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The Global Great Commission (with Matthew Niermann)
2 Playsin 16 hours
Here on PEP Talk, we often think about how each of us can share our faith, perhaps on our own or with our local church. But what about the big picture - the REALLY big picture? On a global scale, in this century, what is happening as Christians everywhere seek to fulfil the Great Commission? Today Simon and Gavin speak with the director of the "State of the Great Commission" report from the Lausanne Movement.
You can access the full report here: https://lausanne.org/report
Matthew Niermann has served the Lausanne Movement since 2010 in a variety of roles including research and operations. He is currently serving as the director of the State of the Great Commission Report for Lausanne 4. In addition, he serves as a dean and professor of architectural design at California Baptist University, where his research partially focuses on the relationship between creativity and Christian witness.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Great Commission Report
00:00:10
Speaker
We must raise a community of believers united in purpose and pursuit, seeking to carry out Jesus' command to the letter. We need church leaders who understand the very heart of the Great Commission.
00:00:22
Speaker
Now that is a quote from the introduction of the State of the Great Commission report produced by the Lausanne Movement, which is the topic of this edition of Pet Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast from Solas,
00:00:34
Speaker
Welcome to
Meet the Hosts: Simon and Gavin
00:00:35
Speaker
the show. I am Simon Wenham and I'm really looking forward to discussing what is a very important and interesting study for Christians today. And to help me do that, I'm joined by my intrepid co-presenter Gavin Matthews.
00:00:48
Speaker
ah Gavin, how are you doing today? I do very well, Simon. It's nice to be back on. I've not been on the podcast for oh a couple of months, so lovely to be back on. Great. Well, it's lovely to have you. I use the word intrepid because, as some people may know, you've recently cycled the entire length of um of Britain, and so that which does beg the question is have you suitably recovered yet?
00:01:07
Speaker
Several parts of my anatomy have some recovery still to do. Okay, well, okay, we we we we won't won't go
Dr. Nieman's Role and Background
00:01:14
Speaker
any further with that. but Moving swiftly on, um I'm also delighted to introduce our main guest today, who is Dr. Matthew Nieman, the Director of Global Research at the Lausanne Movement. This is a very important global evangelical collaboration that has been encouraging mission across the world over the past 50 years.
00:01:34
Speaker
And he's speaking to us today in his position as executive editor of the State of the Great Commission report. And I should also add that he's a professor of architecture at at California Baptist University.
00:01:46
Speaker
And he's also written on many other subjects, including Christian creativity and beauty. So I'm sorry we can't cover those topics, but um it's very interesting to know that you're covering other areas as well as global mission.
00:01:59
Speaker
So, Dr. Neerman, welcome to the show. um I wondered if you could just start by saying a little bit about your own background and perhaps how you got involved with evangelism in the first place. Yeah, thank you gentlemen. It's great to be here today. Wonderful be here on Pep Talk with you guys.
00:02:13
Speaker
Absolutely love discussing this and really encouraging all Christians to engage in the Great Commission. As you said, um and I've had a bit of an interesting background. right I sit both with a hat as an architecture professor, buildings, not computers for those who are in both fields.
00:02:29
Speaker
But then i also sit in the mission side. And to me, these are worlds that come together. As I began to really live out my faith in my college years and post-college years and even in my young faculty years,
00:02:42
Speaker
I recognized that how I was presenting the gospel, ah really truth heavy, hidden truth, truth, truth, wasn't matching or wasn't landing in the context where I was
The Role of Beauty in Evangelism
00:02:52
Speaker
at. So I began to understand the role, to to your point, my other kind of area of research, my the role that beauty plays ah in in showing who god is and showing who what the gospel is in people's lives.
00:03:04
Speaker
And began to understand that there are multiple avenues to speak who God is to this world. And that that led me down lots of different paths continued to actively pursue evangelism in both beauty and design, and then followed it up with missions research and formal training as a missiologist and thinking more and more about how this can work.
00:03:21
Speaker
And I've been faithfully with the Lausanne Movement for about 15 years now, enjoying both the formal side of Lausanne research and the practice of missions and evangelism and apologetics through beauty.
