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Mission, evangelism and evangelization--from the perspective of the Lausanne movement *.

Article Excerpt
The most authoritative documents of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE) are the 1974 Lausanne Covenant (LC) and the 1989 Manila Manifesto (MM), which is an elaboration of the LC, and always to be read and understood in connection with the LC. In addition, the movement has produced about 30 "Occasional Papers" on mission-related themes, as well as several books reflecting the conferences and consultations of the LCWE over its more-than-thirty years of existence. (1) Par. 4 in the LC is entitled "The Nature of Evangelism", and I quote it here in extenso:



To evangelize is to spread the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead according to the scriptures, and that as the reigning Lord he now offers forgiveness of sins and the liberating gift of the Spirit to all who repent and believe. Our Christian presence in the world is indispensable to evangelism, and so is the kind of dialogue whose purpose is to listen sensitively in order to understand. But evangelism itself is the proclamation of the historical, biblical Christ as Saviour and Lord, with a view to persuading people to come to him personally and so be reconciled to God. In issuing the gospel invitation we have no liberty to conceal the cost of discipleship. Jesus still calls all who would follow him to deny themselves, take up their cross, and identify themselves with his new community. The results of evangelism include obedience to Christ, incorporation into his church and responsible service in the world.

It is important to notice that this paragraph deals explicitly with evangelism. It does not deal with mission in its totality. Although there is no consistent way of speaking of mission, evangelization and evangelism within the Lausanne movement, we may say that while mission and evangelization are the broader, more comprehensive terms including both proclamation and social concern, evangelism is a more narrow concept being defined primarily in terms of proclamation.

The paragraph on evangelism is the fourth, which means that there are three preceding articles that should be seen as presuppositions for the fourth. They are all indicative of the evangelical (2) position.

The first paragraph deals with the "Purpose of God". The term mission of God (missio Dei) does not figure in the LC but this first article comes very close to the concept. (3) It draws the origin of mission back to the eternal purpose of the Triune God, and defines mission basically as God's sending of the people he has called to himself hack into the...

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