The Lausanne Movement

The Lausanne Movement’s 40th Anniversary

I was given the amazing opportunity to paint an image for the 40th anniversary of the Lausanne Movement, founded by Billy Graham and John Stott in 1974 in Lausanne, Switzerland. With all of the living former presidents assembled, current president Dr. Michael Oh shared an amazing homily from Psalm 123 about keeping sensitive to the Lord’s leading. Like heliotropic sunflowers that turn their heads throughout the day to track the sun’s progression through the sky, so should we keep looking at the “Son” for our life and direction. I had the honor to present the work and share my heart in making it, and was led to share that I had found that only young sunflowers turn their heads with the sun while the older flowers get “stiff necked” and face east instead to maximize the light. I admonished the Movement to retain a posture of childlike faith, ready to embrace the metamodern era of global history, and to stay docile and sensitive to the Lord’s realtime leading. Little did I know that my meeting that night with Leighton Ford would have a significant impact in my life. I knew him only as the man who told me to say hello to my pastor Rev. Dr. Clive Calver whose word to Leighton years previously from Isaiah about the Lord doing a new thing had changed him. I didn’t know at the time that this was the lifetime honorary chair of the Lausanne Movement, that this was Billy Graham’s brother-in-law, and that two years later I would move onto the same street in Charlotte, NC where Leighton was taking painting lessons (for 10+ years), or that his mentorship and support would significantly shape the coming season of my life.

Psalm 123

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem. NLT

1 I lift my eyes to you,
    O God, enthroned in heaven.
2 We keep looking to the Lord our God for his mercy,
    just as servants keep their eyes on their master,
    as a slave girl watches her mistress for the slightest signal.
3 Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy,
    for we have had our fill of contempt.
4 We have had more than our fill of the scoffing of the proud
    and the contempt of the arrogant.

 The Fourfold Lausanne Movement Vision Paintings by Bryn Gillette

The Lausanne Movement was founded in the 1970’s by Billy Graham and John Stott in an effort to unify and coordinate the entire (and at the time fractured) Evangelical church. Through a series of conferences around the globe that served as the largest gathering of Protestant leaders from the most countries ever assembled, a defined identity and points of unified heart and mission were ratified by unprecedented numbers of believers. This new movement represented the global Bride of Christ and brought hundreds of churches, institutions, colleges, ministries, NGO’s, businesses, etc. together, with more joining every year, for the unified purpose of “The whole church bringing the whole gospel to the whole world.” Four pillars were chosen of the Lausanne Movement’s mission that would unify all its participants and act as a Biblically based guiding stars for the decisions and priorities of the Movement.

1. The gospel for every person

2. An Evangelical church for every people

3. Christ-like leaders for every church

4. Kingdom impact in every sphere of society

I have had the incredible privilege of being the artist in residence for the Lausanne Movement these past several years, working as an artistic ambassador of the Kingdom of God and a visual scribe to this beloved movement and to visualize their four pillars.  I want to humbly acknowledge that despite whatever skill I have stewarded from God’s gifts to me, the best parts of this work have come through me as a collaborative part of the much larger Body, and not from me.  I offer the caution that I will simply provide some ingredients of the thoughts and prayers that went into the making of these works, as a starting place for dialog and discovery, since the best and deepest components of what these paintings truly mean may not even be known yet, and certainly may not come from me.        

I was so honored and equally challenged by this opportunity to paint such a monumental subject.  What images could possibly capture the magnitude of God's heart for the limitless diversity of humanity and culture?  The process of painting was the act of internalizing the Lausanne Movement’s four pillars, and as I have been stretched internally to try to embrace them, I pray these resulting painted prayer would inspire their viewers with an increased passion to mobilize the whole church to bring the whole gospel to the whole world.. Your servant and brother in Christ, Bryn Gillette

Lausanne Pillar 1: “The gospel for every person”.  

Acrylic on wooden panel.  20x32”. 2016.  

To highlight some ingredients that were placed in the painting: a central fisherman is casting his net over the entire world (each continent outline in gold), seen from an unexpected, sideways vantage, while a central cross comprised by the equator and international dateline anchor the work.  The net sparkles with the burst of blue and white light scattered across the globe as seen from satellite photography of current population densities and prophetically declares our prayer that God’s love would enfold every people group on earth and flood the remaining darkness with the light of the gospel.

Museum quality giclee’ prints are available of this image at the store link on this site.

Lausanne Movement Pillar 2: “An Evangelical church for every community”.  

Acrylic on wooden panel.  20x32”. 2017.

The New Testament envisions the fully realized global Church as a spotless Bride prepared for her returning Bridegroom, Christ.  Standing on the New Jerusalem, this Bride is subtly depicted with her planetary scale feet standing on the literal holy land, holding the flame of the gospel in her hand, while this orange fiery light is born by diverse believers into every corner of the world.  As God’s Word does not return void, the Bride’s gown subsumes untold sparkling blue and white figures of every tribe, tongue, and nation streaming in to consummate her fully realized expression. May our passion to see the “whole Church” fully healed, unified, purified, and restored to her identity as the spotless Bride of Christ compel us to carry the whole gospel to the whole world with humility tempered zeal.

