What does Billy Graham have to do with Strategy?
When Billy Graham took to the podium at the Lausanne Congress in 1974, he addressed the question ‘Why Lausanne?’ In conclusion, his summary was ‘That the earth may hear His voice.’ That’s not a strategy. That’s the objective. That is where our strategy should lead us.
That the earth may hear His voice.
During the speech, Dr. Graham did not lay out a specific strategy. Yet he did speak about a strategy. ‘Our evangelistic strategy should be formed in view of this actual situation [which the data reveals].’ He was looking for a strategy grounded in the reality of our current world.
His speech does not give us this strategy. Yet careful listening (or reading) will yield insights that, together, build into a blueprint for a global evangelistic strategy. For instance, Graham states that, ‘The whole Church must be mobilized to take the whole Gospel to the whole world.’ From this, we can judge, for instance, that a good strategy will address the church rather than just target mission agencies. I will draw more from this important statement later.
I will dwell at length on Billy Graham’s masterful reconciliations and on the way he outlines the strategic information that we will need to support any credible strategy. Finally, I will share a specific example of a global strategy developed by a Lausanne Collaborative Action Team since April 2024. And I will ask, is there a better one out there—one that is more in tune with Billy Graham’s concerns?
Billy Graham and Reconciliation
Many of us know that Billy Graham’s lifelong passion was to see people reconciled to God. That is the great reconciliation that God has committed to us (2 Cor 5:19). Yet in his seminal speech, he also advances many smaller but significant reconciliations. In each of these, he does not take one side or the other. He does not strain for balance, advocating a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Time after time, he reconciles concepts and groups, showing his audience how they truly can fit together and complement one another. He does this always with that greater reconciliation in view—to reconcile people to God.
Dr. Graham reconciles church with church. He pays tribute both to ‘older churches’ and to ‘younger churches’ present at the congress. He notes ‘tremendous developments’ in the church taking place in the Roman Catholic world, among ecumenical leaders, in the Charismatic movement, the Jesus Revolution, and in the Southern Baptist Convention.
He reconciles church with mission and evangelism. He states boldly his belief that ‘The primary mission of the church is to declare the Good News of Jesus Christ.’ Yet he also acknowledges the validity of much else: ‘Now we are enthusiastic’ he says, ‘about all of the many things churches properly do, from worship to social concern. But our calling is to a specific sector of the Church’s responsibility—evangelism.’ In this way he positions his passion and calling to ‘a specific sector’ of the church, not the whole.
While some say that our focus should be exclusively on the unreached, Graham notes that, ‘In the last quarter of the twentieth century, the unevangelized world consists of two main blocs of people. First, are the superficially Christian populations. If you ask them their religion, they more than likely reply, “Christian,” but they do not personally know Christ. Second, the “unevangelized world” consists of large “unreached” populations which can be found in almost every country.’ He spends more time on the unreached (a relatively new concept at the time) than on the ‘superficially Christian’, and he implies that we need to expend more energy on the unreached. But he does not neglect the need to evangelize the cultural Christians.
Billy Graham reconciles near-neighbour evangelism with cross-cultural, lifelong mission. I was surprised to hear that ‘near-neighbor evangelism’ was a term in wide use in 1974. And from what Graham says, it sounds as if it was being promoted as the only thing we needed to do. ‘While some people can be evangelized by their neighbors, . . . To build our evangelistic policies on “near neighbor” evangelism alone is to shut out at least a billion from any possibility of knowing the Savior. Churches of every land, therefore, must deliberately send out evangelists and missionaries to master other languages, learn other cultures, live in them perhaps for life, and thus evangelize these multitudes.’
He spends a good part of his speech reconciling the proclamation of the gospel with social action. There is no doubt that his own emphasis lies with evangelism, but he is nevertheless strong about the need for social action.
