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

By Grant McClung
June / July 2010

(Editor’s note: This article is Part Two of a two-part article. To view Part One, click here. This article continues with the fifth of eight characteristics of biblical evangelism.)

5. Evangelism is eschatologically urgent. Jesus said, “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (John 9:4). Following Christ today brings with that experience a built-in urgency because we know our time is limited. Again the words of our Lord: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).

In Section 15 of The Lausanne Covenant, the expectation of the return of Jesus Christ is highlighted as a major motivational force in world evangelization (the first three lines are cited below):

We believe that Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly, in power and glory, to consummate his salvation and his judgment. This promise of his coming is a further spur to our evangelism, for we remember his words that the gospel must first be preached to all nations. We believe that the interim period between Christ’s ascension and return is to be filled with the mission of the people of God, who have no liberty to stop before the end…

Eschatological urgency was at the heart of the missionary fervor of early Pentecostals. When supernatural phenomena burst on the scene at the Azusa Street revival and other locations in 1906, Pentecostals felt sure that they were living in and directly experiencing the end-time restoration of New Testament apostolic power.

Signs and wonders were a portent Christ’s imminent return. Everything else was put aside for the urgent business of world evangelization. Scores of Pentecostal missionaries, most of them ill-prepared in language/culture learning and without adequate financial support, took off for the far-flung corners of the globe, expecting to remain there until the rapture, which they believed was imminent. Pentecostal historian Vinson Synan characterized these early evangelists as “missionaries of the one-way ticket.”¹

“Proclaim Christ Until He Comes” was the entire congress theme at Lausanne II in Manila, reflected in the final lines of The Manila Manifesto: “…proclaiming Christ until he comes, with all necessary urgency, unity, and sacrifice” (“Conclusion: Proclaim Christ Until He Comes”).

6. Evangelism is ecologically active. Biblical evangelism is also ecologically active—that is, bringing the message and realities of the Kingdom of God into the social affairs of human beings (i.e. , “human ecology”) and into responsible stewardship of all creation. Proclamation evangelism results in the emergence of church plants and communities of the Kingdom of God who live out prophetic social activism and community transformation.

African church leader Gottfried Osei-Mensah, a former executive secretary of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE), has said that four words state the different opinions held by Christians on the relationship between evangelism and social action. The words is, or, for, and and offer four options for definition and implementation:

1. Social action is evangelism—anything and everything done as a social action could be called evangelism.
2. Social action or evangelism—a choice of one over against the other.
3. Social action for evangelism—using social action/benevolence as a method or channel toward opening up an opportunity for evangelistic witness.
4. Social action and evangelism—acknowledging that scripture commands both.

Most Evangelicals and Pentecostals would emphasize at this point the “prioritization of evangelization” or, to use the language of The Lausanne Covenant and The Manila Manifesto, “evangelism is primary” (more from both documents at www.lausanne.org).

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.