In July of 1974, more than 2,300 evangelical leaders from 150 countries gathered in the hilly city of Lausanne (loh-ZAN) situated on the shores of Lake Geneva and surrounded by the cascading Jura Mountains and Swiss Alps. The gathering was called by a committee headed by Reverend Billy Graham and produced The Lausanne Covenant, a declaration that defines and encourages the responsibility of all God’s people to “permeate non-Christian society” with the good news of Jesus Christ and “for the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world,” beginning the first collaborative International Congress on World Evangelization.
The theme of that congress was “Let The Earth Hear His Voice” and it is where Dr. Ralph Winter was invited to speak about cross-cultural evangelism as the highest priority. About the same time in another splendid display of collaboration, Dr. Winter as an experienced missionary partnered with the vision of a younger missionary friend named Steven Hawthorne. Together they produced and edited the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement reader and launched the Perspectives global program to challenge believers to gain a biblical worldview perspective for strategic engagement in God’s plan for the nations.
Traces of the impact of Perspectives of the World Christian Movement can be found in the lives of many believers and sparked influential student movements within Urbana, InterVarsity, Campus Crusades, the Navigators, and YWAM (Youth With A Mission). Simply Mobilizing’s history also traces its roots back to the Perspectives course beginning with a contextualized course called Kairos that was initiated in the Philippines and used concepts from Jonathan Lewis’ ‘World Mission’ book, an author featured in the Perspectives reader who categorized and included articles from Perspectives into his book. The World Mission book also inspired the development of ‘Pathways to Global Understanding,’ a popular course from Arizona developed by Meg Crossman, another featured author in both the Perspectives and Kairos readers. Further adding to the family tree of level-one mobilization and increasing access to everyday Christians needing worldview change.
The contextualization of the Kairos course has now multiplied in over a hundred countries and Simply Mobilizing International continues to produce an array of mobilization courses to empower the global church to help transform every believer into meaningful participation as a global Christian wherever God has placed them in service for the Kingdom of God.
This month, both Lausanne and Perspectives celebrate their 50th anniversary, and we celebrate with them for their trailblazing efforts that helped launch a global mobilization movement, including our own. Next week, July 17-20th, Perspectives is hosting its Momentum Global Conference at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Join us in praying for their conference leaders, speakers, tech, and attendees traveling to this event and anticipate with them a move of God for clarity on a more collaborative vision for the future.
The fourth Lausanne Congress will gather this September 22-28 in South Korea to renew their commitment to collaborative action and call the global body of Christ to "stand as one to declare and display Christ together". Let’s pray for the specifics of that gathering as they cast vision for the next 25 years.
Mobilization has always been rooted in collaborative unity, partnership and a vision to bridge the gap between senior leaders and the raising up of next-generation leaders called to take on the task. The earth continues to need to hear his voice now more than ever and the mobilization of every believer is the means to accomplish the Great Commission so that the end will come.
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