Purpose and Alignment of the Report
00:03:33
Speaker
It brings us to this great report that's come out in the last few months called the State of the Great Commission. Why did you set about doing this major piece of research and what does it bring? What what does it bring to the church? Yeah, thanks this is ah a once in a generation report.
00:03:47
Speaker
This is a 550 page report, the 150 authors, 100 pages, of original graphs and diagrams. And this this was a major undertaking, as you said, Gavin. and But this was an important undertaking.
00:03:58
Speaker
and this This aligned with the Seoul 2024 Congress, ah where we brought the world together Lausanne, which happens once a generation to say, here's where we are at in the Great Commission.
00:04:09
Speaker
And how do we advance the Great Commission? So aligned with that global Congress, we produced a report that says, where are we in the Great Commission? How is it that we can begin to advance the Great Commission in our day and in our age?
00:04:21
Speaker
So it was a mark in the sand, Gavin. It was a point in time that says, here's where we are. and And taking on this audacious question of where are we in the Great Commission, ah that took about 550 pages and probably another 1,000 pages after that. But it's ah it's a big question to ask, where we are in the Great Commission.
00:04:37
Speaker
Fantastic. Thank you. And I must say, I really enjoyed looking through it. There's so much interesting information. it really was just a sort of ah hive of interesting facts about the church and also just very, very helpful for us in mission and evangelism.
Global Shifts Impacting Evangelism
00:04:52
Speaker
I suppose the the the sort of summary question is is, what are some of the major findings of the report? Obviously, the world is a very different place from from where it was even a couple of decades ago.
00:05:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's amazing to think the last time we did a report like this was in 2010. Now here we are in 2025, just how radically our world has shifted ah in those in those years.
00:05:16
Speaker
but We begin to look at where is the church now? We can look at it from a couple different ways. We can begin can look at where is the world. like The world in a very different place. Each one of you are probably listening to this on a cell phone while driving and maybe a self-driving car. That didn't exist in 2010 when we did this before. We're looking at radical demographic shifts inside and outside of the church and how our world is being shaped. We're looking at economic changes from the middle class to the rich.
00:05:43
Speaker
We're looking at age demographics changing. ah there's There's a whole slew of of things that are and even new questions that are coming up. ah within this. So the report is framed in 10 major questions that are shaping the world between now and 2050, and in a sense, will shape our grid commission as well.
00:05:58
Speaker
That's really interesting because very often guests come on this podcast particularly, and they talk about evangelism, the Great Commission at a micro level. You know, we have people working in their neighborhoods or in a school. And yet on this edition, we're kind of pulling back and looking at the the global picture.
00:06:12
Speaker
So what are some snapshots from all of that research and those 10 big questions, ah particularly in terms of the implications for evangelism, the implications for us as a church as we go about world mission? I mean, you mentioned things like demographic shifts, aging, those sorts of things.
00:06:28
Speaker
What does it mean for us as we engage as a world church in mission?
Engaging Beyond the Church
00:06:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the main parts and maybe dispositions that I would want a reader to come to this report with and leave with is this idea that we have to know the world so that Christ can be known by the world.
00:06:46
Speaker
So oftentimes in our mission studies, we we look at ourselves, we look at the church, we see what's going on within the Christian world. But this report lifts our eyes up and says, look beyond the church, look into the world.
00:06:57
Speaker
How is the world right now? how Where is it going so that we can begin to meet the world where it's at in a contextualized gospel way and so I'm happy to kind of unpack some of these questions. Maybe what was most interesting to you guys in here that we could talk about a little bit further?
00:07:10
Speaker
Thank you. i mean There were so many different sort of themes that run throughout it. and the The demographic shift was one of them. i think one thing that I noticed, which I thought was quite interesting, is is talking about actually the and an older demographic getting larger in the world today.
00:07:27
Speaker
and I thought that was quite interesting because we sometimes... think of the church as being in decline because it is elderly and and perhaps isn't being replaced. and and I suppose that raised the question of, do you ah sort of are you advocating sort of certain types of mission for different demographics um with regard to you know potentially elderly elderly people or or other demographics as well?
