I’m so pleased to introduce to you Lausanne’s 17 new Senior Associates. Alongside our current Senior Associates, they will be co-leading the following Issue Networks:
- Uday Balasundaram: Arts
- João Mordomo: Business as Mission
- Jo Plummer: Business as Mission
- Gladys Mwiti: Care and Counsel as Mission
- Adnan Azhar Sandhu: Evangelism among Children
- Martha Mwendafilumba: Health in Mission
- John Mathew: Hinduism
- Manfred Kohl: Integrity and Anti-Corruption
- Moyra Dale: Islam
- Bodil Skjøtt: Jewish Evangelism
- Rudolf Kabutz: Media Engagement
- William Coppedge: Orality
- Kehinde Ojo: Resource Mobilization
- Barbara Shantz: Resource Mobilization
- Mariam Varghese: Scripture Engagement
- Kristina Alikhanyan: Tentmaking
- Mirka Peña: Tentmaking
Nine of the new Senior Associates are women. They come from the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, Eurasia, South Asia, the South Pacific, Europe, and North America. Some have served decades in the Middle East, or Southeast Asia, or East Asia. And each of them brings rich experience, broad relationships, and keen insights to their focus area.
Each Lausanne Senior Associate leads, co-leads, or is building a global network focused on one of the 30+ key issues and related Calls to Action in The Cape Town Commitment. They address critical challenges and opportunities in global mission highlighted at the Cape Town 2010 Congress.
They are connectors—linking evangelical influencers from different regions of the world who have biblical insights, fresh ideas, promising models, helpful experience, and access to different sectors of society relevant to their issue.
They are catalysts—providing the place, the opportunity, the context, the online conversation, the creative spark, the clarion call that enables leaders to start conversations and plan collaborative endeavors to translate biblical and strategic insights into kingdom-centered action.
They are content creators—through their writings in blogs, articles or books, or through their presentations in video or PowerPoint, or through the papers and publications that come from the meetings and conferences they convene, they add to the growing body of Lausanne Content. They provide theologically grounded and practically tested insights and models for the global church.
The first Lausanne Senior Associates were appointed in the early 1980’s—Ray Bakke for Cities (a role currently held by Mac Pier of the New York City Center for Leadership) and Peter Brierley for Church Research (who has continued to serve faithfully for more than 30 years, and was one of the key people involved in the revitalization of the Lausanne Movement early in the new millennium).
Nearly all of the Senior Associates, including those newly appointed, will be serving as workshop leaders and mentors at the upcoming Younger Leaders Gathering. We celebrate their addition to the team, and look forward to the continuing expanding reach of the Issue Networks.