An Update from Michael Oh
Remembering Billy Graham’s Lausanne Legacy
A few weeks ago the world said goodbye to Billy Graham. It was an unforgettable experience to be there for his funeral—a moving time of worship, celebration of the gospel, and friendship, all of which truly reflected Billy’s heart and lifelong ministry.As the world continues to remember and celebrate the life and legacy of Billy Graham, I want to share this special video with you reflecting on his legacy at Lausanne 1974 and beyond. We are admonished to ‘Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.’ (Hebrews 13:7)
A number of substantial tributes from Lausanne leaders who interacted with Billy over the years are also now available on the website. If you have a moment, look over the tributes posted in the comments sections of our press release as well as the tribute blog post, and feel free to add your own.
During this season where we especially seek to ‘remember [our] leaders’, we would also like to announce a new page on our website dedicated to Billy Graham and John Stott. These two men honored God with their whole lives, and even after death, their legacies continue to be used by the Lord for the evangelization of the world. May we indeed ‘consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith’, for the glory of the Lord.
Pray with Us
Father, we pause to remember not the greatness of Billy Graham but the greatness of the God whom Billy Graham loved and proclaimed. We stand in awe of what you did through this simple, humble, single-minded, and imperfect servant. And we turn to you to ask that you might use even us for your glory as well.
We thank you for the work that you did in and through Billy. The nations were touched by your gospel through his voice. We ask that you might continue to raise up simple, humble, single-minded, and imperfect servants around the world who might be voices of hope in our generation.
We humbly commit ourselves to your purposes. Use us as you will.
We ask in the name of the Lord of the nations, Jesus, Amen.
Recent Updates:
• Remembering Billy Graham’s Lausanne Legacy - Michael Oh
• The Whole of the Whole Gospel - Timothy Liu
As a young Christian, I was taught in church to use the bridge diagram and the Four Spiritual Laws to explain the gospel. After Sunday worship services and gospel rallies, I was always humbled and walked away with great gratitude for the infinite price and sacrifice of Christ on the cross and for my salvation from sin and death, from eternal damnation. But often, I also walked away with a gaping question: ‘What do I do between now and when I die (or when Christ comes back)?’ Jesus had saved me from sin and death. But what had he saved me for?
I spent most of my days working, and I knew deeply by the Spirit that there was a purpose for my work in the world, but this truth was never taught or communicated to me in my experience as a young believer. The gospel I encountered had become too narrowly defined; an understanding of salvation focused only on individual persons, instead of all of creation, seeing only part of the picture.
Today in many of our churches, there is still an implicit prioritization of ‘ministry work’ and speak of the primacy of the proclamation of the gospel over social action. Social action—in line with Lausanne’s vision of kingdom impact in every sphere of society—has always been seen as secondary, because it is perceived as a means to proclaiming the gospel and evangelism. So naturally, with limited resources, the focus has leaned towards proclamation and evangelism while everything else, such as community, family, and work, have been seen as but a means to an end.
Dorothy Sayers puts it well through these prophetic words penned more than sixty years ago:
In nothing has the church so lost Her hold on reality as in Her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments, and is astonished to find that, as a result, the secular work of the world is turned to purely selfish and destructive ends, and that the greater part of the world’s intelligent workers have become irreligious, or at least, uninterested in religion. But is it astonishing? How can anyone remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life? The church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays.
‘How can anyone remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life?’ writes Sayers. Sayers’ question is not merely theological but also missiological. For the 99% of us who are not church-paid workers, we spend most of our lives in workplaces, schools, homes, and communities. Yet not much has been said about how we should live and who we should be in these places. A proper understanding of work, worker, and workplace (be it paid or unpaid) thus has everything to do with the cross and gospel of Jesus Christ, and the mission of his church. It has everything to do with the question of what we are saved for in this life.Through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, he is reconciling all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven (Colossians 1:19). The gospel of reconciliation then is not only to reconcile people to Christ, but also all that is fallen and marred by sin—the injustices, the broken systems of this world— through creation care, businesses, financial systems, product designs and services, education, policy-making and so on. God cares about all these! He is Lord of all these! We cannot ignore the power of the cross in restoring all these arenas to align them with the kingdom of God.
This is precisely why the upcoming Lausanne Global Workplace Forum is so important. We must gain a more robust understanding of God’s reconciling ministry, especially in the arena of work. Would you consider nominating people whose lives embody this holistic vision of work and ministry?
Editor’s Note:
Nominations for the Global Workplace Forum will be closing on 30 April 2018. All are welcome to nominate qualified candidates for consideration through this open process.
• The Gospel for Every Christian - David Bennett
Over two and a half billion people around the world would identify themselves as ‘Christians’—nearly one-third of the world’s population. But does this imply that they have understood or embraced the biblical gospel? Not necessarily.
The story may be apocryphal, but it has been told many times by preachers in various forms. A young soldier, so it is said, was brought before Alexander the Great, accused of desertion and hiding in a cave. The renowned general asked his name, and the young man replied, ‘Alexander.’ Visibly disturbed, the general asked again, ‘What is your name?’ Timidly the soldier responded again, ‘Alexander.’ Furious, the general shouted, ‘Soldier! Change your conduct or change your name!’ The application? Those who call themselves ‘Christian’ must be worthy of the name.
The term ‘nominal’ is defined as ‘in name or form only, as distinct from real or actual’ in the paper ‘Christian Witness to Nominal Christians among Protestants’ (LOP 23). For many of the two and a half billion who call themselves Christians, that label is a matter of being born into a given family or belonging to a certain cultural or religious context, or having gone through some kind of Christian initiation process that has little, if any, impact on their daily lives. They are followers of Christ only in name, not in reality or practice. Neither their beliefs nor their behaviors are a faithful reflection of the teachings or practices of Jesus and the apostles. They have never repented of their sins or welcomed Jesus as Savior and Lord. They are not growing in faith, knowledge, or obedience. They are experiencing no life transformation. They give no evidence of the fruit of the Spirit.
Nominal Christians are found in every congregation, every denominational tradition, every theological stream, and every cultural context. Nominalism may take different shapes in Protestant/Evangelical, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox contexts, and in places where Christians as a whole are a minority. But the task of bearing witness to Jesus Christ and all his teaching, in every nation, in every sphere of society, and in the realm of ideas, is no less urgent in nominal Christian contexts. The first point of the Lausanne fourfold vision—’the gospel for every person’—applies equally to those who carry the name ‘Christian’ but have never truly understood or welcomed ‘the gospel of God’s grace’ (Acts 20:24).
This is the challenge being addressed 15-19 March in Rome, Italy, at the Lausanne Global Consultation on Nominalism. Building on earlier Lausanne gatherings and resources, this consultation will analyze the changes in our world over the last 40 years, and will examine current trends and promising strategies for evangelizing and discipling nominal Christians. The 45 invited participants include sociologists, theologians, and missiologists/practitioners from Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America, South Pacific and all regions of Europe. Ideas and strategies from the consultation will be published for wider distribution and discussion. I invite you to be praying with me as the participants convene this week.
Pray with Us
Jesus Christ, Lord of the Church, we ask you to empower the upcoming consultation with your renewing, creative Holy Spirit. Enable the participants to understand our times, and to know how to awaken and equip the churches and their leaders, so that nominal Christians may understand and embrace the good news of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, so that they and their communities may be transformed.
The story may be apocryphal, but it has been told many times by preachers in various forms. A young soldier, so it is said, was brought before Alexander the Great, accused of desertion and hiding in a cave. The renowned general asked his name, and the young man replied, ‘Alexander.’ Visibly disturbed, the general asked again, ‘What is your name?’ Timidly the soldier responded again, ‘Alexander.’ Furious, the general shouted, ‘Soldier! Change your conduct or change your name!’ The application? Those who call themselves ‘Christian’ must be worthy of the name.
The term ‘nominal’ is defined as ‘in name or form only, as distinct from real or actual’ in the paper ‘Christian Witness to Nominal Christians among Protestants’ (LOP 23). For many of the two and a half billion who call themselves Christians, that label is a matter of being born into a given family or belonging to a certain cultural or religious context, or having gone through some kind of Christian initiation process that has little, if any, impact on their daily lives. They are followers of Christ only in name, not in reality or practice. Neither their beliefs nor their behaviors are a faithful reflection of the teachings or practices of Jesus and the apostles. They have never repented of their sins or welcomed Jesus as Savior and Lord. They are not growing in faith, knowledge, or obedience. They are experiencing no life transformation. They give no evidence of the fruit of the Spirit.
Nominal Christians are found in every congregation, every denominational tradition, every theological stream, and every cultural context. Nominalism may take different shapes in Protestant/Evangelical, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox contexts, and in places where Christians as a whole are a minority. But the task of bearing witness to Jesus Christ and all his teaching, in every nation, in every sphere of society, and in the realm of ideas, is no less urgent in nominal Christian contexts. The first point of the Lausanne fourfold vision—’the gospel for every person’—applies equally to those who carry the name ‘Christian’ but have never truly understood or welcomed ‘the gospel of God’s grace’ (Acts 20:24).
This is the challenge being addressed 15-19 March in Rome, Italy, at the Lausanne Global Consultation on Nominalism. Building on earlier Lausanne gatherings and resources, this consultation will analyze the changes in our world over the last 40 years, and will examine current trends and promising strategies for evangelizing and discipling nominal Christians. The 45 invited participants include sociologists, theologians, and missiologists/practitioners from Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America, South Pacific and all regions of Europe. Ideas and strategies from the consultation will be published for wider distribution and discussion. I invite you to be praying with me as the participants convene this week.
Pray with Us
Jesus Christ, Lord of the Church, we ask you to empower the upcoming consultation with your renewing, creative Holy Spirit. Enable the participants to understand our times, and to know how to awaken and equip the churches and their leaders, so that nominal Christians may understand and embrace the good news of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, so that they and their communities may be transformed.
As Global Associate Director for Collaboration and Content, David Bennett coordinates the work of the Lausanne Catalysts, serves as Managing Editor for the Lausanne Global Analysis, and leads the Content Team. He holds a BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and MDiv, DMin, and PhD degrees from Fuller Theological Seminary. David has engaged in teaching, preaching, and research on several continents, with particular focus on India.
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