Lausanne World Pulse – Research Articles – Doing Strategy as the Whole Church
When discussing strategies to increase the efficacy of world evangelization, we often focus on developing new and innovative plans, programs, and methodologies. We are constantly looking for the next revolutionary evangelistic paradigm to effectively engage diverse peoples in a rapidly changing world with the unchanging truth of the gospel. We may be so oriented toward the future that we fail to look and learn from our past to better inform our future steps and strategies. As we look more carefully at where evangelical Christians are in world evangelization, we will likely see how much more we must embody the truth of Christ and be the Church Christ has called us to be—to be one body and be one with Christ, just as Christ and the Father are one.
The Whole Church
For the last two years, the Lausanne Strategy Working Group (SWG) has started its gatherings from both personal and communal self-reflection as evangelicals, as well as toward the past with a greater focus on scripture to serve as the measure and guide of an evangelistic approach.
When the SWG gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2006, participants shared the factors that persuaded each of them to come to a living faith in Christ and into the work of world evangelization. Time and time again, participants shared that they came to faith through personal contact with a Christian who was tied to a body of believers and received teaching on the Word of God. When considering strategies solely provided in the Bible, the group found that powerful evangelism took place when witnesses, empowered by the Holy Spirit, were sent out, sought contact with non-believers in their respective contexts, and connected to a body of praying believers.
When the SWG convened again in Budapest, Hungary, in June 2007, participants took their observations to the next level from personal and biblical reflections to the assessment of the state of world evangelization in the twenty-first century and how far we have come since the first World Missionary Conference was held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1910. One of the major needs identified in 1910 was the challenge of reaching the Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu worlds.
A century later, we still see this as a top priority in world evangelization; the percentage of the world’s populations that adhere to these non-Christian religions has not changed dramatically. We asked ourselves: Why has the Church not been able to make much progress in one hundred years? What have we been focused on and what have we not been doing? What are the necessary preconditions to bring about periods of revival and dynamic world evangelization?