TREVIN WAX  |  APRIL 25, 2024 

This September, 5,000 participants from every region of the world will gather in South Korea for the Fourth International Congress on World Evangelization, hosted by the Lausanne Movement. (Thousands more will engage the Congress through satellite sites.)

This will be the 50th anniversary of the First Lausanne Congress, which saw the release of The Lausanne Covenant with John Stott as the chief architect. That document remains a rallying cry for evangelicals around the world. (See my selection of some of the best quotes.)

State of the Great Commission

This week, the Lausanne Movement released “The State of the Great Commission,” a compendium of dozens of charts, graphs, and essays from more than 100 contributors around the globe, looking at world Christianity in light of current trends, with an eye to enhancing evangelical mission efforts in both declaring and displaying Christ in the world.

As with most multicontributor projects, this one is a mixed bag—some essays are fantastic, others do a dutiful job in summing up current thinking without breaking new ground, and a handful make unqualified statements or veer into disputable theological territory among those who affirm the Lausanne Covenant.

Reading through this volume, I noticed four major themes that kept resurfacing—four aspects of mission in the modern world worthy of consideration.

1. Polycentric Mission

This graph from the World Christian Encyclopedia floored me—the shift from 1900 to 2050 in the regional distribution of Christianity.

Christianity’s growth in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and its fading in Europe and North America is no secret (it has been pointed out by Mark Noll, Philip Jenkins, and others), but this graph captures the significance of the shift. By 2050, Africa is projected to have the highest percentage of Christians globally.

What does this mean for cross-cultural mission? An essay from Décio de Carvalho, Larry and Stephanie Kraft, and Stephen and Rosemary Mbogo, “Polycentric Global Missions,” builds on Allen Yeh’s important work in showing mission endeavors now are “from everyone to everywhere.” More and more, we’re seeing collaboration in evangelism and social ministry that upends traditional geographical categories.

We see this development on display in several essays, including “Rise of Asia” by Bong Rin Ro, Babu Karimkuttickal Verghese, and Fenggang Yang on cross-cultural missionaries in the same country. One example: over 60 percent of India’s missionaries work within the country, reaching out to other ethnic groups with different languages and cultures. The upshot is that, around the world, we see a deepening of relational and financial collaboration in getting the gospel to all peoples.

2. Institutional Rebuilding

Another theme running through the essays is the decline of institutional trust (including among religious organizations) in the Global North, a development that often hinders evangelistic effectiveness.

Andrew Love, Kevin Muriithi Ndereba, and Mary Jo Sharp lay out the challenges of religious pluralism to the gospel’s objective truth claims, and their fine essay is then followed by Manfred Kohl, Lazarus Phiri, and Efraim Tender, who lift up integrity as a crucial component of discipleship. Lamenting the hypocrisy of many church leaders and the corruption of some churches and organizations, these authors point out how “our failures to exhibit integrity—or consistency between our whole life and the teachings of Jesus—do make the gospel seem less credible.”

We must aspire to pierce through the clouds of moral relativism with the gospel’s truth claims, and our witness must be backed up by healthy institutions and by individuals who live in light of Jesus Christ crucified and raised. I appreciate this report’s emphasis on institutional health and rebuilding after a season in which much rot has been revealed.

3. Demographic Shifts

The demographic shifts in the this report’s charts show not only the movement of Christianity from North to South but also other trends in world population: migration rates around the world, displaced peoples, diaspora missions, and more. Likewise, we see a rising middle class in India, a stagnating middle class in China, and a noticeable decline in subsistence-level poverty worldwide.

Most interesting to me is the unprecedented arrival of predominantly aging populations now affecting every region of the world, as birth rates fall and life expectancy increases. The church must reckon with a very young Africa (in comparison with the rest of the world) and an increasingly older Europe, North America, and Asia.

These demographic shifts are snapshots in time—a look at the mission fields in which we’re called to be faithful followers of Jesus. They provide food for thought and give us wisdom in planning for the future as we continue our gospel work.

4. Anthropology and the Digital World

The big theological challenge for our times is anthropology: What does it mean to be human? This report grapples with the question of humanity in light of new technologies, assumed identities, sexual behavior, and medical interventions. Several essays focus on topics such as transhumanism, artificial intelligence, gender and sexuality, and biotechnology and gene editing.

As a natural follow-up to the anthropological challenges, we find a section about the digital life—reflections on recent developments in online connection, social media algorithms, and how the digitalization of human self-perception and “digital communities” affects the church and our mission. Most of these essays identify the challenges and opportunities, recognizing the ingenuity of humanity alongside our idolatrous bent in terms of how we create and use tools. They’ll serve as conversation starters for some of the most pressing issues of our time.

My takeaway is that ministry in a digital age—increasing Scripture engagement, discipleship efforts, gathering as the church, and the like—must flow from a robust, holistic understanding of the Bible’s portrait of humanity, not from the reductionist, materialist, technological flattening of humanity all too often on display in the world today.

I look forward to seeing the fruit of collaboration as we draw nearer to the historic gathering of evangelicals from around the world this September in Seoul. May the Father of all good gifts grant us wisdom from above, and may the Spirit fill us with passion and compassion, as we seek to obey the commands of King Jesus.