by David W. Bennett
WHAT, EXACTLY, IS THE LAUSANNE MOVEMENT?
As it celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and prepares for the Fourth Lausanne Congress, to be held this September in Incheon, South Korea, how has the Lausanne Movement changed since the Third Lausanne Congress, which convened in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2010? What are some of the trends emerging within the movement, and the priorities shaping its direction?
From gathering to movement
As confirmed by Hannes Wiher’s well-researched history (p. 197) immediately preceding this article, the Lausanne Movement was not initially launched as a ‘movement’, nor did it describe itself in these terms from its inception. The gathering convened in Lausanne, Switzerland in July 1974 was intended to be a one-time event. It was not envisioned as, nor called originally, the ‘First’ Lausanne Congress (nor the first of anything). Only afterwards was a Continuation Committee formed and a formal structure authorized, that is, the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (which remains its legal name until today). The LCWE provided a minimal structure to facilitate continuing interaction among leaders from a large variety of churches, missions and organizations, united by their evangelical faith (summarized in the Lausanne Covenant) and their desire to reflect theologically on, as well as participate actively in, the cause of world evangelization.
Over the following three decades, under the umbrella of the LCWE, various consultations were organized, several dozen Lausanne Occasional Papers were published, a handful of Senior Associates (topical specialists) were appointed, a second Congress was convened (Manila 1989), a number of special interest groups and networks as well as national and regional committees were formed, and several hundred cooperative initiatives were launched. There were periods when the LCWE as an organization nearly ran out of money as well as personnel (euphemistically called the ‘quiet years’), yet the relationships persisted and the vision for global missions continued, especially in portions of the Majority World where missiological reflection and mobilization for cross-cultural mission were accelerating. A movement was forming.
When the Forum for World Evangelization convened in Pattaya, Thailand in 2004, it was partly a test to see if there was enough momentum to reactivate the Lausanne global network and to convene a Third Congress to address the new realities of the 21st century. The experiment was a success. A new CEO (Doug Birdsall) was appointed, who expanded and reorganized the board, appointed a new International Director (Lindsay Brown) and 12 International Deputy Directors, and began a search for a suitable site for a Third Congress—which became Cape Town 2010.
But despite the many accomplishments of the Third Congress, shortly afterwards the LCWE was back to a very small staff, burdened by a crushing debt resulting from several unexpected crises that arose in connection with the Third Congress (including a massive cyberattack and an unexpected currency exchange issue). Some wondered whether another set of ‘quiet years’ was about to begin. But once again, relationships had been formed, vision had been kindled and initiatives had been launched, which provided sufficient foundation for the building and reconstruction of various missional networks while the financial base was being stabilized.
For the first time, the LCWE began to call itself the Lausanne Movement, encouraged by a friend of Lausanne who had studied social movements and who, at a meeting of Lausanne leaders in 2011, noted the parallels with what was emerging through the three Congresses, the consultations, the networks and the publications catalyzed by the LCWE. Over the next 13 years, the leadership of the Lausanne Movement began to work more deliberately to build a structure, with a small staff serving a much larger network of volunteer leaders, that could help to encourage and activate a global mission movement towards a vision of the gospel for every person, disciple-making churches for every people and place, Christ-like leaders for every church and sector, and kingdom influence in every sphere of society.
It has been my privilege to see many of these developments firsthand. As a student of theology and missiology at the master’s and doctoral levels for the five years prior to the First Lausanne Congress, I had the opportunity to study under several of the professors who shaped the thinking of that gathering. As a pastor in globally minded churches for 35 years, I used the writings emerging from the Lausanne Movement, and through various teaching and research opportunities in Asia and elsewhere I had the opportunity to interact with Majority World leaders who were active in Lausanne. Another round of doctoral work, as well as a consulting assignment with an evangelical foundation, took me to the Second Lausanne Congress in Manila in 1989. Additional research and teaching on leadership in churches in India over the following decade led to deeper Lausanne involvement, including participation in Pattaya in 2004 and Budapest (a preparatory meeting for Cape Town) in 2007, followed by full-time work for a year on the team overseeing the program for Cape Town 2010, and then an invitation to the senior staff team of Lausanne in 2011, where I continue to serve as Global Associate Director and as Congress Director for the Fourth Congress.
Over the last decade, under the leadership of the current CEO, Michael Oh, I have seen significant advances in the internal structure of the Lausanne Movement as an organization, as well as emerging emphases intended to expand the capacity of the larger missional movement that it hopes to serve as well as catalyze.
