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A Review of the Seoul Statement of the Fourth Lausanne Congress (2024), Part Five (Discipleship, Local Church)


The fifth section of the Lausanne Statement is titled ‘Discipleship: The Call to Holiness and Mission’.  It begins with a statement of a problem facing Evangelicals today: the failure to live lives in keeping with a holy pattern of life.  Six paragraphs follow.

First, the Christian life is one empowered by the Spirit to live under Christ’s holy and righteous rule (paragraph 71).  The mission of the Church, then, is the formation of disciples, and the local church is ‘both the means and the end of mission pursued in this way (Jer.31-31-34; Matt 22.36-40)’.  The two passages cited here point to the transformed heart and the commandments to love God and neighbour.  Paragraph 74 adds that transformation in a believer’s life is not instantaneous but is a work of God’s Spirit by grace through faith.  This will challenge the view of some Evangelicals who speak of Christian perfection as a second act of grace.  John Wesley, e.g., taught that this involved reaching a stage where one no longer commits intentional acts of sin.  I am not sure of the purpose of paragraph 74, but it does seem to divide Evangelicals, whether or not it is correct.  One might state matter-of-factly that Evangelicals have different views on sanctification, and the initial focus of the need for transformation is the important point to affirm.  Justification without works is dead, and God’s grace is not just forgiving but transforming by the power of the Spirit.

Affirming the mission of the Church in the Great Commission, the statement emphasises that mission involves transformation through individuals and, through them, of humanity in the image of Christ in the local church and, ultimately, all creation will be restored (paragraph 72).  This statement is important for several reasons.  First, transformation is highlighted.  Without saying so, the point seems to be that ‘conversionism’ does not define Evangelicals if by that is simply meant faith or belief without actual change.  Being a Christian is not just a conversion to a different belief system but is also and consequently an alteration of life.  Second, transformation is not described in terms of social justice in this paragraph; it begins with individuals and the local church.  This distinguishes Evangelicals from many other Protestants today, whose version of Christianity is highly social and political.  Yet the emphasis on transformation highlights the importance for Evangelicals of piety, devotion to God, love of God, worship of God that finds its expression in the local church.  Interestingly, the way this paragraph is worded, it could be interpreted as a postmillennial statement, but not necessarily.  The first Evangelicals were postmillennial, many are now pre-millenial, but it seems that, for many, the old millennial debates are not as divisive as they once were. Let us hope so.  The important thing is to be ready for Christ’s return.

The old balance of personal – social ethics and mission is addressed in paragraph 73, but in an interesting way.  If Lausanne I is known for advocating that Evangelicals need to broaden their understanding of mission from personal salvation to social engagement as well—a so-called ‘holistic’ mission of transformation—this statement turns the point upside down.  It says, ‘The pursuit of righteousness in our personal lives, our homes, our churches, and in the societies in which we live can no more be separated from the announcement of the gospel than being a disciple can be separated from making disciples’ (paragraph 73).  Is the concern that the good news of Jesus Christ is being crowded out by a progressivism that picks up the banner of social justice from the culture and dilutes evangelism by defining ‘mission’ as everything?  I would like to think so as this is a major concern of my own as I watch Evangelicalism twist in the winds of our age.

Paragraph 75 affirms the role of the local church in moral development, evangelism, baptism and the Lord’s Table, prayer, praise and worship, marriage, and families.  Focus on the local church appears in various places in the statement, and this is a key paragraph in that regard.  Paragraph 76 is concerned with oversight and accountability, stating that ministers and missionaries should be accountable to the local church and not be independent or accountable only to a parachurch ministry.  This may seem a simple point to some, but I would suggest that it highlights a failure that Evangelicalism as a movement sometimes creates or allows.  Yet nothing is said further about how local churches also need this oversight, and the proliferation of independent churches in Evangelicalism is the elephant in the room.  The independent church may have made the ‘healthy’ choice to separate from some corrupt or heretical mainline denomination, but it fails when it sees no need to connect with a larger network of Christian churches.  Larger networks of churches can not only provide oversight and support, they also help to do the work of the Church that an individual church cannot do on its own.  Independent churches fail to see the importance of a larger Christian witness and ministry, have to face crisis after crisis as they are disconnected to the history of the Church, and lack the infrastructure for training ministers and doing ministry.  Over the history of the Lausanne movement within Evangelicalism’s longer history, Evangelicalism in many parts of the world has moved from being a revivalist and reform movement within and alongside mainline denominations (which have abandoned the faith in the West) to a doctrinal communion for local, often independent churches and a loose collection of independent mission agencies.  While this does not capture all that is true of Evangelicalism, it is a trend in many parts of the world that deserves more consideration.  To what extent is Evangelicalism still a movement?  What is the importance of new ‘Evangelical’ denominations at this point in history?  What connection is there between churches, denominations, and the mission of the Church in our era?  These are pressing questions of the day.

 

For the Seoul Statement, click here.  For my earlier review articles:

Section One: Preamble and the Gospel, click here.

Section Two: Scripture, click here.

Section Three: The Church, click here.

Section Four: The Human Person, click here.

Section Six: A Review of the Seoul Statement of the Fourth Lausanne Congress (2024), Part Six (The Family of Nations)

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