The following paper is the result and reflection of taking WM 684 Trends in Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell in 2014.
Global Mission in a Local Context:
What a Local Church Needs to Know about our Changing World?
Introduction
This paper looks at a subject in the trends in global Christianity with an intention to present the findings in my Sunday school, mission commitment, and the church toastmaster club. In part one, I will discuss what a local church needs to know about the Lausanne Movement. In order for “The whole Church taking the whole Gospel to the whole World”[1], every local church needs to know about the trends of global Christianity from 1970-2020. In part two, I will use the findings to explore how a local church can reorient itself to be a missional church and to engage with global mission. In other words, every local church needs to answer these three questions: What should we know about global mission? What does it mean to be a missional church? What can we do to make disciples in all people?
The most important event happening in modern day mission was the milestone gathering in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1974.[2] Every local church should know about the story of this exciting ecumenical movement of the mobilization of global mission. This year also marks the 40th Anniversary of the First International Congress on World Evangelization. So one of my goals for this research is to share with my local church, and to invite them to learn and celebrate the works of Lausanne by a series of Sunday school classes, praying for the future of the Lausanne Movement as well as our own involvement, and giving a symbolic gift of $40 as suggested by the Lausanne homepage.
Recapturing the vision from the Lausanne Movement in a Local Church
This is how the Lausanne movement begins. In 1966, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association partnered with America’s Christianity Today magazine sponsored the World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin. That gathering drew 1,200 delegates from over 100 countries, and inspired further conferences in Singapore (1968), Minneapolis and Bogotá (1969), and Australia (1971). Billy Graham saw the need for a larger, more diverse congress to re-frame Christian mission in a world of social, political, economic, and religious upheaval. He believed the Church had to apply the gospel to the contemporary world, and to work to understand the ideas and values behind rapid changes in society. Shortly hundreds of Christian leaders drawn from all continents and affirmed the need. They joined together to call for the First Lausanne Congress, and it was the most represented Christian gathering in the Church history since the World Missionary Conference in 1910 at Edinburgh.
On 16-25 July 1974, some 2,700 participants and guests from over 150 nations gathered in Lausanne, Switzerland. Billy Graham said this at the opening address, “Never before have so many representatives of so many evangelical Christian churches in so many nations and from so many tribal and language groups gathered to worship, pray, and plan together for world evangelization.”[3] Many delegates were stirred by what God was doing at different regions throughout the world. On the last day of the conference, Billy Graham and many church leaders publicly signed the covenant. The section of The Church and Evangelism declared their commitment to be the Church that will fulfill God’s redemptive purpose in the world:
“The Church is at the very centre of God’s cosmic purpose and is his appointed means of spreading the gospel. But a church which preaches the cross must itself be marked by the cross. It becomes a stumbling block to evangelism when it betrays the gospel or lacks a living faith in God, a genuine love for people, or scrupulous honesty in all things including promotion and finance.”[4]
After the first Lausanne, partakers brought the vision of world evangelization back to their local churches mobilizing mission works from everywhere to everywhere. The second major congress gathered in Manila, Philippines, July 1989. It drew 3,000 participants from 170 countries including Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, but sadly not China due to the Tiananmen Square event. The second Lausanne was the catalyst for over 300 partnerships and new initiatives in the developing world and elsewhere. Then the Third Lausanne Congress gathered in Cape Town, South Africa, October 2010. This time the goal was to re-stimulate the spirit of the Lausanne Covenant, and so to promote unity, humility in service, and a call to active global evangelization. 4,000 leaders from 198 countries attended as participants and observers, plus thousands more took part in seminaries, universities, churches, and through mission agencies and radio networks globally. The Lausanne Movement was planned to host a Younger Leaders Gathering in Kiev, Ukraine, this year 2014. However, given the unsettled political situation there, the congress decided to adjust the dates to the first half of 2016.
Besides recapturing what God has done through the Lausanne movement in the late twenty-century, the local church needs to understand what are the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of the three phrases in the Lausanne slogan, “the whole church, taking the whole gospel, to the whole world”.[5] The Lausanne Theology Working Group in co-operation with the WEA Theological Commission have hosted three consultations with over 60 participants in 2008, 2009, and 2010 to discuss what is the mission for the Church today in terms of biblical witness and our own context. It is important for church leaders to see the trend of global mission so they would have a better sense of where we are and where are going. In the next part, I will encapsulate the findings from the Lausanne and CSGC that are most salient to a local church for its vision and purpose.