A three-dimensional network of networks
Doug Birdsall once told me that he had four basic goals prior to the Third Congress as he guided the reactivation of the Lausanne Movement: preparation for the Congress (including deciding on a site and raising funds), reorganization of the board, appointment of regional leaders, and institution of a coordinated structure for the various issue specialists and networks. He accomplished the first three goals but ran out of time for the fourth. So he enlisted me for that task midway through 2011. All the Senior Associates, Special Interest Committees, and issue-related networks with their leaders were consolidated over the next year or so.
In 2014, a regional Lausanne meeting for Europe was held in Vevey, Switzerland, joined by the Lausanne board, staff, regional leaders from around the globe, and Senior Associates (who at that time numbered about 25). The scenery was breathtaking, and we took some stunning group photographs. But the demographic imbalances were unmistakable. Some referred jokingly to the photo of the regional leaders as the ‘Men’s Chorus’, since there were no women. Several Senior Associates were unable to come at the last minute, including some women and people from the Majority World. The group photograph of the Senior Associates showed far less diversity than the networks they were leading, to the point that I was reluctant to have the group photo posted online.
During the meetings in Vevey, several of the Senior Associates proposed a change in name, as well as the possibility for co-leadership of the networks, to facilitate greater global reach and encourage diversity in region, age and gender. Within a year, we had greatly expanded and renamed the group of ‘Catalysts’ (formerly Senior Associates), with generally two and sometimes three Catalysts co-leading each issue network. Several of these networks have formed partnerships that explicitly bridge to and/or join forces with colleagues in the World Evangelical Alliance (such as Business as Mission, International Student Ministries, Creation Care, and Integrity and Anti-Corruption).
The Lausanne Movement was now organized around two dimensions (regions and issues), but a third dimension was about to emerge.
In 2016, a Younger Leaders Gathering was convened in Jakarta, Indonesia, which launched a ten-year cohort called the Younger Leaders Generation, along with several initiatives for mentoring and equipping younger leaders within the movement. The emphasis on younger leaders was expanded to include inter-generational friendships and collaboration, focusing on working together, with each generation contributing its own gifts, rather than on ‘passing the baton’ and other images of replacing one generation with another.
Furthermore, instead of one leader for each region (now called Regional Directors rather than International Deputy Directors), each region was now co-led by two Regional Directors (or Regional Director and Co-Director), along with a regional team. With the addition of several female Regional Directors as co-leaders, the ‘men’s chorus’ became a ‘mixed chorus’.
If we were to return to Vevey today, there would be no hesitation to take group photographs of the Lausanne leadership teams—board, staff, regional leaders, issue network leaders, generations team—because they include women and men drawn from every continent, younger and older, from a rich variety of cultures and backgrounds. And these leaders serve networks that are even more global and diverse, as has been particularly evident during the numerous online gatherings convened during and since the COVID years, and also during the in-person gatherings convened during the last three years of the process that led up to the Fourth Congress. More and more gatherings have been initiated that combine regions or involve several issue networks—not centrally initiated or coordinated by Lausanne staff but emerging from the grassroots, as is characteristic of a movement.
Increasingly, we have been exploring the nature of polycentrism in the leadership of a global movement, stimulated by the research and writing of one of our Lausanne Catalysts for Leadership Development, Joe Handley, who completed a dissertation in this area. As the networks have become more diverse and complex, structures need to be reworked and new patterns of communication and decisionmaking must be designed, so that there is broad understanding and ownership of the purpose, mission, vision and values, as well as empowerment of leaders and teams so that they can be agile and adaptable in their own contexts.
New forms of content and communication
The last decade has seen a flowering of content, in a variety of formats, from the various networks of the Lausanne Movement, coordinated initially by an interdepartmental Content Team, later enfolded within the Communications Team.
Late in 2012, a new online publication, the Lausanne Global Analysis, was launched, now published every other month in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Korean in addition to English, with a global Editorial Advisory Board, authors from every continent, and readership from over 200 countries.
In 2015, a new series of video resources was launched, called Lausanne Global Classroom, in which the various Lausanne issue networks summarized the key challenges and opportunities they were dealing with, based on interviews with members of their network from around the world. Eighteen topics are currently available, and several more videos will be filmed at the upcoming Fourth Congress.
Recognizing that people are increasingly engaging with information online, the Communications Team launched a multi-pronged strategy for digital access and promotion of content produced by the Lausanne networks, including posting on a variety of social media, writing blogs, sharing videos from Lausanne gatherings, and producing podcasts and webinars.