‘Historically, evangelicals have changed society, influencing men everywhere in the battle against slavery and in the quest for social justice. We should be proud of this tradition. At the same time, we must squarely face the challenges of our own age. We must be sensitive to human need wherever it is found. . . . the evangelist cannot ignore social injustice. . . . I trust we can state what the relationship is between evangelism and social responsibility. Let us rejoice in social action, and yet insist that it alone is not evangelism and cannot be substituted for evangelism.’
Later, in a single sentence, he reconciles prayer, discussion, planning, and action—all under the sovereignty of God. ‘Therefore, we are met to pray, talk, plan and—please God—to advance the work of evangelism.’ How often I still hear some of these denigrated in favour of others!
God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and he has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. Let us not fight detrimental battles for our particular group or concept.
Yes: Proclamation Evangelism can be reconciled with Creation Care.
Yes: The priority to disciple the Least Reached Peoples can be reconciled with our struggle for Freedom and Justice.
Some of us wave our little torch of revelation as if it were the whole sweep of divine truth. At one point, Billy Graham even goes so far as to say, ‘Even at this hour, there are scores of different methods of evangelism being effectively used. The method we use may be among the least effective.’ Let’s take courage from his reconciling humility and ask ourselves, ‘How does the ministry and revelation that God has given me fit in with the other ministries and revelation that God has given to others?’
‘How does the ministry and revelation that God has given me fit in with the other ministries and revelation that God has given to others?’
The lesson for strategy is that it must be similarly generous. It cannot set one concept up against others. It must make room for all. If our strategy does not actively reconcile concepts in the same way as Billy Graham, at least it must not be another stumbling block to such reconciliation.
Yet does Dr. Graham advocate that we can take forward the work of world evangelization with all Roman Catholics, or all ecumenicals, or all Charismatics, or all in the Southern Baptist Convention? No, he does not. He reaches back to ‘the missionary and evangelistic movements of the last century’ for an understanding of what drives us. And he re-emphasizes ‘those biblical concepts which are essential to evangelism’. This has important implications for the data on which we base any strategy.
Billy Graham, Bebbington, and Strategic Information
How do you start developing a strategy?
Billy Graham lays out the basis: ‘Fourthly, this Congress convenes to consider honestly and carefully both the unevangelized world and the Church’s resources to evangelize the world. . . . We must evangelize in “the world” which this data reveals.’
Dr. Graham knows that strategy development begins with an ‘honest and careful’ examination of data.
How can we consider both ‘the unevangelized world’ and ‘the church’s resources to evangelize’? What is the ‘data’ that truly ‘reveals’ the world Graham speaks about? How can we grasp ‘this actual situation’ at a global level in a way that genuinely supports evangelistic strategy?
We cannot formulate strategy based on wishful thinking, historical momentum, or donor comfort. A map alone won’t help us—otherwise, we might give more of our attention to the Sahara Desert than to India. So what is the basic, irreducible data without which we have nothing worth considering, without which we have no strategic information?
The first and most essential number is population. It is surprisingly accessible. Many secular experts devote themselves to studying it. Since the work of evangelism concerns the reconciliation of human beings, we must know where people are and how many there are. For instance, is it reasonable to seek 1,000 disciples in an area of 100 people? Probably not—unless we plan to pray for natural fertility as well. But if the population is 1,000,000, then maybe our ambition for 100 is too small. At the global level, knowing that Asia has more precious souls than all the other continents combined is fundamental to any global strategy.
Generally, we can depend on governments and the UN for reliable population figures, and our global mission databases rest heavily on them (we do have to work rather harder to determine the population of some people groups).
However, the second key number is far more difficult to obtain, and it is rarely of interest to the world. To consider the ‘unevangelized world’, we need to know where there are few men and women full of the Holy Spirit and faith (Acts 11:24). No other measure captures what we need.
Likewise, if we want to assess ‘the church’s resources to evangelize’, we might count theological institutions or measure the church’s wealth. These have value, but once again, the only essential resource is men and women full of the Holy Spirit and faith. God has entrusted the ministry of reconciliation to people!
