Leighton Ford
There are two very special reasons why I am delighted to send my appreciation and affirmation for the CCCOWE. The first is quite personal. I happen to be an adopted child. Shortly after my birth, my adopted mother, who was a devout Christian, took me to Dr Henry Frost, the leader of the China Inland Mission, and asked him to pray for me. Holding me in his arms, so my mother told me later, he prayed and then said, “Mrs. Ford, I believe that God has given you this child for a special reason.” In her home I learned about the Lord as a child and when I was only five years old she took me to the Canadian Keswick Conference. It was there in children’s meetings led by another China missionary, Miss Frances Thomas, that I first gave my heart to the Lord. My boyhood home in Southern Ontario was only a few miles from the birthplace of that great Canadian missionary to China and Korea, Dr Jonathan Goforth. Of course, Ruth Graham, wife of my brother-in-law Dr Billy Graham, was born in China.
On an equally personal but wider basis, I feel a kinship with Chinese Christians. Just ten years ago we were making the final preparations for the International Congress on World Evangelization to be held in Lausanne, Switzerland. Little did we know then that “Lausanne” would become more than the name of a city. For the thousands of evangelical leaders who gathered there, Lausanne would become an event never to be forgotten. It would become a Covenant, a 15-point document spelling out the theology and strategy of world evangelization which has been translated into scores of languages and today stands as a remarkable exposition of biblical evangelization. Lausanne became a vision — the vision of completing the task of world evangelization through making disciples among all the unreached peoples of the world. Lausanne became a committee — the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization — charged with the task of carrying on the vision of Lausanne and spreading information about what God is doing throughout the world. The “Spirit of Lausanne” was understood as the spirit of cooperation in world evangelization, as evangelical believers from all regions and all ethnic groups prayed and planned and worked together. In a word, Lausanne has become a movement of the Spirit of God including all who are committed to the task of world evangelization in the spirit of Lausanne.
I begin with that background because I believe CCCOWE is one of the prime examples of the Lausanne Movement. When I am asked what positive good comes out of large conferences, I usually point to several prime examples. One is “Operation Good News” in which the Nigerian churches for the last ten years have been working together for the evangelization of their nation. Another is the recent consultation of many evangelistic agencies working among Jewish people who came together under the Lausanne “umbrella.” Then there is the recent Brazil Congress on World Evangelization which was planned, carried out and funded by the Brazilian churches. There is the key concept of thinking of the world in terms of “unreached peoples,” a concept which has been highly accepted since Lausanne. Important theological consultations have taken place on “Evangelism and Social Responsibility” (CRESR conference). More often than not, I will tell people about the CCCOWE Movement. In many ways CCCOWE is a model of what Lausanne is all about.
First, it is a model in its prayerful conception. At Lausanne in 1974 I have been told that some 70 Chinese leaders met for an hour of prayer every day before the formal program began. It was out of that time of prayer that the vision of the Chinese churches worldwide finding a common cause in world evangelization was born. Too often we begin first with planning conferences. We need them. But CCCOWE began out of a prayer meeting and that’s where we should always begin.
Second, CCCOWE has been a model of cooperation, linking churches and groups without dominating. When we thought about the follow-up of the Lausanne Congress, Dr Billy Graham, the honorary chairman, gave a word of warning, “Lausanne must never become some kind of hierarchy that seeks to run everything and to tell people what they can do and what they can’t do in the name of the Lord,” he wisely cautioned. Within churches and groups proper biblical authority and leadership must, of course, be exercised. But between our groups we are in an era in which we need more not hierarchies in which some dominate, but networks in which all share and collaborate. Lausanne seeks to promote this idea. CCCOWE is and must be a model of that kind of cooperation.
Third, CCCOWE is a model in terms of strategy. CCCOWE leaders have accepted the call of God to focus on the renewal of Chinese churches and the evangelization of the Chinese people. CCCOWE seeks to implement the vision with strategic goals, planning during this decade to multiply the number of Chinese churches and workers and during the 1990s to reach unevangelized Chinese people and other peoples. This combination of a specific goal, careful strategies, fervent prayer and aggressive action is an inspiration to many. Also, the future of evangelization within China itself calls for great prayer and sensitivity. My prayer is that CCCOWE may help Chinese Christians and churches to become more and more deeply rooted in Christ and in his Word and more effectively related to Chinese people and culture. As CCCOWE carries out this task you will be a model to others who seek to do the same in their areas.
I believe CCCOWE also has a wider role to play in world evangelization. We have moved, as has been said, from the era of missions (narrowly conceived as missionaries from one part of the world) to the era of world evangelization (broadly conceived as believers from all parts of the world working together to reach the unreached). In this task the Chinese churches can be a special inspiration to other groups of Christians. God has given many Chinese special gifts of organization, discipline, clear thinking, dedication and joy. Chinese churches and students have been a personal uplift to me wherever I have gone in our evangelistic work. My prayer is that CCCOWE will also be used to help the Chinese churches raise their vision to the unreached and lost peoples in the non-Chinese world. There are a billion Chinese to be reached and I know these people are at the center of your heart. But there are nearly two billion non-Chinese also to be reached. May your agenda continue to be stretched by the heavenly vision of that day when people from all tribes and groups and nations will stand among the redeemed before the King of kings.
I would encourage those who read this to consider regular financial support for the work of the Lausanne Committee as well as for CCCOWE.
In the years ahead, by God’s grace, I look forward to a genuine relationship between our two movements. With great thanksgiving I praise God for CCCOWE. As we work together, may the earth hear His voice!
(The author is a contemporary leading evangelist, and he is the President of the Leighton Ford Ministries, which focuses on raising up younger leaders to spread the message of Christ worldwide.)
(An abridged edition taken from Chinese Around the World, May, 1984.)