On Bees and Flies: Reflections from Lausanne 4

 

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Reflections on Lausanne 4

I recently attended the Lausanne 4 Congress in Incheon, South Korea (if you're not familiar with Lausanne you can read about it here).

Lausanne left me conflicted on many levels and I have struggled to process the experience of being there. A colleague described it as “both beautiful and controversial,” a reflection I too share.

For there was the beautiful: The opportunity to meet so many amazing Christian leaders from so many different places. The divine (and “random”) God conversations and connections. The opportunities to spend time getting to know colleagues from around the world better. Facilitating a meeting for more than 50 global anti-trafficking workers. Our assigned table groups; everyone I spoke with loved their table groups and mine was no exception, we had representatives from the US, Pakistan, Ghana, Germany, Indonesia and NZ.

The experience of worshipping with 5300 believers from 150+ countries is one of the most beautiful experiences. I often found myself thinking “Is this what heaven is going to be like?” It truly felt like “every tribe and every tongue worshipping before the throne of God”, and for this experience alone it was worth going for. I loved the high profile creative arts were given in worship; and the more than 2000 volunteers who served us with such joy and were a lesson in how to bless through serving. There also were some phenomenal speakers, particularly Sarah Bruel, Dr Anne Zaki and Dr Ruth de Padillo-de Borst’s plenaries. Outstanding prophetic voices, despite the very short time allocated to each.

However, despite these 'beautiful" things there was much that saddened, disappointed, and to be honest grieved my spirit. Here’s what I experienced as the more controversial aspects of Lausanne:

1.       I experienced significant disconnects between the realities in our world and what was presented from the front.

Our world has faced an unbelievable amount of change in the past 5 years: the pandemic, increased conflict, climate change, economic downturn, mass unemployment & vulnerability, increased trauma and mental health issues – all have combined to create a new norm of global ‘permacrisis’. Yet there was no recognition of this at Lausanne. No recognition that perhaps in light of our world being so very different, we should be responding differently too, and not blindly continuing with how mission has always been done.  

Lausanne’s State Of The Great Commission (SOTGC) Report released prior to the Congress also identified there has been a big move away from Christianity being a Western religion. Yet that’s not what Lausanne modelled. We saw an incredible disconnect between the changing demographic in Christianity and the triumphalist model of Western Christianity promoted from the front.

There was further disconnect even with the diversity of who was there – people from more than 150 countries - and what was modelled from the front. Robert Chacomero (a theologian from Latin America) commented that “all of the chosen speakers from the US were white men, even though the greatest vitality of the US church is found today among immigrant churches. Neither was the overt white Christian nationalism addressed, even though it represents one of the most significant obstacles to the spread of the Gospel in the world today.” And while our worship times were great, it too was very Western; we missed a great opportunity to support the growing global movement of indigenous worship.

There was also a lack of willingness to acknowledge and address the influence colonialism has had on Christianity. In many parts of the world there is growing discussion around decolonisation, localisation, redistributing power, for repentance for how we often combined the two...yet only one speaker dared to mention this from the front – and the response was an apology from Lausanne for what was said.

Despite all the changes and conversations in our world Lausanne was championing a return to the good old days and ways of Billy Graham and Western triumphalist Christianity. And it jarred.

2.       I experienced an expression of collaboration that was highly controlled and dismissive of existing, external, or spirit-led collaboration

There was a lot of talk at Lausanne about collaboration. As a highly collaborative leader who is working to develop collaborative global networks, this should have been something I found right up my alley. Instead I became increasingly disturbed by the highly controlled form of collaboration that was promoted: Lausanne’s model of collaboration and how they determined it should be done. There was little recognition of the incredible amount of collaboration already occurring outside of Lausanne, or the huge gains to be made from collaborating with others; it was all focused on internal collaboration within, and the urgent need for everyone to be in Lausanne’s ‘collaborative action teams.’ The continual promotion that collaboration had to be done through ‘the Lausanne app’ was also problematic as it assumed access to regular, affordable internet access that many present do not have.

I know colleagues who loved Lasuanne’s approach and for whom it was highly successful in getting initiatives underway. But it was too controlled, did not acknowledge the importance of wider collaboration, and allowed no room for  ‘Spirit-led’ collaboration to evolve (often the most exciting part of collaborating with others).

3.       I experienced a gaping and increasing dichotomy between prioritism and integral mission.

The tagline of the Congress was “Let the church declare and display Christ” – seriously great! I threw aside my preconceived ideas about having to advocate for the justice voice to be heard and entered fully into this vision. But my initial enthusiasm was premature. Over the next few days it became very clear that proclamation was priority, integral or holistic mission was very much second place, and anything that could be linked to social action was even further down the priority list.

I understand this has been a historical tension within Lausanne, but it concerns me that this is even an issue. Why does mission have this dichotomy? Why can’t we hold ‘both/and’? In my reading and understanding of scripture we are called to BOTH preach the gospel AND care for the vulnerable AND free the oppressed. I am not saying proclamation isn’t important, because it is. To be honest, the church urgently needs to reclaim its voice and its boldness and speak the good news of Jesus into our hurting world. But our world is hurting more than ever, and desperately needs us to be the hands and feet of Jesus, as well as his voice.

