You’ve probably noticed that we’ve launched a new website! It’s a big step forward for us, as a clear, easily accessible online presence is an important part of our work in connecting influencers and ideas for global mission. I’m particularly grateful to the team of volunteers and staff from six continents who put in hundreds of hours to get us to this point.
I’d like to highlight some of the new features and sections:
- Content—All of the substantive content from the Movement is now in one place. No more wondering where to find a paper or video—it’s all in the content library, with filters and a search box to quickly get to what you’re looking for. Dig up the 1978 paper on Gospel and Culture that continues to influence missions in Sri Lanka today. Hear Billy Graham’s voice of conviction in the audio recording of his opening address at the 1974 Lausanne Congress. The content library has so many rich resources to explore.
- Networks—In this section, we highlight the vital work of our 36 global issue networks and 12 geographical regions. Each network is led by a Senior Associate and is engaged in a pressing issue related to global mission. The creation care network asks the provoking question, ‘Is the environment a gospel issue?’ The network for the study of global Christianity will tell you that 86% of all Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists do not personally know a Christian. And the orality network provides the astonishing statistic that 5.7 billion people in the world prefer to be oral learners. Each of the 12 regions is led by an International Deputy Director, who provides discernment on how the issues are being adopted and contextualized in their area. The region pages also give insight on what God is doing in specific places around the world. I urge you to spend some time in these pages. Find out why each issue poses both a critical challenge and opportunity to the church today, and ask God how he might be leading you to respond.
- Global Leadership—Gone are the static lists of names! Welcome to the faces of leaders of the Movement, representing a glimpse of the many beautiful diversities in the global church. Our leaders are diverse in age, in cultural and lingual backgrounds, in geographical location, in denominational affiliation, in ministry experiences—yet brought together with a shared commitment to God’s global mission.
- Lausanne Global Analysis—Our flagship publication has a new responsive design and layout to make the content accessible in various reading experiences. Enjoy it on your mobile device or download it as a PDF for offline viewing/printing. If you only connect with Lausanne in one way, I’d suggest the LGA, available bimonthly in five languages. (Enter your email at the bottom of the page to subscribe)
- More than English—Dozens of volunteer translators have joined our newly formed translation teams and will soon be launching Lausanne.org in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean (with Russian and Chinese soon to follow).
We praise God for bringing us to this important milestone! But this milestone is about much more than a new website. It marks the start of a new way to communicate about and understand the Lausanne Movement.
18 months ago when I started this exciting journey of leading the Lausanne Movement, a single word was on my heart as I prayed. Stewardship. More than anything, I wanted to be a faithful steward of this calling from the Lord and a faithful steward of the amazing legacy of the Lord’s work in and through the Lausanne Movement.
And toward such stewardship, one of my top priorities was to seek the Lord’s guidance on how to communicate and articulate the distinct blessing of Lausanne to a new generation that may know little to nothing about Lausanne, but perhaps knows much and cares very much about its fruit and mission.
Simply stated, our calling in God’s mission, the way in which God has called the Lausanne Movement to be a blessing to the world, is connecting influencers and ideas for global mission. Our new ‘About’ section and a two-minute video help to unpack this statement further.
With this new articulation, the identity of the Lausanne Movement has not changed; however, we hope to bring clarity both to Lausanne leaders who want to be faithful stewards of the calling God has entrusted to them in the Movement and to those seeking to understand more about God’s work through Lausanne over the past 40 years.
The statement ‘connecting influencers and ideas for global mission’ and the clearer understanding about Lausanne’s calling in God’s mission developed out of an eight-month prayer-filled process of getting input both deeply and widely in the Movement. It included one-on-one interviews with more than 50 core present and past leaders; hours of input from Board members, Working Groups, International Deputy Directors, and Senior Associates; and a web-based survey that engaged more than 800 global leaders from the broader Movement. The input revealed strong degrees of consensus across generations and world regions about the new language.
It’s particularly significant that we are launching this milestone in our communications this year, as we celebrate another important milestone in the Movement’s history, our 40th anniversary. We thank God for all the ways in which he has used the Lausanne Movement to advance his cause and his glory the past 40 years, and we humbly ask the Lord to continue to use us in the decades to come.