European delegates are right now arriving in Korea to join over 5000 Christian leaders from all over the world in the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, starting tomorrow (Sunday).
Fifty years after the landmark Lausanne Congress in Switzerland, guided by Billy Graham and John Stott, the process of listening, consulting and collaborating through congresses, forums and smaller gatherings will be taken to a new level this coming week (22-28 September).
In addition to those gathering in Seoul, Korea, thousands more will interface digitally with the many conversations focused around multiple themes. The congress deploys the term ‘polycentric Christianity’ to describe the shift from being solely a ‘EuroAmerican religion’ to a global one. Global missions is now ‘from many centres, from everyone to everywhere’. This chart, drawn from the World Christian Encyclopedia, reveals the dramatic shift of the centre of gravity of the global church from the West to ‘the Rest’ – particularly to Africa.
For those of us not in Korea, there are several ways to participate, as outlined here. Details about programme and speakers show a global lineup of contributors reflecting the polycentric nature of global Christianity today. A 516-page report on the State of the Great Commission is available for download, an impressively informative sourcebook for mission strategising and planning.
The 100-page section of regional profiles offers insightful overviews around the world. For those of us engaged in the re-evangelisation of Europe, the ten pages devoted to the first continent to be completely Christianised and then substantially de-Christianised deserve close study.
The authors, Julia Garschagen, Luke Greenwood, Rolf Kjøde, Jim Memory, Usha Reifsnider and Janet Sewell, challenge us to reflect on six themes essential to mission in contemporary Europe: the meaning of trust/truth; the place of community; the challenges and opportunities of the digital world; creation care and climate justice; unprecedented demographic change; and a shift in morality affecting how the ‘good news’ of the gospel is interpreted by many Europeans.
Restoring Truth
Personal experience has become key to ‘validating truth’, rendering all-encompassing truth claims as unethical claims to power. Each person lives on their individual ‘truth island’. While Europeans crave for orientation and meaning in life, few look for help in the church. The ‘good news’ has become bad news: it is morally corrupt, intellectually naïve, and emotionally irrelevant. We must ask: How can we live and speak of the power, beauty, and truth of the gospel so that Europeans perceive it as good news?
Reshaping Morality
Today mission is seen as imposing one’s truth on others, which, by default, is a claim to power and a violation of the other person’s rights. For many Europeans, values like authenticity, justice, and care of the environment are important, but they do not see the church represent those values. We should ask: ‘What can we learn from society’s criticism?’ Yet a new conversation about moral orientation has started. Secular thinkers are beginning to realise that human rights and dignity presuppose an objective moral ground that cannot be found in secular relativism; and that European values are in fact deeply rooted within the Christian framework.
Rebuilding Community
Searching for freedom and autonomy, we have become our own enemies, destroying family values and real community. The paradox of disconnectedness in a digitally connected age, loneliness in the crowd of the dense and affluent urban centres, presents a great mission challenge. Millennials and Gen Zers lack meaning and experience loneliness. Yet a new generation of missionaries is creating stories of the gospel proclaimed on European streets and squares again. Movements like Steiger Ministries, the FEUER network, Revive, The Send and Circuit Riders are reaching secular young people and students, and mobilising and sending out thousands of young Europeans to reach their generation for Jesus.
Reconnecting Digitally
Our theological, missiological and ecclesiastical thinking needs to be adapted to the new reality of the digital world. The Web3.0 space offers collaboration for building community online. Young people today spend hours online playing games and making friends around the world. In 2011, 11-year-old Daniel started his own church in Roblox, an online gaming environment. Within seven years he had a ‘church’ of 15,000 young people from fifty countries and today has over 54,000 members! Union School of Theology in the UK is building the first Christian metacampus where students will gather in their learning communities within virtual reality. Decentralization is a key ideology within Web3.0., meaning that churches could operate with less governmental oversight, especially in contexts of persecution.
Respecting Creation
Faith in ‘sustainable’ growth in all nations has been overly optimistic on behalf of the environment and at the expense of the Majority World. Even though the European Union is leading the world on initiatives against global warming, Western consumption is also the main factor behind the global disaster. Thus, our nations have a higher moral obligation to act against the crisis and restrict our demands on common goods. Consumerism fosters greed. Fostering alternative living as disciples of Jesus Christ has always been part of the Lausanne movement. Just as health care has been a priority in Christian mission for generations, caring for the health of creation is now pivotal to our priorities.
Regarding Demography
Falling birthrates, an aging population, and sustained migration from the Majority World together are changing Europe’s demographics dramatically, and also the context for mission in Europe. Birthrates across Europe have been below replacement level for many years. This demographic imbalance is unprecedented. It will be pervasive in its extent, profound in its implications, enduring in its impact, and there is no going back. Europe desperately needs a renewed and healthy vision for marriage, parenthood, and the family. This is an opportunity for the church.
Flagging birthrates and aging populations inevitably lead to smaller workforces, the need for millions of migrant workers and rising costs of sustaining pensions and healthcare for the elderly. Intergenerational tensions are inevitable as younger generations will carry the burden of the burgeoning generation of pensioners. Will the church provide a model of a truly intergenerational community, where mutual support and mentoring between the generations is an example to the world of God’s new society?
Lausanne 4 is an opportunity for us all to reflect on these themes in our own circles and to be listening actively to God’s Spirit as to how to rise to these challenges.
P.S. If you missed the fascinating conversation I had last week on ‘saving journalism’ with Dr Jenny Taylor, you can still catch it here.
Till next week,
