First ever European-wide Lausanne Movement conference announced

Forty-five years after the historic first Lausanne Congress, the Lausanne Movement announces the celebration of another “key conference in Europe”.

“Europe is perhaps the greatest challenge for Christian mission today”, the planning team said as they announced the dates and location of the continent-wide gathering: 21-25 October 2020 (Germany).

“The Cape Town Commitment, the current roadmap for the Lausanne Movement, seeks to ‘bring a fresh challenge to the global Church to bear witness to Jesus Christ and all his teaching – in every nation, in every sphere of society and in the realm of ideas’”, the statement says. “Nowhere in the world is that challenge more urgent and necessary than in the continent of Europe”.

“Dynamic Gospel – New Europe” will be the theme of a three-year process (2018-2021), which will include pre-conference working groups, research, publications, online resources, and post-conference networks.

Half of the participants of the conference are expected to be younger leaders. Seeking to honour the “spirit of Lausanne”, the whole pre-gathering process will “focus prayer, study, partnership, hope, and humility, and with an unwavering commitment to the evangelization of Europe”.

The Lausanne Movement was started in 1974.

Evangelical denominations and organisations in Europe are going to be invited to participate in conference process. A partnerhsip with the IFES Europe ‘Revive’ conference has already been started.

These are the outcomes the European Lausanne Movement conference will seek to accomplish:

- A renewed confidence in the Bible as the Word of God;

- A greater international, intercultural, and intergenerational unity, partnership, and collaboration amongst evangelicals.

- A stronger emphasis on transformational whole-life discipleship.

- A clear recognition of the unique contribution of majority world churches to mission in Europe and of Europe’s ongoing role in world mission.

- A strategic production of new research and study resources to equip European Christians to live and speak prophetically in their contexts.

FACILITATING FRESH EVANGELISTIC INITIATIVES

Lindsay Brown, one of the members of the Lausanne Europe 2020 conference planning team. / Lausanne Movement

Commenting on the 2020 gathering, the former Director of the Lausanne Movement (2008-2016) Lindsay Brown, said: “The unholy trinity of secularism, pluralism and scientific materialism are increasingly shaping our cultures as Europeans discard biblical values and the Gospel. How should the church, and evangelical believers especially, respond?”

Brown continued: “A return to God’s Word, a fresh wave of evangelistic initiatives, as well as partnership and dialogue, is needed among God’s people. This gathering of around 800 evangelical leaders, and the strategic process around it, has been called to help facilitate that”.

The members of the preliminary planning team are: Lisa Rom Boye, Lindsay Brown, Lars Dahle, Jim Memory, Philippe Monnery, Ole-Magnus Olafsrud, Mirek Pieszka, Jean-Paul Rempp, Evi Rodemann, Bodil Skjøtt, Roland Werner.

Download the statement announcing the 2020 Lausanne Europe conference here.

More information about the conference will be published on this website.