Lausanne World Pulse – Beyond Basic Evangelism: Pentecostals and a Broadened Lausanne Evangelistic Agenda, Part Two

By Grant McClung
June / July 2010

In our history, most of our outstanding pastors, evangelists, and missionaries were laypeople from the working classes, with little or no education. The release and participation of the laity (“laity” meaning men and women, boys and girls) is one of the most often-quoted marks of Pentecostal/Charismatic growth cited both by inside participants and outside observers.

A large part of the dynamic growth of our movement has been our ability to mobilize and effectively deploy women into evangelistic witness and church leadership. In fact, seven of the twelve members of the interracial “Credential Committee” at the Azusa Street Mission in 1906 were women. This committee selected and proved candidates for ministerial licensing and supervised the deployment of evangelists across the nation and around the world. Historian Vinson Synan has characterized the Pentecostal movement as “An Equal Opportunity Movement.”³

The empowerment experience on the Day of Pentecost broke the last barrier of separation between humanity, according to Pentecostal ecumenist David J. du Plessis (1905 – 1987). On the Day of Pentecost, du Plessis stated in a 1983 interview that Jesus “…baptized the women exactly like the men, and I say for the exact same purpose as the men are baptized so the women are baptized.”⁴

8. Evangelism is ecumenically interdependent. The argument here is not for structural but spiritual ecumenism—a partnership of spirit among all who know and personally follow Jesus Christ, regardless of their particular Christian name brand or affiliation.

Kingdom-oriented evangelism creates an environment of interdependence and collaboration. It brings with it an understanding that we all must work together in evangelism, especially when we confront hostility, marginalization, and persecution. David Shibley says it so aptly, “World evangelization can never be accomplished by Charismatics alone. Neither can it be accomplished without us.”⁵

The Lausanne Covenant has devoted two entire sections toward global interdependence in evangelization (Section 7, “Cooperation in Evangelism,” and Section 8, “Churches in Evangelistic Partnership) and The Manila Manifesto has a lengthy statement on “Cooperating in Evangelism” (Affirmation 9).

People in our world are desperate. Receptivity to the gospel is unprecedented. It is time for all Christ followers to join hands together in a full-orbed, biblically-balanced evangelism that maintains the central priority of proclamation for all believers and lives out the model of the “routine faithfulness” of Sunday school teacher Edward Kimball. What Kimball did for D.L. Moody that Saturday afternoon in a Boston shoe store is our evangelistic heritage. Now is the time to embrace and recover this heritage—as well as all aspects of a broadened, biblical evangelistic agenda—and make it our future horizon.

Endnotes

1. 1992. The Spirit Said “Grow.” Kansas City, Missouri, USA: MARC Publications, 39.

2. 1990. April/May, 4-8.

3. Smith, Harold, ed. 1990. Pentecostals from the Inside Out. Wheaton, Illinois, USA: Victor Books, 43-50.

4. 1983. Theology, News, and Notes. March, 6.

5. 1997. A Force in the Earth: The Move of the Holy Spirit in World Evangelization. Lake Mary, Florida, USA: Strang Communications.

Dr. Grant McClung, president of Missions Resource Group, is a member of the U.S. Lausanne Advisory Committee and missiological advisor to the World Mission Commission of the Pentecostal World Fellowship.