Meet the Nick Fury of Global Missions

David Platt: Hey, I’m sitting here with Michael Oh, who is the leader, CEO of Lausanne, which many people know Lausanne over decades. Some people have no idea what Lausanne is. So imagine for a second I had no idea what Lausanne is, and I am meeting the leader of Lausanne. What in the world is that?

Michael Oh: Yeah. Well, unofficially we’re like the Nick Fury of Global Mission.

David: Love that. Okay.

Michael: We’re like the ones who know the people who are doing heroic work around the world, we’re the ones who are able to have the trust so that when we call them, they’re willing to come together. We’re the ones who help kind of see the world out there and understand what is the nature of the challenge that we face in different parts of the world, globally as well. And that there are unique times when we can say, oh, well, Batman’s kind of got that one, or that situation’s okay, under control with Thor or Hulk or whatever. But there are certain situations where it’s like, we need to bring all of The Avengers or all of the Justice League or whatever together because it’s compelling and we need to work together on this and it’s going to impact the world if we don’t get together and it’s going to impact the world if we do.

David: I just want to run with this analogy right now. I’m going to try my best not to, but so it started when? And like so the legacy of yeah, when did all this come together?

Michael: Yeah, 1974. So Billy Graham was the one who in many ways, God had prepared as a central figure for the global faith, someone who was trusted, someone who had integrity and humility and a biblical passionate faith and relationships. So I asked Billy, “Why did you start Lausanne?” And he said, “Well, I traveled the whole world and met such amazing people, but I found they didn’t know each other.” So we take for granted the fact that so many leaders, influencers in the global church know each other. But that was not the case. And the Lord’s intention was for that convening and that trust building and connecting. It wasn’t meant to rest on the shoulders of one person. So Lausanne kind of residual trust, authority, and convening power. We’re trying to carry on that kind of influence and role in the church. So we’re really a serving body. We are here to support the mission of God, and we’re here to help connect and facilitate the global church in that mission.

David: So there have been, going back to the beginning, congress’s, gatherings of The Avengers, Justice League, all these people in the global church starting back in the 70s.

Michael: Yeah.

David: And there’s a Congress coming up. So what does that look like?

Michael: So Time Magazine described the first Congress as a formidable gathering, possibly the largest and most globally representative gathering of church leaders in history. And it was a time not simply to be able to relationally connect, but that was super important. But it was a time to reaffirm our biblical faith in some sense, to stem the tide of liberal theology that was emerging in the late 60s and early 70s. And counteract the fact that when your theology is flawed, your mission then will be tainted or it will lack the passion that is needed. So regaining the biblical faith in 74 as well as biblical mission, that was really most poignantly and powerfully and enduringly expressed in the Lausanne Covenant.

So that was a team of global theologians and editors who came together led by John Stott, who helped capture biblical global faith and mission in a way that endures today. I mean, it is the most used statement of faith and mission, confession of faith and mission in the world today in schools, churches, businesses, organizations, and more. So that was key. The second Lausanne Congress. So in each Congress you saw that reaffirmation of biblical faith and also pretty cutting edge strategic mission strategy that came out. So in the first Congress it was Ralph Winter and the,-

David: Unreached people.

Michael: Challenge with unreached people groups. That was an 11-minute talk.

David: Wow.

Michael: Changed the world, changed the future of global mission. Second Congress was, in particular, you had the 10 40 window that was platformed. You also had a situation where there was proper biblical rebuke. And the rebuke really went out to the scripture translation organizations because they were doing their own thing, not only in an isolated way, but also in a competitive way. And ultimately it’s competitive because of dollars.

So it’s like support us, we’re doing the right thing, we’re doing the better thing than these other organizations. So that rebuke of competition and then repentance and then reorganization strategically. So within six months after the second Lausanne Congress, FOBAI was started, the Forum of Bible Agencies International led into other global efforts to see the Bible translated into every single language in the world. And great progress is being made, and we’re probably about 10 years away from it being,-

David: That’s amazing in our day.

Michael: So then the fourth Congress, third Congress was in 2010 in Cape Town, 4,000 leaders from every 200 nations on earth and the fourth Congress 2024.

David: So what’s going to change in the world as a result of the fourth Congress?

Michael: Yes. So this is an exciting time. The core opportunity and the core call is, and it’s actually reflected in our theme, let the church declare and display Christ together. Let the church declare and display Christ together. So the huge strategic opportunity is collaborative action, like working together as a church. First Corinthians 12, John 17 type unity, not just feel good unity, but missional effective, coordinated, collaborative action. So the opportunity number one, is in order to be strategic, we need to have the best information and data of where’s our goal? So essentially for decades and for centuries, we’ve been operating kind of like the Christian version of do random acts of kindness. It’s like just do your own thing. Do something good and praise God. The problem is that has allowed us to do things well, get well resources, kind of refine what we’re doing, but has left us isolated and also competitive. And also we’ve actually, we’re seeing deceleration of the gospel and some different measures.

