There are just over ten days left until the start of the Fourth Congress for World Evangelisation, Lausanne 4 (L4), in the city of Seoul, South Korea.

It is expected that 10,000 delegates from all over the world - 5,000 in person, and the rest online - will participate in an event that will centralise the global effort developed by the Lausanne Movement in recent years to analyse the situation of the mission of the church worldwide, and to address together the challenge of taking the gospel to the whole world and to every sphere of society.

That analysis has been condensed into a report presented in April: The State of the Great Commission.

In an interactive website, it presents a broad overview of the state of evangelism and mission worldwide, examining the challenges of the present and near future, as well as the opportunities for the church to collaborate in taking the gospel and making disciples.

“The State of the Great Commission brings together the best global data and key strategic thinkers to understand where the greatest gaps and opportunities are for the Great Commission’s fulfillment”, says Matthew Niermann, director of the report, in which over 150 authors from all over the world have participated.

Current status

Three sections with articles as well as videos and graphics, delve into different key aspects for the Christian mission.

The first part presents the “Current status” by examining the worldwide challenges for evangelism, with figures and graphics that help to take a global perspective.

For example, it is possible to examine the evangelical growth in recent decades, to see its breakdown in terms of the evangelical and Pentecostal movement and, at the same time, to compare it with that of Islam or the trend towards secularism, or the involvement of the whole church in evangelism and mission.

Context shifts

That information leads to the second and larger part of the report, entitled “Context shifts”. It provides a more detailed analysis of the challenges faced by Christianity today.

One of the themes examined is What is the Source of Hope?, as a key to evangelisation in the present day.

“The Christian gospel is a message of hope for all. However, it is not the only promoted avenue of ‘hope’ in our contemporary world. From competing world religions to secular ambitions and pleasures, the world is continually asking, ‘What is the source of hope?’”, points out the report.

Global values “have changed”, with a “prioritisation of self”, so that “love, science and self” are the top values globally.

The report presents several articles addressing how those values are changing the way people vote, join a religious movement or leave their faith.

In this section Lausanne features ten chapters, answering questions such as What does it mean to be human?, addressing issues such as transhumanism or sexuality, What is community?, What is a digital life? or What is sustainable?

Each topic includes a series of statistics and articles by evangelical experts, who bring a biblical perspective to issues of relevance in today's world.

Re-evangelising Europe

The third part of the report looks at the challenges of mission from a geographical perspective.

It presents twelve regions of the world and discusses the challenge of evangelisation and mission in each of them.

In the Europe section of the report, called Re-evangelising Europe, the authors present six key themes for understanding the challenges and opportunities in that area.

“We are called to help believers develop a Christian mindset that overcomes the split between the sacred and the secular.  Therefore our Christian faith needs to be brought into fresh dialogue with the burning questions of society, culture, politics, science, and technology”, it says.

This section analyses the relevance of Christian ethics in an increasingly secularised Europe; the importance of building community in a context of growing isolation; and the demographic challenge as an opportunity to value parenthood and family, and to tackle immigration from a constructive perspective.

“Today, Europe appears to have been thoroughly secularized. Yet, out of the spotlight, an extraordinary re-evangelization of Europe is underway”, concludes the article signed by six authors: Julia Garschagen, Luke Greenwood, Rolf Kjøde, Jim Memory, Usha Reifsnider and Janet Sewell.

Other regional reports address the situation in the Caribbean, Latin America and English, Portuguese and Spanish-speaking Africa.

A work in progress

The Lausanne Movement presents this document as a basis for the Seoul Congress, and beyond that, as a valuable tool for any church, organisation or individual Christian who wants to delve deeper into the importance of evangelism and mission.

The Fourth Lausanne congress will take place from 21-28 September, under the theme "Let the Church declare and display Christ together".