Casting the Vision of “The whole Church taking the whole Gospel to the whole World” in a Local Church
The Lausanne Theology Working Group initiated the consultation with the theme “the whole gospel” because they recognize, “church is itself the product and demonstration of the gospel not merely its carrier. The gospel, as God’s good news in Jesus of Nazareth, is intimately tied to how we understand the mission of the church and our service and witness to the whole of creation.”[6] They offered six themes that were shaped around Paul used of the word “gospel”:
1. The gospel tells the story of Jesus in light of the whole Bible (1 Cor. 15:1-4; and Gal. 1:11-2:10).
2. The gospel creates a new reconciled humanity in the one family of God (Eph. 2:13-18).
3. The gospel proclaims the saving message of the cross and resurrection (Eph. 1:13; Col. 1:5, 23; 1 Thess. 2:13).
4. The gospel produces ethical transformation (Matt. 7:21-27; Lk. 11:28; Matt. 28:20; Jn. 14:23-24).
5. The gospel declares truth and exposes evil before God’s judgment (Gal. 1:6-9; 2:5, 14; Phil. 1:7, 27; 4:3; 1 Tim. 1:11; 2 Tim. 1:8; Phlm. 13).
6. The gospel is the cosmic power of God at work in history and creation (Col. 1:15-23).
The Center for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) interpreted those themes in global Christianity context in their 2013 report, Christianity in its Global Context, 1970–2020: Society, Religion, and Mission.[7] It supplemented an overview of the changing world and Christians’ activities from 1970 and looking forward to 2020. It offered three interpretive observations of what “the whole gospel” means demographically. The first message to the church is that the gospel needs to preach more rapidly. “The number of unevangelized individuals is estimated to have been 1.8 billion in 1970 (44.3% of the world’s population) rising in number to 2.0 billion by 2010 (but dropping to 29.3%), and expected to reach 2.2 billion by 2020 (29.0%).”[8] Therefore it tells us that the population growth will be continually outpacing evangelistic efforts. It means that one out of three persons at this moment and near future will never have a chance to hear the gospel. Every local church should be challenged by this staggering statistics and respond to it with a sense of urgency for the lost.
The second message to the Church is a call to serve the poor especially to children. “Between 2006 and 2009, 850 million people around the world still lived in hunger, 15.5% of the world’s population… progress has been slow in reducing child malnutrition. In 2010, nearly one in five children globally was underweight, including one third of the children in Southern Asia.”[9] The third message to the Church is to bring the gospel to the slums. “The Christian presence in slums is disproportionately small. Although 1 in 6 people globally lives in slums, it is estimated less than 1 out of 500 Christian missionaries works in slums. In addition, only a tiny fraction (perhaps 1 in 10,000) of national workers (such as pastors) work in slums in their own countries. ”[10] The body of Christ is called to love the children, the hungry, the poor and the oppressed. In order to fulfill this task, we need to recognize the missional identity, role, and functions of “the whole church”.
The church can only find its purpose in Christ who called us and created us as a people for himself and for the mission of God. The Lausanne Theology Working Group described the church around the four great terms used in the Nicene Creed, “We believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” became each one of them has a strong missional significance:
1. One- Paul sees the oneness of the church as the prophetic sign of that reconciled unity that will one day be true for all humanity and all creation in Christ (Eph. 1:10, 22-23; Col. 1:15-20).
2. Holy- We identified some of the following forms of idolatry that evangelical Christians often participate in, or find ways of condoning: consumerism or materialistic greed; nationalism or patriotism; violence; ethnic pride; selfishness; and gender injustice. In all such matters, we see the need for the church itself to seek repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation, and to pray for a more prophetic and missional holiness of life and witness.
3. Catholic- The word “catholic” in the creed speaks of the universal church – which is another meaning of “the whole church”. The church of God is universal in its membership, for it is open to people from any and every nation.
4. Apostolic- Historically: that the church is founded on the historic apostles of Jesus Christ. Their authorized witness to Christ, in word, deed and in the writings of the New Testament, along with their acceptance of the authority of the Old Testament scriptures, constitute the primary authoritative and final source of our ecclesiology; Doctrinally: that we are called to be faithful to the teaching of the apostles, by our submission to the authority of Scripture; and Missionally: that we are to carry forward the mission of the apostles in bearing witness to God’s saving work in Christ.
