Lausanne: In Need of a Plan

Editor’s note: This article is part of forum discussing the fourth Lausanne Congress. It is not an official Lausanne Movement forum but an opportunity for Lausanne delegates to share their thoughts about the fourth Lausanne Congress, the Seoul Statement, and the future of the mission. You can read the entire series, from diverse voices around the world here.

The fourth Lausanne Congress (L4) was the first major Lausanne gathering I ever attended. The trip was costly and something of a personal pilgrimage for me. But I will remember it for the rest of my life. I am truly honored to be one of its delegates.

In some ways, I am new to the movement. But at the congress itself I met a surprisingly large number of people who already knew me. There were some who knew me from almost every season of my life, and even some who knew my grandparents and parents in India, so many decades ago. I found my inheritance here, a good heritage I will one day pass to my children.

L4 also exposed that we are a family with many disagreements still. These disagreements troubled some, but they comforted me. It was as if I was coming home to a familiar, loving family, even as we argued intensely around the dinner table. 

So, in these disagreements, I found that the Lausanne community truly reflects the beautiful and beloved community of differences into which Jesus calls us all. We can know, all the more, that He certainly is greater than all our disagreements.

The Lessons of L1′s Process

In the years leading up to L4, I studied the movement closely. Somehow, though I am mere scientist, not a historian, I was privileged to write an article for Christianity Today for the 50th anniversary of the Lausanne Covenant.

This history clarifies one of Lausanne’s distinct insights: missions is linked with good theology. Unlike other missions conferences, theological work is built into Lausanne’s structure and emphasized in its meetings. Every congress releases a theological document. 

The towering legacy of the first congress left a profound mark on all of us. The Lausanne Covenant that delegates signed became one of the most important documents in modern evangelicalism.

But the covenant itself was forged in negotiated process of back-and-forth between a small drafting committee and 2,700 delegates. They worked with sheets of paper passed around in several languages, making multiple revisions to the covenant. This negotiate process itself, I found, to be a prophetic demonstration of the best version of evangelicalism. 

For this reason, I was very curious to see how the Seoul Statement would be introduced, what it would contain, and how the congress would be engaged. This theological work, I am certain, is fundamental to Lausanne’s mission, and one of the reasons I wanted to attend the congress.

The Current Situation

As we all known now, the Seoul Statement was released the first day of L4 without a process to negotiate or debate its content. Currently, feedback is being collected, but there is no plan for what to do with it.

Christian Daily International, the Christian Post, and Christianity Today (CT) all report a chaotic and conflicted response to the Seoul Statement by delegates, the Lausanne leadership, and the Theology Working Group (TWG).