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| Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash |
When you stand on the beach knee-deep in the water, your body is overwhelmed by powerful forces. The waves crash in. The frothy edges of the water hit against you with surprising force and leave you wet well above the knees! You barely have time to check your balance before an equally dramatic force pulls the water back from the beach and into the jaws of the sea. If you managed to stay standing against the onslaught of the incoming wave, you might not be so lucky as that same wave recedes.
As I attended the Lausanne 4 Congress, I felt very much like the person standing knee-deep in the ocean water. The conference themes designed and delivered by the organizers proved to be powerful waves pushing me along as I experienced the event. At the same time, the reactions from different corners of the congress provided equally powerful backrush pulling the water into the ocean. I did my best to keep my balance, but what a challenge!
To understand Lausanne 4, you have to wrestle with the push and pull of the waves. You also have to remember that there is real power behind those waves. Just like the Moon's gravitational pull is acting on the ocean's waters, the Holy Spirit was at work pushing and pulling God's people. That is why we can bravely talk about the push and pull. God was in the middle of all I'm going to describe and those involved in both the push and the pull, while imperfect and with many different motivations, all claim that the Holy Spirit was guiding them. So as we stand in the wave and try and keep our balance we must trust the Holy Spirit to help us discern what He wants us to learn from the waves and the crest and then recede.
Wave 1 - Action
The whole congress was organized around action. Seminar time was replaced with collaborative action sessions, the work on the Seoul Statement was done ahead of time in order to focus on applying the document to action. Action was the wave pushing onto the shore.
During the opening ceremony Michael Oh, Lausanne's Director, welcomed people with the challenge to collaboration and collective action. He and others helped end with a challenge to sign the Collaborative Action Commitment. This one page document, which I signed, asks those attending to commit to intentionally respond, pursue relationships and unity, seek to remove duplication, raise up leaders, identify initiatives already in progress and explore opportunities to start collaborative action.Throughout the event the challenge was consistent and reinforced with significant time in the afternoons for people to join together to tackle various gaps identified in the research I mentioned in my first post. Ann Chow, who helped design the process, described her motivation well, “Instead of just facing forward all the time and listening and receiving, we actually want to turn to each other and get some work done (emphasis mine).” (To read more about the process click here.)
I spoke to Ann after the event and she shared with me about the team's heart to model collaborative action tangibly; rather than simply talk about it as an abstraction. While she recognized that not everything went to plan, the collaboration time was designed to give people a small taste of global collaboration across cultures, domains, careers and generations. This was a noble goal and I resonated with Ann as she described her efforts.
Throughout the event there was also a sense of urgency that our current methods were not having the hoped-for impacts and that new thinking is needed that will only come through new types of collaboration and engagement.
This wave was a big change from the past events in that, as the president of Missio Nexus - Ted Esler - described in his post, “Past Lausanne events have typically been idea driven. 1974 produced an emphasis on the remaining task of world evanlization, 1989 focused on the 10/40 Window, and 2010 was the Capetown Commitment. This event (which they call L4) seems to be a shift from ideas to collaboration. Each afternoon there are “Gap” sessions about significant gaps in the Great Commission and how we might meet the challenge of those gaps through collaborative action. I don’t think this event, at least up to this point, is going to leave us with a big missiological idea as past events have. It will be interesting to see if this change from ideas to action takes hold.”
But in another way, the push of the wave was very familiar. Whether through wordsmithing or collaborative action, Lausanne has always been focused on identifying, platforming and catalyzing people to work towards global evangelization.
The pull was also the same as it has been for many years, but took on some new contours. The historic pull against the way Lausanne has framed the challenge is a conviction that holistic action led locally is critical to a Global Church where every people has an equal role to play responding to Christ' call to disciple the nations. Rev Lemuel Crizaldo, Theological Commission Coordinator of the World Evangelical Alliance described it this way in his post, "...within Lausanne are those who hope to see demonstration finally get the legitimisation it deserves as a missional expression of what it means to be a witness to the gospel. They come in many names, wearing different hats—they are faith-based development agencies, justice initiatives, social workers, community organizers, climate activists, even business developers, among many others, who work to ensure that more people will experience the “fullness of life” in the here and now. In addition to, of course, finding assurance of eternal life in the world to come. They are the people who remember the first Lausanne Congress in 1974 as the struggle of Majority World voices in disrupting the narrow and truncated model of mission that developed in the West, or to recall a phrase that René Padilla used in his speech, the need for a more “integral” mission as an antidote to the dominance of “a gospel with no teeth.”