Again the CSGC has further explained the demographical side. Frist, they regarded “the whole church” with all Christian traditions— Anglicans, Independents, Marginals, Orthodox, Protestants, and Roman Catholics, consisting 2.3 billion people in 2010. “There were 18,800 Christian denominations in 1970, rising to 41,000 by 2010, expected to rise to 50,000 by 2020.”[11] Consequently, fragmentation will continue to be a major challenge for Evangelicals and other Christians. However, we have to remind ourselves, “The church is one”. Second, they track that the gravity of the church has shifted to the Global South. “In 1970, 41.3% of all Christians were from Africa, Asia, or Latin America. By 2020, this figure is expected to be 64.7%. Between 1970 and 2020, each of the six major Christian traditions is expected to grow more rapidly than the general population in the global South.”[12] Third, Renewalist and Evangelical movements are outgrowing other traditions. “Pentecostals, Charismatics, and Independent Charismatics have grown at nearly four times the growth rate of global Christianity. In 1970, Renewalists were 5.1% of all Christians, but by 2010 they had grown to 25.8%. Evangelicals have also grown from 98 million in 1970 to 300 million in 2010.”[13]
The final consultation of the Lausanne Working Group addressed the concept of “the whole world” with these six major themes:
1. In all this variety, Scripture speaks of “the world” in at least five major ways. “The world” can mean: the physical creation; the whole human race, including nations, languages and religions; the place of rebellion and opposition to God; the object of God’s love and the arena of God’s redemptive mission in history; and the new creation.
2. The biggest threat to creation in our world today is the idolatry of consumerism and materialism. The gospel lays an axe at the root of consumerism… Cape Town 2010 must call evangelicals to recognize afresh the biblical affirmation of God’s redemptive purpose for creation itself. Integral mission means discerning, proclaiming, and living out, the biblical truth that the gospel is God’s good news, through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for persons, and for society, and for creation.
3. First, because all human beings are made in God’s image and receive God’s general revelation, there will be some evidence of God’s revelatory work within the religious elements of any culture. But second, because all human beings are sinners, such revelation will also be distorted and darkened by our willful disobedience, and that too will take religious forms. And third, because Satan is also at work in the world, there will be elements of satanic deception and evil in all culturally embedded religions.
4. We live as broken and sinful people in a broken, sinful world. Our conference touched on several major areas where that brokenness intrudes: the negative effects of globalization; continuing global poverty and economic injustice; the challenges of population growth and the huge urban centers; the destruction of the natural environment and human-generated climate change that is already affecting the world’s poorest; the scourge of HIV-AIDS; the cultures of violence that pervade society from domestic to international levels; the threat of nuclear disaster; the dangers of terrorism and its underlying causes; and the stoking of ethnic and religious dividedness.
The Lausanne Theology Working Group concluded their reflection with five commitments as Christians called to live out our mission in a world of brokenness: (1) to proclaim in word and deed that care for creation is a gospel issue; (2) to open ourselves up to dialogue and friendship with those of other cultures; (3) to be aware of consumerism as an idolatry; (4) to share and participate in grass-roots efforts of peace and reconciliation in a world of so many types of violence; (5) and to be shaped into a community of mutual concern and responsibility for the well-being of the whole world and particularly for the most vulnerable.
As the Working Group suggested, “While we have merely scratched the surface of some vast and complex issues, we trust it is clear that if the whole church is to take the whole gospel to the whole world it needs to think in more than merely quantitative terms.”[14] In support of the Lausanne findings, CSGC accompanied updated figures and interpretative frameworks to show what “the whole world” is like today. First, they observed that the world is increasingly more religious. “In 1970, nearly 80% of the world’s population was religious. By 2010 this had grown to around 88%, with a projected increase to almost 90% by 2020. Religious adherence is growing largely due to the continuing resurgence of religion in China. In addition, in 1970 Christianity and Islam represented 48.8% of the global population; by 2020 they will likely represent 57.2%.”
Besides the growth of major religions, religious diversity will increase in many countries in the global North while Christianity continues to shift to the global South. The most critical issue to world evangelization is the lack of personal contact to the unreached peoples.[15] “81% of all non-Christians do not personally know a Christian. The countries in which there is least personal contact between non-Christians and Christians are overwhelmingly Muslim-majority countries. On a regional basis, only 10% of non-Christians in Western Asia are thought to have personal contact with a Christian.” It is important to know that despite some 40 years of emphasis on unreached people groups, many of them still have no missionary work among them today.[16]
These are only part of the critical issues happening in “the whole world” that a local church should know and educate its members in order to participate in the global mission. The remaining of the paper will focus on how a local church can reoriented itself to engage with global mission through living as a missionary church by making disciples of all people.