Furthermore, Billy Graham’s analysis does not allow for counting self-identifying Christians. He pointed to ‘superficial Christians’ as one of the two major blocs requiring evangelism. Nor does his analysis permit counting denominations or traditions that happen to identify themselves with the problematic label ‘evangelical’. Graham reaches instead for a description of people who could genuinely form ‘the church’s resources to evangelize’.
Twice in his speech, Dr. Graham turns to this point. What kind of people have historically led evangelistic advances? Reflecting on missionary movements of the 1800s, he identifies four characteristics:
- They were based on the authority of Scripture.
- They had a definite view of salvation, taking humanity’s lostness seriously and the need for redemption.
- They believed in conversion through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit.
- They saw evangelism as an imperative and were preoccupied with obedience.
Later in the speech, he explains one of the fundamental reasons for calling the Lausanne Congress: to reaffirm ‘concepts which we believe to be essential to true evangelism’. These he lists as:
- The authority of Scripture: the entire Bible as the infallible Word of God.
- The lostness of man: if men are lost, then lifting up a saving Christ is our highest priority.
- Salvation in Christ alone: the narrowness of the gospel, unpopular but essential.
- Witness by word and deed: our lives must reflect the truths we proclaim.
These four emphases correspond closely to Bebbington’s Quadrilateral1, which has become the academic world’s most referenced definition of evangelical identity:
- Biblicism—a particular regard for the Bible
- Crucicentrism—a focus on the atoning work of Christ
- Conversionism—the belief that human beings need to be converted
- Activism—the conviction that the gospel must be expressed in action
Each of these appears in Billy Graham’s analysis—both in his description of earlier missionary movements and in his summary of essential biblical concepts. Yet Bebbington did not publish his quadrilateral until 1989, fifteen years after this speech. So we can say it the other way around: Bebbington’s framework echoes Graham’s foundational insights for the Lausanne Movement.
Why does this matter? Because we need information—true, strategic information—on which to base evangelistic strategy.
I return to Dr. Graham’s key statement: ‘We must evangelize in “the world” which this data reveals.’ Part of this data is population; part is the number of evangelical Christians, as understood through the convictions articulated by Graham and later described by Bebbington. We cannot define ourselves merely by the problematic label ‘evangelical’, nor by formal allegiance to particular denominations or bodies. For an ‘evangelistic strategy’, we must be defined by the fundamentals of our belief and practice.
These four fundamentals matter profoundly:
- If we do not believe the Bible, we have no message with which to evangelize.
- If we do not believe people are lost without the work of Christ on the cross, we have no need to evangelize.
- If we do not know the power of conversion, we have no motivation to evangelize.
- If we do not act on these beliefs with activism, we have no commitment to evangelize.
Since 1974, Operation World and Joshua Project have become the leading custodians of the data that matches these strategic requirements most closely. They deserve more recognition and greater support for the precious responsibility that they carry. And we should make far better use of their data when shaping evangelistic strategy.
Without a good count, we either have no strategy or a bad one. Without a good count, we do not know where the harvest is plentiful or where the workers are few (Matthew 9:37). And without such a count, I would even say we cannot direct our prayers as effectively as we could.
In God’s World to Win, Johnstone describes using ‘the definition of Evangelicals which emerged from the Lausanne Movement’2 in Operation World.
Counting evangelicals in this way is difficult, and we are not investing enough resources in it. But along with population, this data is fundamental to any attempt at strategy. Without a good count, we either have no strategy or a bad one. Without a good count, we do not know where the harvest is plentiful or where the workers are few (Matthew 9:37). And without such a count, I would even say we cannot direct our prayers as effectively as we could.
What sort of strategy could we develop with this kind of genuinely strategic information?
