And welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history.

Today is July 17, 2024. Yesterday, 50 years ago, the International Congress on World Evangelization

opened. It was held in the town of Lausanne, Switzerland.

It was a 10-day gathering around the theme of missions.

The specific theme was,

let the Earth hear his voice.

Over 2,500 participants

represented over 150 countries.

Now, this Congress was years in the making. Back in 1966, the first Congress was held. It was

held in Berlin and then numerous Congresses were held in various cities, one in 1971 in Australia, and all of that led up to the Luzan

Congress or the International Congress in 1974.

One of the key people at Losen was Billy Graham. It was the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

that called and organized this Congress and Graham was the honorary chairman.

Another influential figure there was John Stott.

John Stott said, many a conference has resembled a fireworks display.

It has made a loud noise and illuminates the sky for a few brief brilliant seconds.

What is exciting about Lusanne is that its fire continues to spark off other fires.

The organizers of the conference saw the year 2000 coming, and they set as a goal for the global church to evangelize the world by the year 2000.

They recognize the enormity of the task as they recognize that over two-thirds of the world's population had never heard the

gospel.

And so they held sessions together and seminars and sought how they could work together to promote world evangelization.

They also produced the statement, the Lozan statement.

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