00:07:50
Speaker
Yeah, certainly. And, you know, it's important to note that we are thinking about what's happening in the church and outside the church. We look at both of those, actually, um we can see that across the world, we're just getting older.
00:08:02
Speaker
The majority of the population in most places, save a few places, right? Africa is a very young continent and others. but if you look at the West and you look at Asia, we're primarily a very old and getting older kind of population.
00:08:13
Speaker
Now, this has a lot of effects on how we consider missions and evangelism, both in proclamation and in service. If we think about just how our country's infrastructures are going to need to change, our health cares, our service industries, you know, just the secular side of things have to radically shift. and And there's a great opportunity in there for the church to come alongside and serve our elderly population and care for them.
00:08:37
Speaker
But it's also interesting when you begin to look at the discipleship and effectiveness of discipleship ah to the elderly populations. Guys, we do a really wonderful job focusing on youth.
00:08:48
Speaker
Most of our churches have youth pastors. Most of our churches have youth outreach. Most of our churches have youth engagement. But we've had very little consideration on ah aging engagement, aging discipleship, aging evangelism.
00:09:01
Speaker
And this is this is a major population shift that's happening in our world. And so maybe if we think about even our own church, we can say, why is it that we have a youth minister, but we don't have an aging minister? These are these are interesting kind of notions. If the majority of our population is here and not there, it's just it's just a gut check question for us to say, Why it that we're doing this? And perhaps we could help and aid and serve and disciple this population even more
00:09:28
Speaker
I'm interrupting this edition of the Pep Talk podcast to tell you that Solas is about to celebrate its 15th birthday. and you're invited to come and join us at 7.30pm on Wednesday, the 19th of November online.
00:09:40
Speaker
To access that, go to solas-cpc.org forward slash 15. The word 15, not the digits. Come and join us as we celebrate 15 years of Solas and look to the future. See you there.
00:09:53
Speaker
Now, back to the podcast.
00:09:58
Speaker
I think sometimes the church, or certainly where i live, we could be quite introspective. We don't look much beyond the boundaries of our own country. Is that typical of the world church, or are we uniquely introspective? And and how can we grow more in our consciousness of being part of a ah global movement of Christians seeking to carry out the Great Commission?
00:10:14
Speaker
Yeah. You know, Gavin, I think this this is common amongst all really great christian organizations are doing what they do very well. And they do it very well because their head is looking at what they head is down, let's say, looking at what they do and how they do it.
00:10:27
Speaker
You guys have an amazing podcast because you're focusing on your podcast and and curating and doing well. It's a great service to the church, but it's head down. and And that's OK. It takes it takes rare moments. We can look up and look beyond your organization, look beyond your country and say, this is what's happening
Shifts in Global Christianity
00:10:41
Speaker
in the world.
00:10:42
Speaker
And that's the heart of this report. We did the heavy work, the heavy lifting to say, hey, world, look up. Here's what's happening. Here's what's going on in the world. and And that can be useful. Remember, you know, I think it's even useful to think of just very basic facts of Christianity in and of itself.
00:10:56
Speaker
If you look at the change in Christianity between 1900 and now, we're in a radically different world. ah You guys are there in the UK. You can think in nineteen hundreds the bulk of Christianity was sitting in the West. It was sitting in Europe.
00:11:10
Speaker
And you you could say the average Christian, let's say, as a stereotype, would be a white European male in 1800s. You radically move to now all the way to 2050.
00:11:22
Speaker
And 80 percent of the world of Christians that were in the West has flipped to 80 percent of the Christians in the world are in not the West. To the point now where the average Christian or the stereotypical Christian is probably a Nigerian female is the best way to think about that.
00:11:34
Speaker
And so as we begin to think about what we're doing in our own country, we have to recognize the global body of Christianity as radical. So just one just one example there, Gavin. Right. But as as we can begin to think like who we're serving and who are brothers and sisters in the world, looking up does great for us.