Beyond this broad pull against a traditional Western-led strategic plan for global evangelization, I saw people at this congress challenge the idea that centralized strategy (best epitomized by the 25 gaps identified in the State of the Great Commission Report) could provide a robust enough framework for the diverse ministry opportunities partners confront today. And if they were able to see their challenge in the 25 gaps, they struggled to experience collaborative action in the small Collaborate Sessions that delegates went to every afternoon.
What did those look like? They were fairly straightforward. Every delegate got assigned to a gap (based on their input in an engagement survey ahead of time) and then could pick a table based on the affinity group they most connected with. These tables of 5-6 people were given a series of huge tabletop worksheets that were designed to guide them through the process of taking their ideas, fusing them together and building something actionable. From talking with Ann, I know that her hope was that it would be an experience that would inspire, model and encourage partnership.
Unfortunately for many that was not their experience. People quickly began to react to the assumption that you can put people together across cultures for several 2-hour sessions and come out with actionable next steps. Part of the issue is that the sessions were marketed as actionable sessions where we were expected to get work done rather than chances to experiment and learn. That expectation took a learning opportunity and instead made it a top-down mandate to generate work with an expectation that more would follow. For people who are used to coming together in fellowship and a mindset of learning this was a big ask and one that people did not feel they were invited into but mandated to deliver on.
I didn't run into anyone who was not interested in taking action. The push of the congress strived to create a global, managed and orchestrated approach to action, while the pull of the congress sought to identify much more local and relational opportunities for action that responded to needs that were already part of their lived experience.
Wave 2 - Voice
The need for people "to have a voice" was affirmed and pushed in an unprecedented way. There was a five year listening process across the globe, countless opportunities for delegates to interact ahead of the congress and then a variety of niche groupings designed to allow for discussion and unique perspectives. As I counted, I was a part of at least 7 different groupings (formal and informal). Each one had vehicles for me to speak into what was going on. Especially as a Westerner from the US, I easily resonated with the managed and efficient way in which input was requested, gathered, collated and presented. I also participated in helping Matthew Niermann identify sources for some of the data for the State of the Great Commission Report. I really value the way he curated so much data and got different voices speaking into the analysis of the information.
As you can see by exploring the link above, the listening process was highly coordinated and designed. It strived to reflect a variety of perspectives. But the effort to give people voice did not receive the response Lausanne was hoping for. The response that came can be seen best if you look at the reactions to the congress' official statement; the Seoul Statement. For context, each of the past 3 congresses have released a document that has served as a directional document for the Evangelical Church globally. The Seoul Statement was released the first day of the congress. To learn more about the two leaders of the Theology Working Group, read this excellent interview done by Christianity Today.
But the way the statement was released caused quite a stir. Michael du Toit, Director of Communications for Lausanne described the statement this way in the release email, "The Seoul Statement, alongside the State of the Great Commission report, will serve as an informative and inspirational tools throughout the Congress. These two documents form a foundation for deep theological reflection and strategic action, addressing missional gaps from both a theological and strategic perspective."
Usually there is active participation of the congress in giving feedback, discussing the content and then the statement is finalized at a later date. This time, they tried to do the listening and discussion ahead of time and release the statement finished so that the congress could focus on action. This was a more controlled approach but because it was perceived as a way of shoe-horning input into a managed process, it got a rocky and contested reception and did not provide the desired foundation.
The pull that we saw at the event was a clamoring for dialogue and listening designed to create relationship and understanding to serve as a foundation for subsequent action. The pull was for a focus on "being on mission together" rather than "joining forces to do more mission." This pull is willing to forgo increases in efficient, coordinated and direct action at the global level if it means that there will be greater relationship, trust and empowerment for more durable and relevant local action.
By making the Seoul Statement final on day one, the message was directive rather than coming alongside in community (even if the lead-up process tried to represent the latter). Because of that posture, people then struggled with different phrases, additions and omissions. Jay Matenga, Executive Director of the World Evangelical Alliance Mission Commission, said this in the weeks leading up to the congress, "When World Christianity of the Evangelical kind gathers there needs to be room for robust debate on issues of contemporary importance, whether or not they happen to be on the official agenda. What cannot happen is the imposition or dominance of one cultural perspective over another." Jay has since released his reflections on the event and while he is very honoring of the effort and intent, he clearly believes that his hope for discourse at the event did not materialize.
The forces pulling the water back made it clear that collective action could not be advanced at the expense of allowing people to put their fingerprints on the framework itself. S. Joshua Swamidass did a good job of articulating what broke down in the process and the implications for the larger goal of the event.
Everyone agreed that people needed a voice in the process in a highly interactive way. The push of the conference tried to front-load input so that people could have voice in collaborative action. But the pull of the conference stubbornly rejected jumping into action outside of meaningful relationship applied to local realities.
