausanne Congress (Lausanne II), The Manila Manifesto was issued, a follow-up to the Lausanne Covenant, wherein a number of ways the movement was evolving were outlined. Albeit carefully constructed, with the purpose of bringing together the various strands of the congress and pointing towards the future, The Manila Manifesto was not as well-received as the Lausanne Covenant. It is possible this was due in part to the lack of infrastructure available to Lausanne to follow up on many of the achievements of the congress.
Outcomes from Lausanne II which issued a global impact include the concept of the 10/40 window, which shaped missionary strategy for decades to follow, and over 300 new working partnerships focusing on a wide range of critical missional issues, particularly located in the Majority World.
Lausanne III, Cape Town 2010 The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization took place in Cape Town, South Africa, 16–25 October 2010, at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.Matthew Cresswell, What future for the Lausanne movement?, theguardian.com, UK, October 21, 2010Maria Mackay, Historic Lausanne Declaration Calls World's Evangelicals to Action, christianpost.com, USA, January 28, 2011 It was attended by 4,000 participants and 1000 guests from 197 countries. Thousands more participated in seminaries, universities, churches, and through mission agencies and radio networks globally through an online platform called Cape Town GlobaLink.