Digital Age Evangelism
00:11:49
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah, I found that particularly interesting, the sort of stress on on Christianity to be polycentric, as in not centred, and also not centred where perhaps we we necessarily think it is, as we think a lot of the church revolves around ah sort of people like us in our particular area.
00:12:05
Speaker
I mean, I think when it comes to the sort of broadening the horizons, one of the other themes was that obviously we live in a digital age, as you mentioned. And um and you you mentioned Christians to try to transcend digital borders and not just to chase popularity, for example.
00:12:21
Speaker
So I wondered if you could say a little bit about what what you see as some of the opportunities and perhaps challenges of living in this sort of increasingly connected but digital world. The fact that we live in a digital age is one of the most radical shifts in our world since 2010, when we looked at this last.
00:12:38
Speaker
ah the The fact that most of our time is spent online or in front of screens, the fact that 56% of the world is regularly on digital media and social media throughout each day.
00:12:49
Speaker
If you do any global demographic, there's not a single demographic where you get 56% of the world doing anything. and We're looking at close to 60% of the world on social media and digital tech. So there's actually lots of commentary on social media impact and how do we engage via social media. But here's what I want to say about this.
00:13:05
Speaker
As we begin to think about evangelism and and Great Commission work specifically in the digital israel age, I think we have to recognize that perhaps we haven't thought as deeply as we could about this.
00:13:16
Speaker
Let's take our last idea about ah British individuals going to Africa right in the nineteen hundreds and beginning to evangelize there. This is an amazing time where people went, moved their family across the physical boundary, learned a new language, wore different dress, began to contextualize the gospel for a different population with hopes that it would be heard by that population.
00:13:41
Speaker
However, when we're in the digital age, we rarely take that level and depth of contextualization seriously. ah We are used to it. We are accustomed to crossing physical barriers, but not quite as accustomed to being intentional crossing digital barriers.
00:13:54
Speaker
Oftentimes, the content we produce is by Christians, for Christians, only in that digital algorithm coming to that person. ah But it takes a lot of effort to intentionally look different, dress different, talk different, to cross an algorithmic boundary or a digital boundary to then reach a different population there.
00:14:13
Speaker
I think we're expecting to kind of produce ah Christian content with how we look and and exactly how we act and hope that the non-Christian receives it. In the same way that that didn't work in 1900, that's not going to work here in 2025 in our digital world.
00:14:26
Speaker
But think there's some depth of contextualization and crossing digital boundaries that we can still grow in. I think we're finding harder now. In fact, I think 10 years ago, it was very easy to cross the boundaries, but you know the pay-to-play model of the algorithms on social media is siloing people into kind of like little little echo chambers.
00:14:43
Speaker
And it's taking more and more effort, I think, to get our content designed for non-Christian people across those boundaries. And it's something we're working hard on, but it's becoming, I think, increasingly challenging. Is that a ah reasonable response?
Trust and Effective Evangelism
00:14:55
Speaker
I think so. I see the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. I mean, you have people writing this report from all over the world. You've got 150 authors. So you've got people in all sorts of cultures. But my my eye obviously went to the UK where I am. and And I was struck by something in there. Simon actually highlighted as well when he was reading it about low levels of trust in institutions. That was one of the the standout stats here in the UK. We're all kind of cynical, us Brits, aren't we? So what does it mean to do evangelism in a context of that level of distrust and cynicism about institutions, public bodies,
00:15:29
Speaker
information people are receiving. What is a British Christian going to do when we're going to the world to say, not only could you trust Christ, but you can trust me to tell you faithfully about what I've experienced of him.
00:15:40
Speaker
How do we overcome that? What does it mean for our challenge? That's really, really difficult, Gavin, right? Because you just said, we need to trust Christ and trust me there. But it works the opposite way in real life. You need to trust me that you can trust Christ that I'm telling about.
00:15:52
Speaker
And this is really challenging in a context where there's really degraded and very low trust, not only in the West, but broadly in in the world. ah This you see really gut check facts about this where, you know, because of lack of trust, 86 percent of the globe and a huge international study said, really, I'm the source of what decides what is good and true and what is right and how it should act.