A Local Church as a Missional Agent through Spiritual Transformation
In A Call to Spiritual Reformation, D. A. Carson says:
“Two years ago at a major North American seminary, fifty students who were offering themselves for overseas ministry during the summer holidays were carefully interviewed so that their suitability could be assessed. Only three of these fifty—6 percent! —could testify to regular quiet times, times of reading the Scriptures, of devoting themselves to prayer. It would be painful and embarrassing to uncover the prayer life of many thousands of evangelical pastors.”[17]
In assessing the American way of understanding a local church, Eugene Peterson writes prophetically in Practice Resurrection, “‘An ontological understanding of church has to do with what it is, not what it does… The being-ness of church is what we are dealing with. Church is not something that we cobble together to do something for God.”[18] The ontological nature of the church needs to be understood from the missio Dei, in which “The concept of missio Dei (the mission of God) signifies the fact that the Triune God is the initiator and finisher of this mission (Latin, sending)”.[19] The Church is invited to participate in the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father to the world. In this vein, the being-ness of the church is the sent-ness of the church. Thus a missional church is a sent community.
Peterson draws implication from “supplications for all the saints” (Eph. 6:18) expounding on the priority of ministering to the lives in a local body, “Human relationships require alert and persevering maintenance. Begin with these saints, the people that in Christ you have most in common with, and then move outwards.”[20] There is not much missionary idea is found in Peterson’s writings. Yet, it does not mean that the concept is not there. His missionary concept is often subtle but it always starts from a specific locality. The way that I see Peterson’s pastoral ministry as missional is God’s mission always begins with a local place and a local people. When Jesus said, “Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49) he knew that only by the coming of the Holy Spirit will empower his disciples to be his witness from Jerusalem and to the rest of the world. Therefore, both the commission and mission went forth from Jerusalem and from there the disciples move outwards (cf. Acts 1:8). If a local church neglects our own “Jerusalem”, we will just talk about doing mission in Judea and Samaria without any base.
A local church exists for mission, the mission of God. Meanwhile, a local church also exists for discipleship, the gathering and sending of disciples. In Missional God, Missional Church: Hope for Re-evangelizing the West, Ross Hastings suggests that one of the purposes of a missional church is to cultivate the local community that spiritual charisma and character are joined together instead of being dichotomized. A missional church practices local evangelism that is carried out by “missioners” who are formed in Christ-likeness. He emphasizes that any ecclesial ministries should be oriented around this kind of spiritual and character formation so that every church members are equipped to participate in the mission of God in the world. In terms of discipleship Ross Hastings says, “The strategy of Jesus’ mission was to invest heavily in the transformation of a few. If our sent-ness is to reflect his, we will follow this strategy. Robert Coleman said this well when he suggested that ‘everything that is done with the few is for the salvation of the multitudes’” I absolutely agree with him that a missional church should not fall into the temptation of mass production and be succumbed to the one-size-fit-all mentality. Jesus chose a few and nurtured a few at a time. If we are called to be disciples of Jesus, we should be imitating his way of making disciples and focusing on quality over quantity.
While disciples are making in the church, they are called to be in the world but not of the world. In The Church Between Gospel and Culture, Douglas John Hall tells that disciples must live out their missional identity as salt and light by being disengaged from the dominant culture first and then re-engaged in it with a fresh understanding of the gospel. It is through disengagement that the church can create a distance from its surrounding culture and ask what it means to be out of the world and also in the world. To be disengaged from it is to be reengaged in it with new identity and mission. He names this act as “disengagement as a work of theology.”[21] Hall describes, “Disengagement from our status of cultural establishment is primarily, then, a work of theology. But whoever thinks that theology is a remote, abstract undertaking has not yet been grasped by the Word of the cross!”[22] A missional church is to be disengaged from culture first and then being sent back to the world by God. A sending church must first learn to be a sent community associated with the Sender. It is the Sender, our triune God, who defines the church as a sent community through which he accomplishes the redemptive purpose by his church. It is an act of God’s “called out”[23] for the church to be in the place of marginality. Only by then, the church is placed in a “solitary” place to question her own identity and mission once again in order for her to be on the move toward God’s mission.