Billy Graham and Strategy
Global Strategy must Orientate the Whole Church towards the Whole World
‘The whole Church must be mobilized to take the whole Gospel to the whole world. This is our calling. These are our orders.’ Any truly global strategy must embrace the whole church and the whole world. This is challenging. The slogan itself does not get us there. A single priority, or even a single global set of priorities, does not get us there, especially not in our polycentric world.
A good strategy should leave no human or spiritual need off the agenda and leave no part of the global church in doubt about its place in the global work. A good strategy may prioritize, but it must not prioritize anything to the exclusion of the rest—especially no part of the world, no part of the church, and no part of Christ’s commission to us. In short, such a strategy must be a platform for reconciling many seemingly different concepts… as Billy Graham’s speech does.
But there is a conundrum: we cannot direct every part of the church to take the gospel to every part of the world. That would be absurd. I will return to this when we see how one Collaborative Action Team has tackled it.
Both Needs and Resources
The development of strategy begins with the ‘honest and careful’ examination of data, which Dr. Graham advocates.
There is evidence in Graham’s speech that he had listened to his own advice to consider both needs and resources. He starts with resources as he surveys the state of the church in his day. He identifies key hot spots of evangelical faith. In Asia, he lists Korea, North-East India, and Papua New Guinea. Then, with a larger sweep, he identifies Latin America, North America, and Africa south of the Sahara. If only we had taken this simple review fully into account in the last 50 years! Of those six areas, four have continued to be viewed by most of the church and much of the missions community as needy mission fields. Only Korea and North America have yet been given full credit for their potential as part of our ‘resources to evangelize’ the world.
Then, at a similar high level, he surveys the ‘unevangelised world’, identifying two main blocs in his day—the ‘superficially Christian’ and ‘the unreached’.
A Strategy for Sending
The Strategic Sending Team (a CAT or Collaborative Action Team) has been working on a global strategy since April 2024. We use population data and the best available data on evangelical Christians. Our plan reconciles church with mission, near-neighbour evangelism with distant cross-cultural mission, and the ‘unreached’ with the ‘superficially Christian’.
As Nehemiah divided the Jews and the wall to accelerate the rebuilding, so Strategic Sending divides up the church and the world to accelerate global mission.
We embrace and celebrate the need for the whole church to bring the whole gospel to the whole world. But how do we tackle the problem that we cannot direct every part of the church to take the gospel to every part of the world? How did Nehemiah tackle the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls? He needed the entire Jewish community to rebuild the entire wall. But must every Jew rebuild every part of the wall? No. Nehemiah divided up the wall (the need), and he divided up the Jews (his resources) based on their existing relationships. Then he allocated each section of resource (the Jews) to each section of the need (the wall). So, in Nehemiah chapter 3, we read that all 41 parts of the wall had a work party and all 41 work parties had a place to work.
As Nehemiah divided the Jews and the wall to accelerate the rebuilding, so Strategic Sending divides up the church and the world to accelerate global mission. We use the best estimates of the current distribution of the needs of the world and the resources of the church. We recommend that each local church focus its prayer and sending on just a small portion of those needs, yet the aggregate effect is that the whole church prays for and sends to the whole world.
An Invitation to Think Strategically
Is there another global strategy, in practice or in development, that might match Billy Graham’s criteria? A strategy:
- With the potential to reconcile different agendas
- Based on the facts about the world as it is—both need and resource
- Taking a strategic view of evangelical faith
- Encouraging the whole church towards the whole world
If so, we want to hear of it and learn how Strategic Sending can work alongside, or even yield to it. Let us know at strategicsending@gmail.com.
Meanwhile, huge swathes of the unevangelised are still ignored by huge parts of the church, which have yet to be mobilized. In Billy Graham’s words, ‘The whole Church must be mobilized to take the whole Gospel to the whole world.’ The task remains.
Check out Strategic Sending at StrategicSending.com and ask God how it fits with your ministry.
Endnotes
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_W._Bebbington.
- Patrick Johnstone, God’s World to Win. (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Publishing, 2026),169.