Lausanne Occasional Papers continue to be written and posted on the Lausanne website. Seventy-seven such papers are currently available and additional ones are being prepared. Many of the issue networks have published books in their areas of specialty, through a variety of channels around the world (though unfortunately Lausanne had to close its in-house publishing department for financial reasons several years ago). Some of the more prolific networks include Church Planting, Creation Care, Cities, and Diasporas.
Recently the Lausanne Movement published a massive online State of the Great Commission report, soon to be available in seven languages, which includes over 100 original graphics, 40 articles written by 150 authors from around the world on issues and challenges facing the church today as it engages in global mission, and reflections (currently being drafted or in editorial review) from each of the 12 Lausanne regions.
In addition, over the last three years the Lausanne Movement has been engaged in a systematic listening process in its 12 regions and 25 of its issue networks and with younger leaders, addressing five questions:
- What are the most significant gaps or remaining opportunities towards the fulfilment of the Great Commission (to make disciples of all the nations)?
- What promising breakthroughs or innovations do you see that can accelerate the fulfilment of the Great Commission?
- In what areas is greater collaboration most critical to see the fulfilment of the Great Commission?
- Where is further research needed?
- To whom else should we be listening as part of this process?
We formed a Global Listening Team, with representatives of all 12 Lausanne regions, co-led by Steve Moon of Korea and Eiko Takamizawa of Japan, to analyze the answers we were receiving through the many different listening calls, focus groups and in-depth interviews. That Global Listening Team has issued three major summary reports, soon to be published as Lausanne Occasional Papers.
Theology and practice
The Lausanne Theology Working Group also began identifying some key biblical and theological areas emerging from the listening process that needed to be addressed in greater depth, such as development of an evangelical hermeneutic, the place of the local church in missions, what it means to be human, the imperative of discipleship, and Christian response to technology and a digital world. They have drafted several Lausanne Occasional Papers on these topics, distilling many of the insights into a document to be shared with the Fourth Congress participants as well.
Following the very able leadership of Chris Wright, as chair of the Theology Working Group leading up to the Third Congress and continuing through the publication of the Cape Town Commitment, there were several years of transition. The Theology Working Group began to rebuild in preparation for the Fourth Congress under the co-leadership of Victor Nakah (Zimbabwe/South Africa) and Ivor Poobalan (Sri Lanka), with theologians drawn from every continent but primarily from the Majority World.
However, in the current life of the Lausanne Movement, the work of missiological and theological reflection is not confined to the Theology Working Group. It is also taking place in the issue networks, where new biblical and missiological ground has been broken on such topics as diaspora theology, creation care and disability concerns. Consultations have been convened since the Third Lausanne Congress to address creation care, the varied faces of Islam, the aberrations of prosperity theology, the role of wealth creation in holistic transformation, ministry to children at risk, and the challenge of nominalism. These consultations as well as various writing projects have brought together theologians, missiologists, strategists and practitioners, from churches and academic institutions as well as multiple sectors of the workplace.
Lausanne has sometimes been described as a movement of reflective practitioners. As a movement, it embraces both people whose strengths are in academic theology and those who primary passion is field-based evangelism, church planting and/or social engagement. As a movement, it does not have formal membership, so when one speaks about the ‘theology of the Lausanne Movement’, beyond the three foundational documents (Lausanne Covenant, Manila Manifesto and Cape Town Commitment), one must consider the breadth of publications and reflections emerging from this network of networks in all its three-dimensional breadth and variety—regions, issues and generations. The movement’s coherence is found in its biblical anchors, the alignment with the foundational documents, and the commitment to its fourfold missional vision: the gospel for every person, disciple-making churches for every people and place, Christ-like leaders for every church and sector, and kingdom influence in every sphere of society.
Billy Graham once described the ‘spirit of Lausanne’ as a spirit of ‘humility, friendship, prayer, study, partnership and hope’. The Lausanne Movement emphasizes biblically grounded theology as well as missiological strategy. It calls for proclamation of the gospel as well as social justice and care for creation. It emphasizes the need for the spiritual formation of disciples, Christ-like character in leaders, and reliance on prayer and on the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. And it fosters relationships, personal connections and collaborations. These strands weave through the movement and its networks, though at different times, in different contexts, and in the communications of different leaders, the proportion and emphasis may vary.
