Evangelical Missiological Society, "EMS Southwest Regional Meeting", April 4th 2024

Daniel Rodriquez, Pepperdine University

The Fourth Lausanne Congress: A Hispanic Evangelical Perspective

This paper analyses “The State of the Great Commission Report” and the “The Seoul Statement” with special emphasis on missiological implications and contributions from a distinctly North American Hispanic evangelical perspective. As a Hispanic missiologist, the author was honored to join the North American delegation at the Fourth Lausanne Congress in South Korea in 2024. With special attention to Hispanic immigrant communities in the United States during a time of increasing uncertainty and marginalization, the author analyzes critical insights and makes contextually-relevant recommendations to members of the Evangelical Missiological Society. 

Each of the documents under review, “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.” This paper will focus attention on several so-called “gaps” identified during the Fourth Lausanne Congress and the documents under review. These include polycentric mission, emerging generations, and life and ministry in the digital age. Attention to each has the potential for accelerating and fulfilling the Great Commission in our current world. 

The Fourth Lausanne Congress and the important documents it produced argue that misleading assumptions about the status of the Great Commission keep us stagnant in our faith and impotent in our impact on the Kingdom of God. What is missing in each gap identified is strategic intentionality in missional action. Therefore, this paper concludes with recommendations from the Fourth Lausanne Congress for reaching our world for Christ, particularly among and by Hispanic immigrant communities in the United States.