Research resources from and for missional Christian leaders
Occasional Papers
Lausanne Occasional Papers are our in-depth essays addressing key issues related to global evangelism, missions, and contemporary challenges facing the church. They provide analysis, theological reflection, and practical insights to equip Christians for effective ministry and mission work.
Christian Witness to the Jewish People
Scripture gives the rationale for Jewish evangelism in John 14:6 and Acts 4:12, which indicate that salvation is found only in Christ. For Christians to know that Christ is the only way to be saved and then not proclaim the gospel to Jews presumes...
Christian Witness to the Urban Poor
In 20 years from now, the world’s population will have increased by 2 billion people. In 20 years, 80% of the world’s population will live in the Third World countries. In 20 years, 12 of the 15 largest cities will be in the Third World, and 60...
Christian Witness to Traditional Religionists of Asia and Oceania
In a time of rapid urbanization, the revitalization of Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism, and the spread of secular materialism, it is easy to overlook the fact that there remain many millions of people on the fringes of the great religions in Asia and...
Christian Witness to Traditional Religionists of Latin America & Caribbean
Much religious expression throughout Latin America could be defined as “traditional religion,” including Catholicism and even Protestantism as popularly practiced by the masses. In this study, however, we are limiting the term to two situations: a)...
Cooperating in World Evangelization: A Handbook on Church/Para-Church Relationships
Recent years have witnessed a rapid increase in the number of Christian organisations around the world. These specialised ministry groups have, for the most part, grown out of a genuine desire to help fulfil the task of world evangelization. But...
Diasporas and International Students: The New People Next Door
The movement of peoples in our world creates many new challenges. The word ‘Diaspora’ meaning ‘a scattering’ is used to describe this large-scale movement of people from their homeland to settle permanently or temporarily in other countries. It was...
Digital Life: Reframing Christian Presence in a Technological World
In an era where technology increasingly shapes every aspect of our lives, Christians face a pertinent question: How should Christians understand presence, or being physically present, in a world where technology has the ability to erase traditional...
Do You Understand What You Are Reading?
Toward a Faithful Evangelical Hermeneutic of Scripture Evangelical Unity in Diversity ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ is Philip’s question to the Ethiopian official who is poring over Isaiah 53:7–8 (Acts 8:27–33). The Ethiopian needs help...
Effective Theological Education for World Evangelization
“When he saw the crowds Jesus had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore,...
Empowering Women and Men to Use Their Gifts Together in Advancing the Gospel
In order that the whole Church may take the whole gospel to the whole world, we, the issue Lausanne Issue Group 24 “Empowering Men and Women for Ministry,” affirm that more labourers, both men and women, must be released to exercise their God-given...
Engaging in the Realities of Global Missions
The leadership team of the Lausanne Movement took the initiative to hold listening calls, inviting evangelical leaders of the world, in preparation for the Fourth Lausanne Congress (L4) to be held in Seoul, South Korea in September 2024. For more...
Ethnicity and The People of God
There is one element of our biblical understanding and Christian speech that must be revised at least within popular circles of Christianity, which includes, by the way, the majority of Christians around the world: the identity of the people of God...
Evangelism and Social Responsibility: An Evangelical Commitment
Evangelicals and evangelism have always been bracketed. So much so that the adjectives ‘evangelical’ and ‘evangelistic’ have often been identified in the popular mind. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that whenever evangelicals have become...
Evangelization of Children
The dominating issue in children’s evangelization is: Children represent arguably the largest unreached people group and the most receptive people group in the world. Yet the church is largely unprepared to take up the huge opportunities for mission...
Following Jesus as his Community in the Broken World of Ethnic Identity
I. Defining Ethnicity II. Ethnes in Modern Thought III. Contemporary Explosion of Ethnic Consciousness IV. Ethnes in the Biblical Story of God’s Mission V. Ethnes in Modern Evangelical Missiology VI. Globalisation, Urbanisation, and the Ethnic...
Following Jesus as the Truth: Postmodernity and Challenges of Relativism
To proclaim Jesus of Nazareth as Lord and Saviour is to make an absolute and universal truth claim. When the church declares that he is the way to the truth about God and eternal life, she is making a statement about reality that is true for...
Following Jesus as Unique Lord and Saviour in a Broken Pluralistic World
Truth claims lie at the heart of every religion. The uniqueness of each religion is framed primarily in terms of its respective truth claims. In their attempts to construct a Christian the-ology of religions, leading theologians like John Hick, Paul...
Following Jesus in a World of Suffering and Violence
Suffering is a fact of life for many people in our world. With advances in our time of global communication and information technology, countless stories of horror, pain and suffering are brought daily into our living rooms. Whenever we switch on...
Following Jesus in Contexts of Power and Violence
I. Followers of Jesus and Christendom II. The Clash of Civilizations III. Following Jesus in a World of Violent Conflict For more information go to Following Jesus in Contexts of Power and Violence on the Lausanne Movement website. The above link...
Following Jesus in Our Broken World
‘The whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole world’. This is the resounding vision of the Lausanne movement. Emerging out of the epoch-making first Lausanne Congress of 1974, Lausanne has functioned as a forum for a wide range of...
Following Jesus in the Globalized Marketplace
I. God and the Marketplace II. Saints and the Marketplace III. The Church and the Marketplace For more information go to Following Jesus in the Globalized Marketplace on the Lausanne Movement website. The above link opens in a new tab.
Forcibly Displaced People
Human displacement results in the creation of strangers, foreigners, migrants, aliens, exiles, nomads, refugees, and servitude. Faith, hope, and love in the Christian faith are shaped on the anvil of displacement. This paper begins with short...
Funding for Evangelism and Mission
Lausanne 2004 … Forum for World Evangelization … addressed many of the key issues facing the church and its mission in this decade. Participants at the conference were invited to join one of over 30 “Issue Groups,” with each group assigned on a...
Future Leadership
The Vision: A Global Movement for Developing Christ-Like LeadersWhy do we need a global movement of leader development?Who is a leader?What sort of leaders do we need?What is a Christ-like leader?How are leaders developed?How can a global movement...
Globalization and the Gospel: Rethinking Mission in the Contemporary World
In the very composition of this paper, one certain but double-edged implication became clear: globalization presents Christians with a rare opportunity (and, the authors believe: mandate) to think afresh how we steward the gospel in light of complex...
God’s Saving Truth: The Foundation of Trust
From the halls of power to the huts of the poor, trust matters. As finite social creatures and social beings, we are dependent upon one another for life and flourishing. Trust within human relationships is marked by steady dependence on others and...
Hidden and Forgotten People Including Those Who are Disabled
In 1963, some said that the Age of Missions was over and that missionaries were only to go where local Christians invited them. Yet, 1970 figures showed that 44% of the world lived in unreached people groups. In 1974, God used Dr. Winter’s challenge...
Holistic Mission
This Lausanne Occasional Paper begins with a general introduction to holistic mission by René Padilla, which was written as a common foundation for the work of the Holistic Mission Issue Group at the Lausanne Forum held at Pattaya, Thailand in the...
Introduction
Lausanne II in Manila was the second International Congress on World Evangelization. The Congress drew its name from the first International Congress which was held fifteen years ago in Lausanne, Switzerland. For more information go to Introduction...
Jewish Evangelism
Why Jewish Evangelism The year was 1980, the city was Pattaya, and the occasion was a Lausanne Consultation on World Evangelism-sponsored (LCWE, today known as the Lausanne Movement) conference that was focused on ‘reaching the unreached’. One of...