Abstract

Those who want to make social issues a bigger part of the world evangelization agenda have “met with the opposition of evangelical forces that seem committed to pull the [missions] movement backwards, towards mission styles of the Cold War era and towards pushing the imperial marketing of theological and missiological packages created within the framework of North American society.” This article examines the Lausanne movement, including the landmark evangelization conferences of 1974 and 1989 and focuses on questions of social issues and the gospel. The major purpose is to identify and describe three missiological streams which must establish dialogue with one another if the task of world evangelization is to be accomplished. The “church growth” missiological school, “managerial missiology” “fails to appreciate those aspects of missionary work that cannot be measured or reduced to figures”.