This Silent Roar coming from the South: A Spanish Perspective on L4

(If you read Spanish, you may be interested to see the report the Spanish Lausanne Movement produced following the Congress and gathering their reflections on it. You can download the report here: https://lausanaespana.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Conclusiones_Lausana.pdf)

When one has had an epic feast, it´s difficult to select which delicacy has delighted us the most. It´s not even just a matter of ‘dissecting’ which portion of the menu captivated us specially, but part of the charm of the experience is in the whole: the sequence of the dishes, the diversity of textures and, of course, the excellence in the preparation.

Thinking of highlighting some aspect of what I received in the Lausanne 4 Congress is a similar feat, more so because an event like this is only the beginning, It’s then time to work, and here in Europe the harvest is vast and complex.

It may not be what others would emphasize, but the following question has been nagging in my mind for weeks (and, no doubt, connecting with concerns already echoing in my head): How does one make an effective Christian presence in the midst of a Europe that, more than asleep to the Gospel, seems comatose or almost dead?

And what has continued to hit me furiously since my experience at the Congress is a kind of ‘silent roar’, an embarrassing but also revitalizing one that comes powerfully from the Global South.

• Roar, because it commands our full attention due to its strength, as would happen when listening to a lion.

• Silent because, although it cannot be ignored, it doesn´t come from the desire to make noise, but from humility, constant work, and growth in difficulty. All that shouts out loud strongly!

• Embarrassing because one cannot help but blush before the reality that here, in the Global North, risking much less than what others do in different latitudes, we show much less courage than is required to undertake the Great Commission.

“... an apathetic, lukewarm, or even nominal messenger, too busy with the business of life, abducted by the no longer so new postmodern and post-Christian values, does not carry the living message anywhere!”

This can be revitalizing, however, because it has the potential, if we use it well, to reposition us correctly in the lane of advancement. That roar warms the heart, because we hear the Spirit move with fire and water as He breaks with force into the lives of people hungry for Him.

Here in Europe, we are sick with various ailments. The silent roar coming from our brothers and sisters from the Global South heaps embers on our heads and made us bow those same heads in contrition.

Our first sickness (and it is terminal!) is called comfort. The more it spreads, the more the Gospel seems to die in us and, with it, our effectiveness in proclaiming it. Not because the message is dead, but because an apathetic, lukewarm, or even nominal messenger, too busy with the business of life, abducted by the no longer so new postmodern and post-Christian values, does not carry the living message anywhere!

Secularization has long since ceased to be that evil that we must only try to avoid before it enters our hearts and churches, because it is already inside, and we have not even seen it coming. We continue to think that because we are children of God, we are not children of our time, and this fact probably involves asking the Lord, as David did, to deliver us from those sins that are hidden from us (Psalm 19).

To call Europe a ‘difficult mission field’, is true and I do not want to underestimate, of course, what is experienced by many committed Christians in this continent. However, when one compares that complexity with the overwhelming adversities faced by our brethren in the persecuted church, the word ‘difficult’ quickly becomes inappropriate, and our hearts shrink in shame again.

My grandfather would have said: ‘He who is accustomed to little, with a cap goes crazy’ (that for sure sounds much better in Spanish!). This Europe requires, of course, the need to rethink where we are, considering our obstacles (which are perhaps different and less than what we would have initially diagnosed) and, once recognized, to look for different and effective ways to bring the Gospel to our neighbors. But not with more evangelistic programs and structures! I am talking about the personal one-on-one human factor towards what´s experienced on the streets, and how we present to them that Christ who has answers and solutions for their actual unique situations.

“How do we tell the message of Jesus in a way that is renewed, relevant and direct, natural and committed, transformative and integral, wherever we are, whoever we talk to? ”

At least two matters seem urgent to me:

• what are the specific challenges of people here and now (I was thinking, as a psychologist whether we know, for example, how to present Christ relevantly to someone suffering from stress, depression or anxiety, three very clear evils of our time),

• and what points people to keep ‘scratching’ because they connect with the issues that every person, in indistinct time and place, continues to be concerned about and that the Gospel resolves in a subversive way (as Dan Strange would say in his book "A Magnetic Faith").

‘landing’ it even more…

• How do we tell the message of Jesus in a way that is renewed, relevant and direct, natural and committed, transformative and integral, wherever we are, whoever we talk to?

• How can we turn it into something that we can ‘gossip’ (Yes! Gossip!) among our neighbors at the slightest opportunity, as it happened in Acts?

• How can we achieve this by overcoming our own individualism, relativism, immediatism, sentimentality and others, all tremendously secular but already embedded in our hearts? Can you imagine Philip contaminated by these values when he saw the Ethiopian in Acts 8?

What if we started quietly roaring from the fire that the Lord himself lit in us one day, to start seeing a new Europe in the following years? The South (and the Lord) would say ‘Yes!’.

Lidia Martín Torralba
Clinical Psychologist and Author
www.lidiamartin.online

Read more here:

European Perspectives

· As Seen From Europe – Reflections on the Fourth Lausanne Congress

· Reasons for hope - a French perspective on L4

· Bigger than you think - A German Perspective on L4

· Observing a paradigm shift: An Asian in Europe's perspective on L4

· Challenges and Opportunities for Global Mission: an African Missionary in Europe’s Perspective on L4

· Unity of the church in evangelism: A Ukrainian perspective on L4

· "How Great Thou Art": A Swedish Perspective on L4

Reflections on the Seoul Statement

· Participant Perspective: Building on a firm foundation