So 86% of the world’s Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus do not know a single Christian. That is a strategic gap, that is a billions large gap. Also, year after year, there are more people in the world who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ than a year before. There are more status quo. The trajectory of just doing our own thing and doing random acts of Christian ministry is not enough. It is not working.

So our kind of innovation opportunity is just being the body of Jesus Christ and working together as a body of Jesus Christ in collaboration. So informing that, this is a sneak peek of some of the graphics that we’re working on. It is the first-ever report on the State of the Great Commission. So this will be gold for the global church, gold for global mission because we’re dealing with a complex world and we are trying to see progress toward the fulfillment of the Great Commission, but we don’t have a baseline. So I don’t know about your house, but we have a wall with lines and dates on it. Right. So how tall is MJ and Elliot growing? How tall are they growing and how, since when? And essentially, and I’ve talked to dozens of global mission CEOs when I’ve said, “How are we doing with the Great Commission? What percentage are we? What’s remaining? What are the most strategic gaps and opportunities?” Nobody had an answer.

I’m not sure. I can tell you what we’re doing. I can show you to our donors and our supporters, our prayer supporters, what we’re doing, the progress that we’re making, but how do we take responsibility for the whole, for the whole of the Great Commission? And we need a baseline. So this baseline is basically a meta study of all the best existing information and research from all around the world, including what we know, and then also identifying what we don’t know, including what we’re doing, what we’re also doing that’s duplication and that’s competitive and also what no one’s doing and where we need to engage. So the whole Congress then is about strategic response and collaborative response to see the Great Commission fulfilled.

David: It’s pretty awesome picture. I’m sitting here thinking about how people might process all this. I hope that it’s super encouraging to hear about, I mean, because there will be, Lord willing, 5,000 people from every country in the world, every kind of stream of gospel, Orthodox, love the Bible, love Jesus, want to see Jesus and his word known and among all the nations, sitting around tables together working with data and on how can we best work together for the spread of the gospel. It’s pretty awesome.

Michael: Yeah.

David: And the opportunities, and we talk about this all the time. We have more opportunities. There are more unreached people than ever before. And more opportunities to reach them than ever before if we’ll do it wisely, if we’ll work together. And I just think even on a base level, I mean many people might hear this and think, well, that’s great that this is happening on a big picture level, which it is. But let’s cultivate that kind of spirit in the cities where we live and everywhere we are working together with other followers of Jesus to make disciples of the nations together, right, where he is put us. So I know we’re running out of time. What if I, I mean, there are a million things we could talk about right now Michael. What encouragement even specifically would you give to followers of Jesus from your seat as a leader of Lausanne?

Michael: Yeah. I mean, just piggybacking on what you just said, you can get involved, like you, you can get involved. So I mean, Lausanne has always played an influential voice role with people who are making impact all around the world, which is why probably a lot of your Christians in the pews don’t know Lausanne, but this is going to be a truly ground level strategic collaborative action opportunity. So it’s not just the 5,000 in Seoul from every nation, the 10,000 who are part of Seoul Virtual, but we’re hoping for 100,000 global satellite sites around the world in churches, businesses, schools, and more and millions who will join through online streaming, YouTube and satellite and more.

So for example, anyone could say we have a sports group, a team, or we have a business fellowship or whatever. Anyone can say, we want to be a host site, a satellite site. And then we’re going to try to do a little bit of kind of plug and play. So you can say, okay, well we want to bring kind of this talk, this seminar, this curriculum, this data, this information, this round table and study these pieces, these particular areas where we want to be engaging, where we want to help fill gaps.

So the point is not just, okay, we have a great group to come together and experience Congress. The point is we’re going to bring a team together that eventually wants to be strategically mobilized to kind of in essence take a brick in the broken down wall of Jerusalem and say, we’re going to claim this brick. And we want to connect with the teams around the world who are in the same tech sector in Bangalore and Singapore and say, we’re going to find ways to collaborate, to share stories, to pray together, to share mistakes that we’ve made, et cetera, so that the global church will be more relationally connected, more informationally connected, and more strategically connected than we’ve ever been in all of history. And that’ll be supported through prayer and also through game-changing technology.

David: Yes. Man, Michael, I praise God for his grace in your life, Nick Fury, and for the work that is being done and the part you’re playing individually and your family and the part Lausanne is playing in ways that encourage all of us and the help equip all of us to play the parts God’s given us to play and getting the gospel to people who’ve never heard it. So may God bless this Congress, your leadership, and may God, as I’m listening to you, I’m just thinking John 17, Jesus. Yes, unify your church that the world might know that the Father has sent you and the Father loves you and loves us and so, maybe so.

Michael: Yeah. All right, let’s do it.