One month to go to LOI 2014

With just a month to go before 60 participants from around the world will gather at the monastery of St. Vlash in Albania for the second Lausanne-Orthodox Initiative consultation, a whole new section has just been published on our website. Especially important for those actually participating in the consultation, these pages will also inform the…

Opening doors in Gaza

The following article appeared on www.dawn.com recently. We republish it because it expresses the spirit of ‘open doors’ to all in need in the midst of crisis. For Gaza resident Mahmud Khalaf, it was a bizarre new experience, prostrating himself for his daily Muslim prayers beneath the gaze of an icon of Jesus Christ. But…

Ukrainian Crisis – analysis

At the LOI consultation in 2013 one of our participants was Dr. Mark Elliott the editor of East-West Church and Ministry Report.  In the past few months Mark has focused his analytical attention almost entirely on the crisis in Ukraine and its impact on Christian ministry and mission.  This has resulted in a major edition…

Religious freedom denied to Orthodox and Evangelical leaders in Kyrgyzstan

Forum 18 (the religious rights watchdog and newsagency) is reporting that the Kyrgyzstan State Commission for Religious Affairs (SCRA) “on 14 July refused registration as missionary to Bishop Feodosy, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Kyrgyzstan, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Under the Religion Law, this prevents him from working as a…

Biblical Insights into Conversion

As we prepare for the second Lausanne-Orthodox Initiative consultation (in Albania from 15-19 September 2014) we are posting today the third of our three background articles on conversion. This third article, originally published in the IBMR in 2004, is by Dr. Chris Wright and draws on his rich biblical research. To download the article click…

Lausanne Movement features in new book

Last November we featured a book on Orthodox mission published by Regnum Press. This summer Regnum have produced a companion volume on the Lausanne Movement. Both books make excellent background reading for all of us engaged in the Lausanne Orthodox Initiative. Introducing the new volume, Regnum Press say, “The Lausanne Movement has since 1974 functioned as a…

Understanding Conversion

We are pleased to share the second IBMR article on conversion in preparation for our discussions at the second LOI consultation in Albania this coming September. The second article is by Richard Peace , the Robert Boyd Munger Professor of Evangelism and Spiritual Formation at Fuller Theological Seminary and an ordained minister in the United…

Converts or Proselytes?

At the second Lausanne-Orthodox Initiative (LOI) consultation which will be held in Tirana, Albania in September 2014, the first main topic which will be addressed by participants will be our different understandings of the process of conversion or spiritual transformation. Exactly ten years ago three leading Evangelical scholars wrote on the topic of conversion in the…

Orthodox Missiologist appointed to key WCC post

Professor Ioan Sauca of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and a key participant in the 2013 LOI consultation, has been appointed to a  very senior staff position in the World Council of Churches (WCC). Fr. Ioan, who is currently director of the WCC’s Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, is the new WCC associate general secretary for ecumenical formation and…

Training new church leaders for Syria (and the rest of the Middle East)

THE INSTITUTE FOR ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN STUDIES, CAMBRIDGE has found a way to help Christian communities that are struggling to survive the current turmoil in the Middle East. The Principal, Professor David Frost, writes: ‘This last month marked the first anniversary of the kidnapping of our close friend and Visiting Lecturer, the Orthodox bishop Metropolitan Paul…