Practical Issues In Local Mission
Now we understand that the local church exists for the mission of God beginning from the local community, and Jesus has demonstrated and commanded us the way of fulfilling God’s mission is through making disciples in all people. When it comes to the praxis of the Church in mission today, Scott Sunquist has suggested six contemporary questions for the local church as it lives into the missio Dei presence.[24] First, “How can we understand our local missional context?” The local church should analyze their community as its own mission field objectively from census and other data and subjectively through interaction with their neighbors. The purpose is to have a better understanding of the community’s:
1. Ethnic patterns (what groups live here and in which areas do they live?
2. Age patterns
3. Economic status of various groups
4. Communication and transportation lines
5. Educational level
6. Major institutions in the area
7. Economic patterns (manufacturing, service industries, etc.)
8. Religious beliefs and membership
The second question is, “Who are the immigrant groups in our social context, where are they from, and what does their social profile look like?” People are moving their ethnic boundaries today. Some are “moving up” because of greater economic or educational opportunities while some are “moving out” to escape famine or violence. The local church’s missional presence must response to the people God has brought into our midst. International students and immigrants are among the neediest people in our community. The local parishioners should be equipped to become oases of hospitality and strongest friends to welcome these foreigners into God’s. They are very dependent and lonely, struggling to learn the new language and culture. In fact, I experienced that and was invited to a church in my neighborhood.
The third question to be asked is, “Where are the poorest and neediest in our midst?” Sunquist rightly said, “Poverty and injustice should be like magnet north, turning the compass of our missional involvement in their direction.”[25] Ironically, the patterns of Americans lives make the poor and the oppressed invisible to us. I preached a sermon from Isaiah 61:1-3 in this semester, “Take the Gospel to the Poor”, and shared a subversive message to the relatively wealthy congregation about ten “advantages” of the poor over the rich described by Philip Yancey rightly:
· The poor know they are in urgent need of redemption
· The poor know not only their dependence on God and on powerful people but also their interdependence with one another.
· The poor rest their security not on things but on people.
· The poor have no exaggerated sense of their own importance and no exaggerated need of privacy
· The poor expect little from competition and much from cooperation
· The poor can distinguish between necessities and luxuries
· The poor can wait because they have acquired a kind of dogged patience born of acknowledge dependence.
· The fears of the poor are more realistic and less exaggerated because they already know that one can survive great suffering and want.
· When the poor have the gospel preached to them, it sounds like good news and not like a threat or a scolding.
· The poor can respond to the call of the gospel with a certain abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have so little to lose and are ready for anything.
The fourth question a local church should ask is, “Are there events and institutions that we need to establish in order to meet needs and serve our community?” I knew some churches have used their buildings to offer fee tutoring for children, language classes for immigrants, (my current church provides the Toastmaster club weekly for international students), computer literacy for the unemployed or seniors, and AA meetings for people with ongoing addiction problems. It is true that a local church can be a catalyst for community building as part of the cultural mandate or what Sunquist called, “full conversion of cultures.”[26]
The next one is a big question to ask to take leadership in community, “To what degree can the local church cooperate with people of other faiths in local mission and social ministry?” In many Western countries Christians are encouraged to cooperate in all mission with all people. Cooperation is essential to community outreach. Local churches can work cooperatively with other religions to provide basic health care, to maintain open dialogue between religious leaders, and to feed the poor. However, we need to rethink when our cooperation becomes compromising in cases like girls are given free birth control or abortions, or end-of-life issues are handled in a mechanistic fashion.
The last question that a local church should ask is, “What is the role of the laity in mission, and how can the clergy enhance and promote lay missional involvement?” The example that Sunquist gave about the over sixty different nationalities represented church in Queens, New York, was incredible. The Pastor, Pete Scazzero, did an extended study on the role of the laity and the meaning of mission in their local church, and responded with a very creative idea. He initiated “Full-Time Ministry I.D.” for every member in his church to carry as a reminder of his or her own identity and responsibility in God’s mission. The card reads[27]:
“This certifies that I am a full-time minister (i.e., servant) of Jesus Christ. Out of receiving the love of God, I am called to:
1. Offer a sincere gift of self
2. Create and shape
3. Build community , and
4. Push back the powers of evil, at work, church, family, neighborhood, and wherever I go.”
Introduced in a series of sermons on the meaning of being a missional presence in all areas of life, Pete began to encourage members to give testimonies of their lives in the marketplace as “full-time ministers.” I absolutely agree that this is a great model to promote lay mission involvement when everyone in the church see themselves as uniquely gifted and called by God to their neighborhood.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have attempted to answer this question, “What a local church needs to know about our changing world?” In part one, I recaptured the salient stories of the Lausanne Movement, and casted the vision of “The whole Church taking the whole Gospel to the whole World” for a local church context by highlighting the reflection and the report from the Lausanne Theology Working Group and CSGC. In part two, I explored the meaning of the local church as a missional agent through spiritual transformation, local evangelism, and making disciples of all people. I anticipated to bring the findings and suggestions of this paper to my local church for further discussion, and to design Sunday school curriculum on global mission and plan for action.
