Laussane
This Occasional Paper was produced by the Issue Group on this topic at the 2004 Forum for World Evangelization hosted by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization in Pattaya, Thailand, 29 September to 5 October, 2004
1. The Vision: A Global Movement for Developing Christ-Like Leaders
Imagine a worldwide church
where every leader is mentoring younger leaders,
where leadership is both Christ-like and contextual,
where leaders partner together across boundaries,
where millions of future leaders are emerging—
bringing the whole gospel to the whole world.
Where would it lead?
What would happen?
This vision would be a galactic explosion— rather than our simple fireworks.
What will it take?
We see leadership development as a priority that is embraced across the Body of Christ.
We see a commitment to partnership between organisations, seminaries, churches and parents— on the local, national and international level.
We see ever deepening Christ-like character as the goal of leader development. We see contextualised leadership which is sensitive to the culture and faithful to Scripture.
We see diverse expressions of leadership— young and old, female and male, for church and marketplace— working together shoulder to shoulder for God’s Kingdom.
This is the vision that energized us in the Future Leadership Issue Group in Pattaya, Thailand, as 130 of us gathered from 43 nations and six continents around the purpose statement: “To cooperate with God toward fulfilling the Great Commission by catalyzing a global movement of developing Christ-like leaders.”
Three decades ago, Article 11 of the Lausanne Covenant expressed the longing that “every church will have national leaders who manifest a Christian style of leadership in terms not of domination but of service.” Fifteen years later, Affirmation #12 of the Manila Manifesto declared: “God has committed to the whole church and every member of it the task of making Christ known throughout the world; we long to see all lay and ordained persons mobilized and trained for this task.” For this assignment to be completed, a greatly accelerated global movement of developing Christ-like leaders is needed. This is our burden, and this is our call to the worldwide Body of Christ.