4.       I experienced an exclusion of justice from the heart of Christian mission.

For six days, we spent more than 3 hours every morning and 2 hours every evening together in plenary sessions. Of this total of 30 hours together hearing speakers and presentations, 15 minutes was allocated to a “justice” speaker. 15 minutes.

And here’s why this disturbs me: Justice is the very heart of God. He is our God of mercy and justice. In Luke 4 when Jesus stood up and said why he had come, it was to preach the good news AND bring justice.  The concept of justice is deeply embedded throughout the Bible; it is not sidelined to a few isolated scriptures. Yet that’s how it was treated here - as a 15 minute unimportant sideline.

I did experience a great sense of irony as I listened to one of Lausanne’s identified “gaps” in achieving the Great Commission. In an interesting plenary about “Gen Z” (from a Boomer) we heard “Gen Z is the biggest generation alive on the planet, they are leaving the church in droves…and they are very interested in justice”. Imagine if someone had connected these dots at Lausanne – if this is what all the data is showing (and it is), what a fantastic opportunity the church has to attract and keep Gen Z – engage in justice, make it part of our church heartbeat and who we are. They will come, they will stay and they will revitalise the church – but not until justice is included as a central part of all we do.

5.       I experienced a lack of space and sensitivity for the Spirit to move

With more than 5000 people present I understand the need for things to be highly scheduled and programmed, but not at the expense of allowing the Holy Spirit room to move.

We spent little time together in corporate prayer. We spent even less in silence, waiting on God, seeing what the Spirit was saying. And on the rare occasion the Spirit began to move, things were quickly moved back to the programme, usually with triumphant praise music totally at odds with what the Spirit had begun to do. And every time this happened, we missed an incredible opportunity as the body of Christ to be led by the Spirit into a move of repentance and transformation.

A powerful evening learning about the persecution in our world left the room deeply moved and wanting to respond to the pain we had heard through prayer and reflection. But instead? Back came the band with songs of clapping praise, totally at odds with where the Spirit had been leading. I’m a big fan of using praise in the face of adversity and oppression, but this was out of context and it jarred.

Another example came when Sarah Bruel, a highly prophetic and powerful speaker, led us to a place where the room was about to come before God in repentance. It was incredibly powerful, the Spirit was moving… but just as people were entering into this space, time was up – our MC’s came out and led with a rousing round of applause, the band burst into triumphant praise and we were forced into 30 minutes of table discussions answering 3 prepared questions. No space given to respond in any way to what had just happened; keeping to the programme content seemed more important than anything the Holy Spirit wanted to do.

We heard repeatedly in plenary sessions about the need for repentance but we were we never given space to do this corporately, together. Imagine the power and what might have changed in our world if we had spent time together on our knees before the Lord in repentance. We missed a big opportunity.

6.       I experienced a highly controlled narrative throughout the whole Congress.

The narrative throughout whole Congress was highly controlled, with outcomes already decided before we even began. The tone of all sessions I attended – from plenaries, our time in “collaborative gaps” in the afternoon, and even the Network meeting I attended – were very top-down and hierarchical with no willingness or space given for discussion (let alone outcomes) that may have led in an alternate direction to what had already been planned.

5300 people went to Lausanne ready, willing and excited to contribute to the direction of global mission for the next 15 years, yet our role felt more like filling in the gaps Lausanne had already pre-decided.

Historically Lausanne releases reports after each Congress, documenting the discussions that took place and outcomes that were agreed during the week. This time the report for this Congress – the Seoul Statement – was released in its final form on the first day - leaving many questioning the purpose of being there if outcomes were already written. After significant pushback, Lausanne communicated this was a ‘draft’, but also communicated that there was no room for any changes and it was ‘pretty much carved in stone.’

7.       I experienced an environment that was not able to handle difference and the resulting tensions that often coexist with the holding of different perspectives.

For me, and many others, one of the standout speakers was a Latin American theologian Dr Ruth Padillo de Borst. She was given 15 minutes to speak on justice, the only 15 minutes allocated to this topic. Her presentation was strong, challenging, and asked questions of the evangelical church about our role in condoning injustice.

In her presentation - which had been approved word for word by Lausanne leadership ahead of time – she included 2 sentences that spoke to the deadly injustices occurring in Palestine. A very small group of North American theologians objected; within hours Lausanne sent out an email apologizing for Dr. Padilla’s talk and shaming her publicly in front of the 5,000 physical attendees and thousands more participating in the conference virtually.

This bothers me on so many levels I don’t know where to start. Regardless of whether you agreed with her statements or were offended by them, Lausanne's response was unnecessary, badly communicated and created significant hurt and grief amongst a large number of participants, particularly those from Latin America and the majority world.

Unfortunately, the closing remarks of Lausanne did nothing to help heal the tensions that had emerged. Quoting a Russian proverb (an interesting choice in itself) participants were encouraged to “be bees, not flies” as we left, with the explanation that we should strive to focus on the good from Lausanne, like a bee that seeks out flowers and nectar, rather than the bad, like a fly that looks for filth. The implication was clear, and further emphasised the organisational inability to hold space for – and even encourage healthy dialogue around – differing opinions.

As a bee I saw beauty at Lausanne, but as a fly, I also saw the filth. As my colleague said, it was both “the beautiful and the controversial.” I am glad for those who had a more positive experience than myself, and pray for all who attended, that as we process our experiences we see Gods’ hand at work through it all.