00:16:15
Speaker
This hyper individualism that happens is really difficult to say, well, yes, but Christ can tell you what's good, true and beautiful and should tell you what's good, true and beautiful. That's that's a big wall to climb when 86 percent of the world doesn't agree with that.
00:16:28
Speaker
It's also very challenging when individuals, particularly youth, don't hold any trust in institutions, in the government, in the press. And unfortunately, the church ranks right up there with them.
00:16:39
Speaker
Now, here's an opportunity, though, here, guys.
Trusted Voices in Evangelism
00:16:41
Speaker
There are some institutions that are still considered trustworthy. We're looking at universities and professors are considered trustworthy. Businesses are still considered trustworthy and some NGOs.
00:16:52
Speaker
So in many cases where the pastor used to be the forefront of evangelism, now, gentlemen, It's those who are in the everyday life, the businessman, the professor, the artist, the creative that are the leading most trusted voices in evangelism.
00:17:08
Speaker
The word of God must be spread through all these people in the pew and not just the pastor in a particular context. And that's very encouraging, isn't it? in In one sense, obviously, it's it's discouraging it for for those in yeah in the other other fields, but it's that we sort of live in an age where people are influencing. And one of the things we've been involved with is ah workplace evangelism and obviously people having an influence where they are.
00:17:33
Speaker
I mean, I think one of the other themes that was quite interesting is is and not only are we obviously trusting ourselves, but there's been a sort of redefinition of what it means to be human, which has been influenced by the likes of technology and and just a lot of this sort of, I can decide my own identity,
Defining Humanity in Evangelism
00:17:50
Speaker
et cetera. I wondered if you could ah say anything a little bit about the challenges of that and what Christians can say in a world where actually the notions of what it means to be human are changing.
00:18:01
Speaker
So there are 10 questions in the report that are shaping our world. And out of the 10 questions, while they're all incredibly important, I would have to say, particularly as the editor of the report, the number one question of our age is what does it mean to be human?
00:18:15
Speaker
And this question is not just being asked in one direction. it's being interrogated from multiple directions, from AI to biotech to gender, sexuality, to morality and individualism. like ah It's being interrogated from all these different directions, really calling the question, what does it mean to be human?
00:18:32
Speaker
Like said, I believe this is the question of our age. right and In previous ages, it was who is Christ, right? What is the Trinity? But for our time, it's a Christian anthropology. What does it mean to be human? and And so for all the the individuals out there listening, saying, how is it that can work better in evangelism, work better? this This is the question that we need to prep on.
00:18:50
Speaker
If we don't have an answer and a convincing answer on what does it mean to be human from a Christian standpoint, if you can't rattle off begin to talk about Christian anthropology with ease, we have some work to do. Because this is the fundamental question that everybody is asking, and will be the first barrier and the first door to opening ah to speak about who Christ is and what that means to your life.
Accessing and Using the Report
00:19:11
Speaker
If somebody is listening to this somewhere in the UK and thinks, I need to read this report, where can they actually get hold of it and have a dig into some of this stuff for themselves? Yeah, very simple. lausanne.org slash report.
00:19:24
Speaker
Lausanne is lausanneswitzerland.org slash report. And will it cost them anything to get hold of it? Lazine produces everything free for anybody who wants it.
00:19:34
Speaker
Wonderful. And there is a summary they can get some of the key findings, isn't there? So that they don't have to, if someone says, I'm not going to read 500 pages, how can they get hold of your key findings so they could boil it down and maybe bring some of this to their own church in their own context?
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah, there's some great summaries on the website, as well as a 15-minute video of me speaking through the the top findings of the report. Great. Thank you. and i mean One of the interesting things is obviously it's not just looking at the state of the play of state of play now, it's looking towards where the world is is going. and I suppose one of my the interesting observations is, of course, when you see trends, you sort of go, oh, that's where we're going to be in 2050.
00:20:14
Speaker
fifty um I suppose I'd be interested to know to what degree you think a report like this might potentially change those trends? Because obviously you're also trying to galvanize the church and encourage them ah to do more mission, et cetera, to encourage all of us.
