By the grace of God, The Lausanne Movement has affirmed its commitment to serving the global body of Christ as a catalyst for world evangelization by:
- Investing in the lives of Christian leaders around the world who are “reflective practitioners”, including younger leaders, leaders who are women, oral preference leaders and non-Internet connected leaders;
- Connecting and convening global Christian leaders for focused discussion, prayer and strategic action related to the issues before the Church and God’s world; and
- Communicating ideas, strategy and action on important mission and evangelization topics.
Digital Communications
In order to maximize communications resources, Lausanne is focusing on digital communications. Our digital outreach includes the Lausanne website which offers information on the Movement as well as past, present and future Lausanne gatherings and subsequent resources such as books and videos produced from these gatherings. Since Cape Town 2010, the Lausanne website has been updated and is being expanded to serve the Movement in this new season. Lausanne is also increasing access to non-English content online through native-speaker translation, automated translation of materials and the development of regionally-hosted, language-specific Lausanne websites. Read more.
In the months leading up to Cape Town 2010, Congress participants and Christians around the world prepared for the gathering by reading and interacting around articles, blogs and the Cape Town 2010 Advance Papers on the Lausanne Global Conversation (LGC). Together, the Church prepared for Cape Town.
Following the Congress, over 200 videos of the plenary and multiplex sessions were freely made available through the LGC. In total, these videos have been watched over 1.5 million times by people from 209 countries and territories worldwide, and that number grows daily. Beyond the Congress videos, the Lausanne Global Conversation is bringing the Movement together. Leaders have returned to their home countries and Lausanne’s web-based communications tools are facilitating collaboration across geographic boundaries.
With The Cape Town Commitment (CTC) as the guide for The Lausanne Movement going forward, we are focusing our online Communications efforts around the Commitment. The LGC is now organized by the CTC topics. Senior leaders are being commissioned to help guide the Movement in each of these topical areas by sharing blogs, articles, and videos as part of the discussions.
We’re also focusing more heavily on multimedia content and integrating more closely with social media sites. Lausanne provides a monthly enewsletter and a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter and is seeking to expand into other digital media platforms as funding becomes available. In addition, we have launched a mobile version of Lausanne.org as we continue our efforts to made Lausanne’s wealth of online resources as widely accessible as possible.
Non-Internet Connected Leaders
According to Internet World Stats (March 2011) more than 50% of people in North America (78.4%), Oceania (60.1%) and Europe (58.3%) have access to the Internet. However these statics also show that less than 40% of people in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America/Caribbean have that same access to the Internet. While Lausanne provides a significant amount of resources online, we are also committed to providing resources that reach non-Internet connected leaders. Please be praying with us as the strategy to meet this need is developed.
Regional Communications
Lausanne is appointing part time Regional Communications Managers in each of the 12 regions of the world to develop region-specific Communications strategies to increase awareness of global mission/evangelization issues and The Lausanne Movement. These strategies will be customized region by region to include culturally appropriate communication avenues and messages. The Managers will also generate stories and articles on national/regional mission and evangelization issues and activities and provide Communications support for the work of the Lausanne International Deputy Directors.
Lausanne Global Analysis
Important to the development of good Communication strategy is reliable information. During 2012, the plan is to launch The Lausanne Global Analysis:
“The Lausanne Global Analysis delivers strategic and credible information, commentary and insight from an international network of evangelical analysts so that global Christian leaders will be equipped to address the issues impacting world evangelization.”
Currently the idea is that the LGA will be written by teams of evangelical Christian researchers in research centers around the world. They would be tasked with providing a monthly (2012), bi-weekly (2013) and then weekly (2014), report on socio-cultural, political, economic and religious events globally along with analysis of how these events and actions impact the body of Christ and the spread of the gospel. These reports will provide the solid, credible information leaders need to pray, plan and work together to share Christ more effectively. It’s our hope that the LGA will be freely distributed as widely as possible online on Lausanne.org, through social media and in print (possibly with the help of our Lausanne Regional Communications Managers). Read Darrell’s Jackson’s article.
In this exciting season of progress for world evangelization and Lausanne, we’re working to keep our communications platforms in step with the growth of the Movement. We invite you to participate in the Lausanne Global Conversation, stay connected through the Lausanne website, sign up for the Lausanne Connecting Point ENewsletter and follow the Movement on Twitter (@lcwe and @capetown2010) and Facebook.
Let’s pray, plan, work – and talk – together so that many more people – young, old, male, female, in every area of society – will have the opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ and come to know him as personal Savior and Lord – to God be the Glory!
This article was published as part of the Anniversary reflections one year after Cape Town 2010: The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization.