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Listening to the Echoes

A Post Lausanne IV Reflection


This is an invitation to listen to the echoes, following the recent Fourth Lausanne Congress on Evangelization held in Incheon, South Korea. When the noise dies down and silence starts to reign, what are we hearing and seeing? What is rising within? So far, I’ve heard exuberant joy and life-changing impact on some participants at one end of the spectrum, as well as heartbreaking lament and ire from others at the other end, and everything else in between. Here I share a small glimpse from the standpoint of an external observer and virtual participant.

The theme of the congress was: “Let the Church Declare and Display Christ Together.” The leaders of the congress put this in a more elaborative term, the body of Christ as the Bride is to be unified and beautified to accelerate the global mission. It gathered almost 5400 people in-person and 2000 online from diverse backgrounds in over 200 nations, seeking to consider gaps and opportunities in global mission, while advocating collaboration and unity against comparison and competition in the body of Christ. Overall, in comparison with the previous congress, the plenary presentations were spectacular with more balanced global representatives, more women leaders from the Global South1 and more lay participants focusing on workplace ministries. The inter-generational discipleship, digital mission and creation care were also applaudable attempts to address the urgent issues of this day and age. I can imagine that to sit at a discussion table and worship God with brothers and sisters from around the world, especially for many first-time participants, would be a once-in-a-lifetime encounter.

Listening as the First Expression of Unity

No doubt, in such a gathering, there were multiple voices and diverse opinions, generating some controversies and disputes amongst the evangelical Christians due to various theological, political, cultural and racial stances.  How would Russian Orthodox representatives who support Putin’s war respond at the congress that clearly sided with Ukraine? How would people from the Global South and indigenous communities feel with one form of worship led by the Gettys, the Korean and Japanese band? Despite their beautiful and inspiring worship, their monocultural and monovocal styles exhibited a single lens of the possible range of choice. The dissonance on Israel and dispensational theology has stirred up some storms. Even before the conference, some questioned the end goal of such a gathering with the enormous energies and resources pouring to the event. The critique of 25 “Great Commission Gaps” challenged the Eurocentric theological assumptions in forming the gaps that overlook the contexts and their interconnectedness.2 This is further illustrated in the complexity of Chinese diasporas as people on the move and its implication for the mission movement.

What would it look like for the bride of Christ to join God in his mission in unity and diversity (1 Corinthians 12: 12-26; Ephesians 4: 11-13)? My pre-Lausanne post invited a posture of deep listening together before the eternal and living Listener. This act of deep listening should continue, even more importantly, during and after the congress. The congress can be a testing ground to practice such an art of listening, as uncomfortable or disturbing as it may be. It could also be a contemporary laboratory to “display Christ together” by embracing an open posture —listening to multiple voices with cultural sensitivity and spirit-inspired imagination without predetermined judgment and prejudice. It is not just when propositional statements are made and agreed upon, but when the voices are listened to and held in love that we can find true unity and shalom in our midst, despite our differences in theological, social, cultural, and political standpoints in a post-secular world. Could this be the first expression of unity as the body of Christ?

Intimacy with God vs. Mission Activities

In a small virtual group of the collaborative gap integrating spirituality and mission,3 we reflected upon the relations between intimacy with the Triune God and mission activities by creating a matrix of low intimacy/low activity; low intimacy/high activity; high intimacy/low activity, and lastly high intimacy/high activity. Recognizing that such a matrix is fluid, and missio Dei is derived from the Triune God in both personal and communal life (in Moltmann’s words, “the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church”),4 we identified challenges of each quadrant and offered ways to “close the gaps.” It took us a while to work out where to start and up till today we are still unsure about the expectations and the outcome of our creative matrix. Nevertheless, this “pathological” approach was coupled with relational interactions amongst people from eight nations, with much laughter and growing friendship.

Not surprisingly, many evangelical Christian leaders fall into the category of low intimacy/high activity, resulting in stress, burnout, fear of failure and a sense of shame. These prevalent experiences of Chinese Christian Leaders are not far from those in the Caribbean or African regions. Their situations demand urgent attention for rest, sabbath, retreat, spiritual renewal and companionship. If mission is the key drive of the Chinese church movement as said by one of the speakers, then intimacy with God needs to be placed as the first and foremost priority in the participation of God’s mission. Mission activities ought to be an overflow of the intimate relationship with the Triune God, in other words, contemplation leading to action. It is not the slogan or zeal of the church that changes the world, but the participation of God’s sending love towards the whole creation that moves and shapes the future of global mission. This too demands deep listening (to God, each other and ourselves), discernment and insight in the spiritual formation of leaders.

Ample Christian literature has addressed this very issue with the same conviction: from everyday spiritual intimacy leading to action by Brother Lawrence, the invitation to inner journey as the foundation of Christian mission by Dallas Willard and M. Robert Mulholland Jr., to the most recent articulation that mission flows naturally from a deep understanding of God’s nature and the scriptures by the former chair of Lausanne Theology working group, Christopher J.H. Wright. It is Henri Nouwen who clearly articulates the sequential flow of Christian life, from communion, community, to ministry. However, none of these Western writers addresses the contextual issues of spirituality and mission that are urgently needed for the global church today. For example, what would a Chinese mission arising from a deeply rooted spiritual life look like? What would the paradigm of high intimacy/high activity in the context of the Chinese church movement look like? What are the challenges and how can they be overcome?

Can the gaps be truly closed at all? What if this is an ongoing, unfolding, intimate dance that enlivens and enlightens us as one body of Christ? Despite her fragility, woundedness and pain, the Bride of Christ yearns to abide in and follow the steps of the Groom who invites her to move and dance in synch with him. In the next post, I will share a pathway to declare and display Christ in a contextual poetic form.

References

Moltmann, Jürgen, and Margaret Kohl. The Church in the Power of the Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology. London: SCM Press, 1977.

Zurlo, Gina A. Women in World Christianity: Building and Sustaining a Global Movement. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2023.

Endnotes

  1. The 29% of women participants was hailed as an all-time high percentage in the history of Lausanne. It is, however, far less than the demographic data of 52% (and more) female in the global church. See Gina A. Zurlo, Women in World Christianity: Building and Sustaining a Global Movement (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2023).
  2. He thinks that the Industrials’ universal context-free “pathological” approach neglects the indigenous wholistic wellbeing approach from below, therefore only presenting one side of a coin.  See also https://jaymatenga.com/l4-reflections/.
  3. Special thanks to my new friends in the Integration of Spirituality and Mission issue group at Lausanne IV for their input in this section.
  4. Jürgen Moltmann and Margaret Kohl, The Church in the Power of the Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology (London: SCM Press, 1977), 64.
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Xiaoli Yang

Xiaoli Yang

  Rev. Dr. Xiaoli Yang is an Australian Chinese theologian, pastor, poet, and spiritual director. She is currently serving Australian Association of Mission Studies and on the editorial board of Australian Journal of Mission Studies.    View Full Bio


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