Whole Church, Whole Gospel, Whole World!

Picture it: an Iranian believer ministering in Australia, a Frenchman working in micro enterprise in Mali, a Nigerian leading a prayer ministry in Poland, a Chinese house church leader, a Christian from Bhutan (where hardly anyone has ever heard of Jesus), an Argentinean with a PhD in youth ministry, and an Episcopalian Evangelical from Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

And that’s just the crowd around the breakfast table...

Groups like this were exceedingly common at the recent Lausanne Forum for World Evangelization, held September 29-October 5 in Pattaya, Thailand. Over 1,500 participants from 130 countries gathered to discuss the most strategic issues facing the Church as we strive to advance and complete The Great Commission.

The Forum was a missionary think-tank and prayer-tank, as leaders exchanged ideas and prayed together about the most crucial issues facing world evangelism. Each issue was discussed by one of 34 “Issue Groups,” each of which produced reports with action plans, to be distributed to the wider Church.

A word from John

The movement of people around the world for socioeconomic, political and religious reasons has created an increasingly multi-cultural world population. The U.S. has received millions of such persons, and the result has been a significant change in the cultural and ethnic landscape, as well as an everincreasing post-Christian society. Outside of the U.S., the Church is growing at an unprecedented pace. Renewal and revival are happening in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The traditional centers for Christian faith — Western Europe and North America — are lagging behind.

These factors need to be taken into consideration when developing effective theological education for world evangelization. In a sense, theological education is being required to find out the degree to which it is committed to preparing men and women to do mission — wherever God calls them.

My issue group, “Effective Theological Education for World Evangelization,” was comprised of Christian educators from around the world. North American participation in the group was minimal — most came from India, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and eastern Asia, from a variety of educational settings and denominations.

Over 200 pages were written as various aspects of the topic were covered. At the end of the week, the group came up with the following principles:

• Schools and churches should be intentional about their missional commitment, expressed in staff selection and professional development, curriculum review, student assessment and board selection.
• Leaders of institutions and programs should have an understanding of world mission and insure that those who work in the schools share that understanding.
• We encourage school personnel and key church leaders to be exposed to the realities of human needs and cross-cultural ministry, and to transmit to students this world mission concern by teaching, training and discipling.
• We encourage partnerships among entities invested in education for world evangelization.

A word from Meredith

As I heard from the others in my “Reaching the Youth Generation” Issue Group, I was struck less by the differences in youth ministry in our various contexts than by the similarities. I have spoken theoretically about “global youth culture,” and this experience confirmed those theories: everywhere on the earth, youth need identity, vocation, values, and relationships.

As an issue group, we challenge the Church:

• To embrace the importance of youth ministry. Across the world, youth ministry is devalued, seen as glorified babysitting or a stepping-stone to “real” adult ministry. We have failed to grasp the fact that the majority of the people of the world are under the age of 30! If we ignore youth ministry, we ignore billions of souls who need Jesus. Just like the “10-40 Window,” the “13-30 Window” is a strategic opportunity to which the Church must pay attention: that age window between 13-30 when people are forming their beliefs and are most open to the Gospel.
• To establish relationships as the core of all ministry to youth. Young people need mentoring relationships with trustworthy adults; they need community relationships with their peers; and most importantly, they need a relationship with their Savior.
• To engage the real needs of young people in culturally-relevant ways: discovering what the needs are, then seeking to meet them.

Ultimately, it seems that youth ministry is a missionary activity. Those who work with youth need to learn their culture, go to where they are, seek to minister to their needs, and raise them up as indigenous leaders who take it from there!

A word from Theresa

The convener of our group, “Reaching Jewish People with the Gospel,” was LCJE international coordinator, Dr. Kai Kjaer-Hansen, New Testament professor and chairman of the Danish Israel Mission. The other members of the team were godly scholars who have all worked in Jewish mission for many years, in Israel and their home countries (Denmark, Norway, United States, and UK). Three were Jewish believers. We renamed ourselves the Jewish Evangelism Working Session — “JEWS” for short.

We quickly recognized that among the 1500 participants at Forum 2004, many lived in places where there were few, if any, Jewish people. We asked ourselves: What scriptural mandates are there about the Jewish people and their need to hear the Gospel, regardless of proximity? How could we speak through this report in a tone that reflects God’s love toward His people and not just communicate theological “facts”? How could we address the errant theologies that say that the Jews do not need Jesus in order to be saved? How could we best make it clear to the whole Church that if Jesus is not the Messiah for the Jewish people, he is not Christ for the nations?

The theme of the Lausanne Forum 2004 was “A New Heart, a New Vision, a Renewed Call.” In keeping with this theme, the Jewish Evangelism Working Session challenges the Church:

• To develop a new heart for the Jewish people.
• To acquire a new vision of the Church that is composed of the Jewish people along with all the nations of the earth.
• To demonstrate a renewed call to share the Good News with Jewish people everywhere.

A word from Dave

A powerful part of the Forum for me was the plenary session on the Persecuted Church. We saw a presentation given by the ministry “Open Doors” and prayed for persecuted believers around the world for almost two and a half hours! It was also very exciting to interact with Christians from around the world. My small group in the “Future Leadership” Issue Group consisted of six of us from India, Ghana, Germany, U.S. (me), Jordan (a person who is working in Iraq), and Japan.

The highlight of the Forum was the short presentation made by the “Reconciliation” Issue Group on the final day. While two of the group members narrated, a foot washing took place in several small groups of individuals. We were all almost holding our breath as we watched a Palestinian Christian wash the feet of a Jewish Christian, and vice-versa, as a sign of their desire for their people to be reconciled in Christ. We then watched two believers from Rwanda (where only ten years ago a genocide motivated by ethnic tension left one million people massacred) wash each other’s feet: one a Tutsi, the other a Hutu. Tears were flowing down people’s cheeks as we watched a Pakistani and an Indian wash each others’ feet; a man and a woman; a catholic priest, an orthodox priest, and a Protestant pastor; a Korean and a Japanese; a white American, a black American and an Hispanic American. It was a powerful and sacramental moment.

The crowd rose to their feet at the end in an ovation. We all seemed to know this wasn’t just a “presentation” — it was a Spirit-filled moment of real reconciliation.

Conclusion

It was remarkable for Trinity to be so well represented at this historic world mission event. The Lausanne Movement has played a vital role in world mission since 1974, led by Billy Graham, John Stott, Leighton Ford and others. What an honor to see the mission of Lausanne in action at the 2004 Forum: Mobilizing the whole Church to bring the whole Gospel to the whole world.

The Rev. Canon John A. Macdonald (MDiv '86) is Assistant Professor of Mission and Evangelism, and Director of the Stanway Institute for World Mission and Evangelism; Meredith Borel (MDiv '04) is Associate Director, Rock the World Youth Mission Alliance; Theresa Newell (MAR '94) is a Trinity DMin candidate and North American Coordinator of the Lausanne Consultation for Jewish Evangelism (LCJE); David Drake is a Trinity senior MDiv student and a postulant in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.