A growing emphasis on the workplace
An emerging emphasis within the Lausanne Movement over the last decade has been the importance of engaging and empowering people in the workplace as part of the work of global mission. At Manila in 2019, Lausanne convened a Global Workplace Forum, in answer to increasing calls within the movement for more explicit discussion of mission in and through the full range of workplace settings in which God’s people are placed—business, the professions, the trades, the arts, government, education, the home, service organizations and much more. A majority of the participants at the Global Workplace Forum earned their living from daily work other than that supported by the tithes and offerings of Christian people. The workplace is the arena to which the vast majority of Christians are called, and it is the context where many of us have the greatest proportion of our interactions. Large portions of Scripture include narratives that describe people interacting in the workplace, as well as instructions for living lives of faith and obedience within the course of daily life. Even the apostle Paul combined his proclamation and missional activities with his trade of making tents.
Four of our Lausanne issue networks are explicitly focused on the workplace, and several more have very close relationships with various workplace sectors. The upcoming Fourth Congress will include a workplace track, and the Participant Selection Team for the Congress has set a goal of 40 percent of the participants coming from the workplace.
The Fourth Congress
The theme of the Fourth Congress is ‘Let the Church Declare and Display Christ Together’. The Scripture engagement will focus on the book of Acts, in which the Greek word homothumadon, translated as ‘together’ or ‘with one accord’, occurs ten times. The Congress will build on the multi-year listening process that led up to it, and on the various reports, especially the State of the Great Commission report, which highlight the emerging issues, challenges, opportunities and gaps we are facing. As we look toward 2050, the midpoint of the century but just one generation from now, we will consider what it means to proclaim the gospel, to make disciples, to bear witness to Christ, to be salt and light, and to be the aroma of Christ in an increasingly complex and challenging world.
Although the Fourth Congress will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the movement, the emphasis will not be on looking back but on looking forward. In particular, the Congress will focus on identifying, envisioning and celebrating opportunities for collaborative action—ways in which we can be better together. We seek ways to close gaps and move through the open doors that the Spirit of God provides as we obey Jesus’ command to make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey everything that Jesus has commanded, and reminding them that all authority has been given to Christ, the Lord of every sphere of human endeavour.
A large portion of Congress time will be spent interacting in table groups and working in innovation labs to seek collaborative solutions for some of the most pressing missiological challenges. There will be a Digital Discovery Center to explore new tools for evangelism and discipleship, as well as places for artistic expression, rest and prayer, including prayer focused on people and places as yet unreached with the gospel.
But the key word is ‘together’. The Lausanne Movement seeks to encourage connections, help people to find one another, share resources, build bridges and celebrate what is already being done. It brings together those who share a passion for making disciples among every people and every place, declaring and responding to Christ as Lord in every sphere of life, bearing witness to Jesus Christ, and spreading the aroma of Christ in Jerusalem, all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
Some of those connections will be made through in-person gatherings like the Fourth Congress. Increasingly, connections are happening online. For that reason, the Congress aims to have an equal number of registered participants online and in person. And digital platforms are being designed so that these connections among missionally minded people can extend far beyond the registered participants of the Congress itself.
I am thankful for the generous and appreciative spirit of Hannes Wiher in his assessment of the Lausanne Movement’s contribution to the evangelical movement and to the global church over these past five decades. I am also grateful for the work that evangelical alliances have done for decades in sowing the seeds of evangelical cooperation. I pray that the Fourth Congress will strengthen our commitment to biblical missiology, Spirit-led strategy, collaborative action and generous friendships, not only in the Lausanne Movement but among all those who call Jesus Saviour and Lord and who are responding wholeheartedly to his call to make disciples of all nations.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr./Rev. David Bennett (DMin, PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is a veteran pastor, global researcher, and a passionate follower of Jesus. He currently serves as global associate director for the Lausanne Movement. He is also serving as congress director for the Fourth Lausanne Congress. David also serves as Advisor to the India Collaboration with First Fruit, Inc, in addition to serving on the A3 Board of Directors.
See also: David Bennett's endorsement of A3
More Information
This article was reposted by permission and was first published by the Evangelical Review of Theology from World Evangelical Alliance here:
Evangelical Review of Theology A Global Forum
Volume 48 • Number 3 • August 2024 • Pages 215-221 • Copyright © 2024 World Evangelical Alliance Global Theology Department- The free pdf of this journal is distributed under the following conditions: The pdf may not be sold or used for profit except with written consent. The pdf may be printed only for private use, not for profit. The only printed copies that may be used in public are those obtained from the publisher, Wipf & Stock (
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ). - Executive Editor: Dr. Bruce Barron, USA
- The World Evangelical Alliance’s Evangelical Review of Theology is a free, open-access journal in which WEA leaders and other prominent Christians address issues of contemporary concern to the global body of Christ. It aims to present well-researched information and perspectives in a style suitable for general readers.
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