Michael Oh, Executive Director and CEO of the Lausanne Movement, was part of the platform party of 20 religious leaders invited to be present for  the memorial service for Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Tuesday, December 10, 2013.

This signal honor is indicative of the standing of the Lausanne Movement in the religious world. The Movement grew out of the passion of Dr. Billy Graham to unite Christian evangelicals in the common task of total evangelization of the world.  In 1974 a gathering of concerned evangelicals met in Lausanne, Switzerland, resulting in the “Lausanne Covenant,” which continues to serve as a basis for unity and a call to global evangelization.  Global conferences have been held periodically since then, the last one in October of 2010 in Cape Town, South Africa, attended by some 4,000 leaders from 198 countries, acting as participants and observers, with thousands more taking part electronically around the world.

Dr. Timothy Tennent, President of Asbury Theological Seminary, is Chair of the Theology Working Group of the Lausanne Movement.  Dr. Tennent is himself passionately committed to the evangelization of the world, through Asbury Seminary itself and through his own personal commitment to the New Theological College in Dehra Dun, India.