‘Keep the gate open’: Latin American leader shares hopes, expectations for Lausanne 4
A Latin American perspective on today’s issues the Church needs to address
Steuernagel himself highlighted a number of today’s key issues, some of which he says are not new, including the “superficialization and syncretism of faith” due to the rapid growth that Church experienced. “Faced with this reality, it is necessary to reiterate and emphasize the Scriptures, reacting to biblical illiteracy.”
However, he also cautioned that “this emphasis on the Scriptures needs to strike the tone of enchantment, acceptance, and grace, overcoming the harsh, dry, separatist, and authoritarian language by which we have characterized ourselves many times and for a long time. The Scriptures need and want to be encountered as the Word of a caring God.”
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A second concern revolves around the widespread divisions within the Church. “Our identity needs to lead us to speak with one voice and express a common sentiment,” Steuernagel said.
“In the day-to-day of our history, we have specialized in divisions that, in many cases, represent conflicts of egos and interests and have nothing to do with the breath of the Spirit and the call to unity by the voice of the Scriptures. We need to overcome our separatist and individualistic culture to generate a unity that becomes a testimony, even if it may find different organizational paths. Our identity needs to make outsiders say about us: ‘See how they love each other!’”
As a third concern, Steuernagel emphasized that “our identity needs to be multifaceted and inclusive.”
The growth of churches in various places and among different cultures signals the transformation of the ‘face of the Church’ into a multifaceted and multicolored one, “bringing honor to the Gospel and value to God’s invitation to all people everywhere.”
He laments that “for a long time, in modern times, the Christian faith was perceived as something associated with the white, fueled by white male leadership, and sustained by the green money of the white empire.”
He goes on to emphasize the urgency of addressing other pressing issues, such as the need to care for God’s creation, to recognize the reality and significance of migration and the importance of welcoming refugees, and to emphasize affirming life amid a culture of death that celebrates abortion and euthanasia, among others.
Open conversations could lead to new paradigm shifts in missions at Lausanne 4
Looking back at the first gathering in Lausanne, Switzerland, Steuernagel highlighted how mission perspectives and the understanding of the “task” shifted as Evangelicals encountered new frontiers and contexts.
“When Lausanne 1 was conceived and organized, what was desired was very clear,” Steuernagel said. “This was expressed in the event’s name — ‘International Congress on World Evangelization,’ in the event’s theme — ‘Let the Earth Hear His Voice,’ and in its purpose, which stated: ‘Mobilize the whole Church to proclaim the whole Gospel to the whole world.’ The focus was on global evangelization, and there was a reading regarding this possibility and necessity.”
The historic understanding of mission that formed the backdrop to Lausanne 1 was rooted in the modern missions movement that was marked by William Carey. However, new perspectives came to the fore when Donald McGavran began to speak about evangelizing human groups rather than only individuals.
“He argued that individual evangelism would not complete the task of world evangelization and that it should take into account realities in which conversion could and even should be collective, aiming to encounter human groups with the Gospel and their possible conversion,” Steuernagel highlighted.
Similarly, Ralph D. Winter’s concept of Unreached People Group’s (UPGs) contributed to a paradigm shift in mission strategy.
“Winter played a significant role in Lausanne 1, where he was one of the speakers,” according to Steuernagel. “[He planted] the seed of the movement around identifying these unreached people groups and pointing to the need to reach them and establish a church among each of them. This movement marked the history of world evangelization and energized the mobilization toward a missionary effort through which these people groups could be mapped and reached.”
At the same time, people like Billy Graham successfully used mass media, filled stadiums and brought a lot of visibility to Evangelicals.
Thus, Lausanne became a movement that emphasized open and public evangelization, while also nurturing next-level mission strategies like Winter’s UPGs and considering the growth of the Church outside the Western world.
Lausanne “created space for new and emerging churches, especially from the Global South, to be seen and even, in some cases, invited to occupy a seat on the platform and use the microphone,” Steuernagel said.
This led to richer and simultaneously more demanding and challenging conversations because as these churches found their vital space and discerned their vocation amid the construction of new partnerships, they began asking questions. “Questions about the nature of the evangelization being operationalized, the mission being carried out, and the churches being established vis-à-vis their transformative or accommodating impact on society,” he said.
The resulting conversations were marked by a “simultaneous tone of gratitude and criticism” and broadened and enriched the Evangelical Church, which continued to “grow and manifest itself as a living force in many of our societies.”
Steuernagel said that in the lead-up to Lausanne 4 and during the Congress, “there are certainly new conversations that need to happen, recognizing that the task is unfinished.”
“The strong mobilization of new generations, the reconfiguration of missionary vocations marked by an entrepreneurial bias, the growing perception of mission as multifaceted — these are some signs of life in a missionary journey toward a new and continuous obedience. Obedience to the mandate of Jesus,” he said.