00:20:29
Speaker
So I'd be interested to know, what what is your hope for the report in terms of what you're wanting to come out of it, given that because you have these trends, it almost looks like, ah, this is inevitable, this is going to happen?
00:20:41
Speaker
Yeah, that's an amazing question there, Simon. the The hope and the goal of the report is is that this begins to introduce Christians to the active questions that are happening now.
00:20:53
Speaker
When we begin to do trend analysis, we're not we're not making things up that what could be. Everything that will happen in 2050 is currently on the desk, on the conversations, and in the documents right now. Unfortunately, Christians are often a little bit too late to the conversation to begin to shape it.
00:21:08
Speaker
So the whole goal of the report is to say, these are the conversations happening right now. Can Christians be involved? Can we shape it? And can we change that trajectory line there? And the answer is yes. If we get engaged, we begin to speak and be participants in shaping of our global world.
Engaging with Global Missions
00:21:22
Speaker
um If somebody listening to this podcast thinks, I need to step up, what is one thing I can do to be more engaged with world mission? If someone you know has had their head down and only serving their immediate context,
00:21:34
Speaker
What one thing can someone listening to this do to engage as part of the world church with this current state of the Great Commission where we're up to? Yeah, the the report covers a ah wide variety of current realities and future realities.
00:21:48
Speaker
Not every person can handle everything. the the document itself chronicles the current gaps in our Great Commission. So this is perhaps the challenge of of the report. You're going to read it and say, well, this you're not covering my area of interest. You're not covering my area of expertise.
00:22:03
Speaker
And that's the point, because we're covering things that nobody's an area of expertise or nobody is in the area of particular interest right now because it's a gap in what we're thinking. So if you can to read through and choose one of the gaps and pray through it, understand, ask how this is affecting your organization.
00:22:18
Speaker
If you have all these gaps and everybody takes one or so, we can begin to advance the conversation little further. Fantastic. Thank you. And sorry if I'm allowed one more question as well. You you made it one more of ah but thank you and you mentioned what it is to be human and all those kinds of questions. Again, I think some Christians perhaps may not have thought about that.
00:22:39
Speaker
Could you give a couple of pointers of how we can ah get good answers to those questions as Christians in a way that obviously we can use then to engage with people? Yeah, I think this is where maybe the answer is not incredibly advanced. Maybe it's maybe very rote from what we've heard all in our lives in the church.
00:22:58
Speaker
Our answers probably couldn't shouldn't come from digital algorithmic content that gets delivered to us. ah The answer should probably be in our church, in our church community, in our scripture reading, in our catechesis, in understanding these core theological positions and that we can understand first principles first, who God is and how that works, and then work that in and through our context within our Christian communities to kind of develop these answers that there.
00:23:21
Speaker
So it's not ah a radically new answer. It's actually a very traditionally old answer, but that's that's where the core of our ah foundation is and should be. That's wonderful. We could discuss this for hours, but that's given us a really wonderful snapshot into where we're up
Reflections and Calls to Action
00:23:36
Speaker
to. Of course, in Acts chapter one, Jesus says that we're to take the gospel from Jerusalem, Judea, and to the to the ends of the earth.
00:23:43
Speaker
And we're not there yet. There's there's much more work. do you know We used to have a missionary Sunday every year in in my church. We always used to end it by singing that famous old hymn, Facing a Task Unfinished, that drives us to our knees.
00:23:54
Speaker
and need that undiminished rebukes our slothful ease. We who rejoice to know thee renew before thy throne the solemn prayer pledge we owe thee to go and make thee known." We used sing that every year and on the Missionary Sunday, and we need to keep singing it still because the work is yet unfinished. So thank you, Matthew, for giving us a snapshot into where we are today.
00:24:14
Speaker
Folks, the link to get that report will be in the show notes, so you can download that and have a dig into it. The executive summary on the front end will give you the key findings to take to your church as we seek to honor Christ and to make him known throughout this world.
00:24:27
Speaker
We'll be back in a couple of weeks with another pep talk, another guest where we'll continue to talk about honoring Christ and taking his great commission seriously and his gospel to the world. Thank you for listening and goodbye.