The fourth Lausanne Movement will be held in Seoul, South Korea on September 2024. Also known as the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, the event will gather thousands of Christian leaders worldwide, reports Korean CFD news station.
2024 marks the 50th anniversary of when the Lausanne Movement held its first congress in Lausanne, Switzerland. Two other congresses have been convened since then in Manila, Philippines (1989) and Cape Town, South Africa (2010).
Seoul 2024 will be a celebration of the gospel and our loving, forgiving, and gracious God who has invited us to join his mission in the world. —Lausanne Movement
Lausanne Movement CEO Michael Oh expects thousands of mission influencers from every country will join the event. Men and women serving the body of Christ in different capacities and in multiple contexts are anticipated to convene in Seoul and collaborate for the advancement of world evangelization.
According to Evangelical Focus, for the last five decades, the Lausanne Movement has initiated several conventions, including regional congresses, younger leader gatherings, and conferences to promote its global mission.
When Billy Graham began the movement in 1974, the congress gathered 2,700 Christian leaders from 150 countries. The Manila congress brought together more than 3,000 participants from 170 nations, including Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, while Cape Town had over 4,000 Christian leaders from 198 countries and thousands more joined virtually.
The Seoul 2024 host committee is co-chaired by Oh and Rev Jaehoon Lee, chair of Korea Lausanne and the pastor of the Onnuri Community Church in Seoul.
In a statement, the organization said the coming meeting “will be a pivotal moment in Christian history with the Fourth Lausanne Congress being hosted in Seoul by Korea, Japan, and the broader Asian church, in close partnership with leaders from across Asia.”
The movement hopes that “Seoul 2024 will be a celebration of the gospel and our loving, forgiving, and gracious God who has invited us to join his mission in the world. Our prayer is that the world would look beautifully different in the years and generations ahead because of Seoul 2024.”
Oh said, “We simply want to be faithful in how we are called to live in and love the world in our generation.”
The story of Lausanne
The Lausanne Movement started with evangelist Dr. Billy Graham’s passion to “unite all evangelicals in the common task of total evangelization of the world.”
In the 1960s, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, together with Christianity Today magazine, sponsored a gathering of Christian leaders called World Congress on Evangelism. Berlin hosted the first conference in 1966 followed by Singapore (1968), Minneapolis and Bogotá (1969), and Australia (1971).
Graham felt the need for a more diverse congress to tackle the rapid changes–social, political, economic, and religious, in society. He believed that the Gospel must be used to deal with these issues in the world. The evangelist discussed with 100 Christian leaders about his idea of organizing a larger convention, catering to more Christians worldwide, and they all agreed for such a gathering.
The first Lausanne Congress was held on July 1974 with participants and guests coming from different parts of the world. The 2,700 participants were composed of Christian leaders from various nationalities, ethnicities, ages, occupations and church affiliations. The 10-day congress was filled with discussion, worship and prayer. It was impressive that TIME Magazine described it as “a formidable forum, possibly the widest ranging meeting of Christians ever held.”