Considering new Bible passages for missions that go beyond Matthew 28 and Acts 1
Following his own reflection on biblical passages that speak to missions, Steuernagel suggests considering the relevance of Luke 10:1-20 for today’s world.
He noted that historically, Matthew 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8 had been “key in the hermeneutics of the missionary vocation as expressed and experienced by the Evangelical community in its various traditions and expressions.”
It was John Stott who later drew attention to a different aspect of missions by pointing to John 17:18 and 20:21. “By saying, on two occasions, ‘As the Father sent me, so I send you,’ it becomes clear and crucial that Jesus himself models the mission of the Church,” Steuernagel said, adding: “Our mission, therefore, is to follow Jesus and, in following Him, be sent into the world; to be like Him — incarnate — and to do the mission the way he did it.”
“The mission is not something of ours that can be done in our way,” he emphasized.
Steuernagel notes that each Bible passage that was highlighted was specifically relevant to its time. Carey pointed to Matthew 28 “at a time when the Church was hesitant and even denied its missionary vocation beyond borders.”
Stott, on the other hand, spoke about the verses in the Gospel of John “at a time when the experience and practice of missions had gained traction, expanded, and even risked losing focus and being enchanted with its own projects and strategies.”
“Thus, we discover that biblical texts inspire us, mobilize us, warn us, correct us, and put us in tune with our time, acquiring a mobilizing force for obedience that bears the mark of Jesus,” Steuernagel said.
While keeping these historic perspectives and relevant passages in mind in moving toward Lausanne 4, he said he felt God leading him to meditate on the meaning of Luke 10:1-20 and “found in it a paradigmatic text for this mission in the model of Jesus in our time.”
The text echoes the sending explicitly stated in Matthew, takes steps toward the mission outlined in the model of Jesus, and points to important dimensions in these days, according to Steuernagel.
“Days in which we need to focus on a mission that expresses itself as incarnation, reflects the totality of the Gospel, reconciles life well with verbal testimony, discerns the need for mission with spiritual authority and its origin, and is lived in a movement of sending and rediscovery of the Jesus who reminds us of what is fundamental — to be known by the Father,” he said.
He considers Luke 10 an important addition to today’s missional hermeneutics “in light of the tensions we experience in our own Evangelical community with its programmatic outbursts and illusory certainties, as well as in light of challenges that have become as complex as the world in which we live.”
While admitting that a fuller treatment would require more space than what was available in his address, he pointed to a few “clues” that stood out to him. These include the announcement and experience of peace and “peace as the culmination of the mission.” This appears especially relevant amid today’s climate of division, polarization and anger.
He also highlighted the transformation through sharing the Gospel, healing the sick, and liberating from demonic oppression. “This mission seeks the unreached, the forgotten, and the discriminated against.”
Other themes include prayer, readiness for sacrifice and persecution, the centrality of accepting the message proclaimed as the Kingdom of God, and the return to the one “who sponsored the sending.”
“Returning is necessary because, upon returning, we are reminded of our priority and our identity,” he said.
Approaching Lausanne 4 with repentance, a dream and a prayer
Steuernagel concluded by highlighting what he hopes to see at Lausanne 4: repentance and a dream, and he offered a prayer for the right atmosphere at the event.
He first pointed to Chris Wright’s presentation at Lausanne 3 about the acronym HIS: humility, integrity and simplicity, in which he called participants to an attitude of “repentance and renewal of commitment.”
The same was reflected in the Cape Town Commitment, which states: “Since there is no biblical mission without biblical life, we urgently renew our commitment and challenge all those who profess the name of Christ to live radically differently from the ways of the world, to ‘put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness’” (Ephesians 4:14).
Secondly, Steuernagel spoke about the dream that should inspire participants, saying “the word dream is meant to resonate on the journey to Seoul, Korea, in 2024.”
“A dream marked by the love and grace of God. A dream that envisions churches marked by restoration, hospitality and care. A dream of communities without borders that takes us as far as the unreached borders. A dream in which there is a place for everyone and for all of nature. A dream and not a program, for a program is always imposing and excluding. A dream that opens the doors to surprise,” he said.
According to Steuernagel, “Lausanne I was a surprise, and Lausanne 3 was a dream.” And he encouraged participants, “Let us move towards Lausanne 4 in prayer that finds its fertile ground between this and that.”
He finished his speech by reciting a famous prayer of Francis of Assisi that he hopes will inspire and challenge those who will be in Korea this time:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me bring love
Where there is injury, let me bring pardon
Where there is discord, let me bring unity
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith
Where there is error, let me bring truth
Where there is despair, let me bring hope
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy
Where there is darkness, let me bring light
O Master, grant that I may seek
To console rather than to be consoled
To understand, rather than to be understood
To love, rather than to be loved
For it is in giving that we receive
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it is in dying that we are born
To eternal life.
Amen
Originally published at Christian Daily International
Christian Daily International provides biblical, factual and personal news, stories and perspectives from every region, focusing on religious freedom, holistic mission and other issues relevant for the global Church today.
