What is the Lausanne Movement?
Connecting Influencers and Ideas for Global Mission
“Understand the Lausanne Movement in 100 seconds” (with Japanese subtitles)
Across the world today, men and women are faithfully stewarding God’s call as leaders and people of influence in organizations, churches, schools, and marketplaces. What would happen if these men and women were to gather together to form God-inspired, catalytic connections within and across regions, generations, shared interests, and ideas? This is the unique calling of the Lausanne Movement: to connect influencers and ideas for global mission.
In his travels around the world, Billy Graham met many leaders who were disconnected from each other. He felt called to bring these leaders together, thus beginning a movement of connections marked by a spirit of humility, friendship, prayer, study, partnership, and hope, which Graham called “the spirit of Lausanne”. It is in this spirit that world congresses, global gatherings, and issue-specific forums and consultations have been convened for over 40 years, resulting in numerous connections, initiatives, and resources.
What is YLG?
For the past 40 years, an international conference called the Younger Leaders Gathering (YLG) has been held to foster leadership among the young generation. Most recently, it was held in Indonesia 2016; YLG2016. The conference brought together more than 1,000 young leaders from more than 150 countries around the world to connect, pray, and seek God's will for ministry to this generation. YLG is held once every 10 years, and YLG2016 is the third world conference in Lausanne history. Through YLG, lifelong friendships and cooperative relationships have been fostered between diverse Christian leaders around the world, resulting in many missionary fruits. The Lord has richly used YLG to advance world mission.
In 2019, East Asia Conference (East Asia YLG) was held, the first regional YLG in the history of the Lausanne movement. Under the themes of "Unity in Diversity" and "At All Cost for the Lost" 350 young leaders and senior leaders as mentors from 8 different countries and regions in East Asia gathered on Jeju Island in South Korea.
After the East Asia YLG, God gave us the vision to launch Japan YLG as a country-specific YLG specializing in the Japanese context. After the "Japan YLG Online Fellowship," which brought together more than 250 young leaders during the Covid pandemic, the Japan YLG2024 gathering will finally be held in-person in March next year.