Bibliography
In the section of the Lausanne Movement:
The Lausanne Covenant, edited by John Stott, the First International Congress on World Evangelization, Lausanne Switzerland, 1974.
“About the Lausanne Movement.” Accessed in December 2014. http://72.249.167.175/en/about.html.
“Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the First International Congress on World Evangelization.” Accessed December 2014. http://72.249.167.175/en/home-hidden/92-communications/lausanne-blog/2276-40th-anniversary-of-the-first-international-congress.html.
“Reflections of the Lausanne Theology Working Group” Accessed December 2014. http://72.249.167.175/en/connect/regions/europe/170-documents/cape-town-2010/1194-twg-three-wholes-condensed.html.
Zurlo, Gina. “Highlights from Christianity in its Global Context, 1970–2020: Society, Religion, and Mission.” Presented at the Lausanne Global Leadership Forum, Bangalore, India, June 17, 2013.
In the section of Local Church:
Carson, D. A. A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Reprint edition. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 1992.
Lam, Wing. “The Being-Ness of Church.” Discipleship Letter 119, July 9, 2013.
http://discipleshipletter.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-being-ness-of-church.html.
Hall, Douglas John. “Ecclesia Crucis: The Theologic of Christian Awkwardness,” in The Church Between Gospel and Culture, edited by George R. Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.
Peterson, Eugene H. Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ. Reprint edition. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013.
Scazzero, Pete. “Offering a Sincere Gift of Self”. Accessed in December 2014. http://newlifefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Offering-a-Sincere-Gift-of-Self.pdf. Sunquist, Scott W. Understanding Christian Mission: Participation in Suffering and Glory. Baker Academic, 2013.
[1] This statement is found in The Lausanne Covenant, section 6, 1974. John Stott chaired the drafting committee and is best described as its chief architect. This was to be a Covenant with God, publicly declared, and a Covenant with one another; it has proved to be one of most widely-used documents in modern church history.
[3] “Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the First International Congress on World Evangelization.” Accessed December 2014. http://72.249.167.175/en/home-hidden/92-communications/lausanne-blog/2276-40th-anniversary-of-the-first-international-congress.html.
[4] “The Lausanne Covenant.” Section 6. The Church and Evangelism. Accessed December 2014. http://72.249.167.175/en/documents/lausanne-covenant.html.
[5] “Reflections of the Lausanne Theology Working Group” Accessed December 2014. http://72.249.167.175/en/connect/regions/europe/170-documents/cape-town-2010/1194-twg-three-wholes-condensed.html.
[6] Ibid., Part I “The Whole Gospel”.
[7] Zurlo, Gina. “Highlights from Christianity in its Global Context, 1970–2020: Society, Religion, and Mission.” Presented at the Lausanne Global Leadership Forum, Bangalore, India, June 17, 2013.
[8] Ibid., 2.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid., 1.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] “Reflections of the Lausanne Theology Working Group.” Epilogue.
[15] “A people group was considered “unreached” if there was no indigenous Christian community within it capable of carrying on the task of evangelization and church planting without outside assistance”, Christianity in its Global Context, p. 80.
[16] CSGC used their own method to divide each country into ethnolinguistic groups and to measure 20 different ways of evangelizing, and found 13,461 people groups in 2010. Of those, 4,402 (32.7%)
were classified as least-evangelized (less than 50% evangelized) peoples in 2010.
[17] D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers, Reprint edition (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 1992), 17.
[18] Eugene H. Peterson, In Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 118-119.
[19] Wing Lam, “The Being-Ness of Church.” Discipleship Letter 119, July 9, 2013. http://discipleshipletter.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-being-ness-of-church.html.
[21] Douglas John Hall, “Ecclesia Crucis: The Theologic of Christian Awkwardness,” in The Church Between Gospel and Culture, edited by George R. Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), pp. 198-203.
[24] Scott W. Sunquist, Understanding Christian Mission: Participation in Suffering and Glory (Baker Academic, 2013), 304–310.
[26] Ibid., 307.
[27] Pete Scazzero. “Offering a Sincere Gift of Self”. Accessed in December 2014. http://newlifefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Offering-a-Sincere-Gift-of-Self.pdf.
