Lausanne World Pulse – LAUSANNE REPORTS – Partnerships in Evangelism: An Overview of Mission Africa

By Scott Lenning
January 2011

Mission Africa was birthed out of the desire of leaders in Cape Town discussing the possibility of hosting the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization. The desire to host this Congress was very strong, as was the aspiration to use the momentum of the Congress to be actively engaged in evangelism.

Leaders discussed the model Billy Graham set in the original 1974 Congress to hold an evangelistic crusade prior to the Congress. The Cape Town discussion grew in excitement to attempt to host the Congress and have an evangelistic mission throughout Africa.

Once Cape Town was chosen for the site of the Congress, Michael Cassidy, founder of African Enterprise, became chair of the Cape Town 2010 mission committee and the planning was underway.

The concept of ministry partnership was foundational. Under Cassidy’s leadership, Songe Chibambo, Pan African director for African Enterprise, and I (Scott Lenning, executive director for the U.S.-based Scott Dawson Evangelistic Association) became co-directors. Shortly thereafter, Eliot Winks of Christ Awakening joined the leadership team. We worked with Cape Town 2010 Congress director Blair Carlson for the next two years.

Cassidy’s desire was to do “matchmaking” between ministries from around the world. Chibambo and I quickly developed a working relationship that was designed to model the power of partnership to the ministries that would become actively engaged in Mission Africa.

Chibambo worked within known networks across Africa to discover host ministries and communities for missions. I began building a network of international evangelists who would travel to Africa to be ministry partners with local host ministries. An evangelist “profile” was developed to make sure participating ministries worked together in the practice and theology of the original Lausanne Covenant.

Cassidy also discouraged any attempt to micromanage the individual missions. A preparation guide was developed to give ministry partners an outline of steps to take to conduct an event with the highest possible impact in a community for Christ. The guide was based on two hands, a spiritual hand and a physical hand, working together to prepare for the mission.

The fingers on the spiritual hand included prayer, friendship evangelism, counselor training, and program and long-term follow-up throughout churches. The physical hand included organizational committees, promotions, fund raising, facility arrangements, and volunteers. Even this visual illustration of two hands working together represented the future partnerships that would be necessary to make Mission Africa a reality. 

Scott Lenning is executive director for the U.S.-based Scott Dawson Evangelistic Association. Formerly, he was a crusade director for Billy Graham. Lenning served as co-director of Mission Africa in fellowship with the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism in Cape Town.