Wave 3 - Technology
On the opening night of the congress Patrick Bezalel, wearing his VR goggles, drew a dramatic picture of a tree on fire that took over the 80 foot wrap-around screen. As the music played and Patrick painted, it was clear that a huge push of this congress would be the role of technology. That was further cemented when the congress opened the Digital Discovery Center, a physical space at the congress that showcased dozens of amazing technology solutions focused on Great Commission support. Hear Matthew Niermann share about why digital outreach was given such an important place at the event.
The level of integration and digital support throughout the whole conference was amazing. And while the Internet struggled early on, the tech team (bless them!) did an amazing job. By day 3 most of the 5000 people were able to do what needed to be done online.
It was interesting to watch how many of the digital natives and those involved in digital ministry began to make the Digital Discovery Center their home base for the congress. It didn't hurt that one of the lunch lines with the shortest line was right next to it! What stood out to me was the affirmation given from the stage to the role technology may play in advancing the Global Church's Great Commission work. There was an optimism about technology and its role that did not receive much of a critical eye (although Michael Oh did say that technology was only a tool and not the solution to every Gospel challenge).
All technology has assumptions, expectations and outcomes built in. The technology that was used in the push of the congress assumed the importance and desire for global coordination and central design (ie uploading all the plans to the Global Action Hub for analysis, display and collaboration). The value that was promoted was an ability for people to find each other, learn about similar initiatives and develop common language to talk about solutions.
As I watched people engage with the technology at the congress, I saw the pulls quickly show up. First, the user experience was a challenge. The deployment and synchronization of tech at that scale is expensive and hard to pull off. We saw that first hand as we tried to use the Action Hub infrastructure. Many could not get on or when they did had trouble completing what was being asked. This made many people question the value of trying to invest in global bespoke tools at this level when so many tools already handle this level of usage on the market and are used by millions for other daily tasks. This question was driven home when, in the end, many had to revert to WhatsApp and Google Forms to connect and share the information we were pulling together.
Second, the tech had a clear benefit to the Lausanne Movement but the benefits to the delegates was less compelling, given that people are already using a variety of tech tools for their existing collaboration efforts. This reinforced the managed and directive feel of the event and created distrust with participants as they were asked to use technology for an abstract greater good that they were unclear about how they would use or get benefit from. Essentially the Lausanne Movement was striving to change the behavior of the delegates and introduce a new way of collaborating without providing a convincing reason for them to do so.
Third, There was an expectation that the people at the congress were mostly high tech users. However the reality in the Global Church is much more diverse in its digital access, quality and affordability. That final point is a key one as we seek to use technology strategically but not make it a barrier to engagement. Kazusa Osaka said it well in his post, "...we must also recognize the existence of a significant digital divide. There were participants from the majority world who do not own smartphones or come from places where their internet connection is 2G at best. How are we able to include their voice, if access to collaboration tools is limited to those with high digital literacy?"
One example of this divide is that I saw some people taking videos of the content to upload to their social media, while others were taking video so that they could bring their phone to their staff or church family at home and show that video on the device that captured it...no Internet involved!
The push of the conference strived to use technology to collect, curate and coordinate while the pull of the conference used technology for focused connections and the informal flow of ideas. Both uses added value to the congress but didn't always reinforce each other.
Summary
When you go to the beach and walk along the water, you have very different experiences depending on how you interact with the water. Some run into the waves and dive below the rush of the water. Others walk into the wake and stop. They let the water get up to their knees but no further. These beach-goers enjoy the rush of the water and the feel of the wet sand being pushed back into the sea right under their feet. Still others stay out of the water altogether. They walk along the drying crusty sand or plod through the powdery soft sand further away from the water. Each person enjoys the waves pushing and pulling but their experience is dramatically different.
With a movement as big and diverse as Lausanne, I know there are people who responded to the congress in each of these ways. Some submerged themselves in the movement and accepted its assumptions and methods. They saw the efforts of the movement to catalyze collaboration as needed help and support. Others engaged a bit more cautiously. They dipped their toes in, joined in with the push but also affirmed the pull of the backwash. They valued the effort but didn't always agree with the approach or assumptions. Finally, the third group were happy that Lausanne exists but chose to make their Kingdom contribution in other ways. They watched from a distance because their values, assumptions and approaches didn't sync enough to make participation possible.
The reality is that the Holy Spirit will call people to take all three of these postures. All can be appropriate if done with love, humility, and submission to God's direction.
As I have reflected on my own posture, I believe my role is to stand in the waves, not to dive in but not to remove myself either. Because of this you will see me continue to wrestle in the midst of the pushes and pulls of the waves this movement creates. I hope this reflection models that posture well. It is my prayer that my efforts to describe it will affirm and critique the push and the pull and seek God's wisdom in it all.
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