Museum quality giclee’ prints are available of this image at the store link on this site.

Lausanne Movement Pillar 3: “Christ-like leaders for every church”. 

Acrylic on wooden panel.  20x32”. 2018.

The third pillar of the Lausanne Movement is embodied in the "Good Shepherd" sitting among his sheep.  Vignettes surround the central figure suggesting the varied roles these shepherds play throughout the globe, from an iconic image of founder Billy Graham preaching, to young biblical David with his sheep, to a female chaplain in the army and asian pastor serving communion.  While wolves hover in the background and allusions to darkness and danger surround the flock, the Good Shepherd sits at the center of his charges with calm strength as a spiritual refuge and friend. May our church leaders throughout the world derive their compassion, wisdom, leadership, and the sacrificial love to lay down their lives for their sheep and wash the feet of their disciples from the true source of these qualities, Jesus Christ.  

I wanted to embed the very DNA of what it means to shepherd, impart, and empower into the painting itself, so I invited one of my students, Andrew Knotts, to join me in the early stages of this painting.  He and I worked together to pray over the design and sketch the imagery, we built the canvas together, and painted the abstract foundational layers side by side. Andrew painted several of the wolves that can still be seen in the image, and am so grateful for Andrew's generous collaboration.  

 Museum quality giclee’ prints are available of this image at the store link on this site.

Lausanne Pillar 4: “Kingdom impact in every sphere of society”.  

Acrylic on wooden panel.  20x32”. 2019.

As the fourth and final painting in the Lausanne Movement Pillar series, this piece seeks to sum up the other three works as well as paint a global vision of God’s Kingdom permeating the seven cultural spheres.  Remixed again here are the fisherman from pillar 1: “The Gospel for every person”, the Bride from pillar 2: “An evangelical church for every community”, and the Good Shepherd from pillar 3: “Christ-like leaders for every church”.  Christ is now crowned as the glorious and triumphant King, but as his upside-down Kingdom subtly infuses each sphere, it is not done as the leaders of this world who lord it over their subjects, but in selfless servanthood. Each of the seven spheres is set on a different continent of the world and is shown crumbling in the futility of man’s institutions, while Christ-like servants carry the DNA of the Kingdom in the form of equilateral (trinity) triangles joining into a new infrastructure of honeycomb hexagons.  This stems from the crystal structure of Nitrogen, the atomic element with 7 electrons, 7 protons, and 7 neutrons (777) figured here as the very fabric of God’s Kingdom from a universal scale to the very smallest subatomic particle of God’s creation. The seven spheres are set in the same format as Nitrogen, with two levels of elections. In the inner ring closer to the nucleus are two electrons (and spheres- Family and Religion), and on the outer ring sit the other 5:

1. Family [Michelangelo’s painting, “The Creation of Adam” with the African pyramids] 

2. Religion [The remixed Bride set in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil]

3. Business [Dubai skyline, United Emirates]

4. Government [China’s Forbidden City & the Tower of Babel]

5. Education [Cambridge University, UK] - alma mater of John Stott featured just below.

6. Art [Sydney Opera House, Australia]

7. Media [Hollywood, CA, U.S.A.]

May the Center of it all, the Lord Jesus Christ, so restore the families on earth and his global Bride the Church that the “WHOLE Church”, all 100% of its members, bear his “whole gospel” into every sphere of society throughout the “whole world”.

Museum quality giclee’ prints are available of this image at the store link on this site.

All four sibling paintings met for the first time June 25, 2019 in Manila, Philippines during the unveiling of Pillar 4 at the Lausanne Movement’s “Global Workplace Forum”. There were SO many miraculous moments standing in front of the work… meeting sibling I had painted for years but had never met. It literally felt as though I had stepped INTO my paintings, meeting the people from all over the world that I had spiritually and artistically journeyed beside for the past four years. Equally amazing was the portal that these four paintings opened for those who saw them… an open heaven that allowed them to look through the surface details of what they individually are called to do in Kingdom service to see the grand metanarrative, the universal sweep of calling and scope of God empowering “the whole church to bring the whole gospel to the whole world”. We had many tearful and prayerful moments in front of the paintings, and I rarely made into into the main sessions on time or at all as I would be swept up in meeting my siblings from around the world. One of my very favorite stories was meeting Billy Coppedge, a missionary with his wonderful family to Uganda who had JUST finished his doctorate at St. Andrews in Scotland and was returning to Africa with his wife and five kids. Amidst our hour + conversation, I felt compelled to offer to paint a blessing over his ministry, and then realized he was living less than an hour from my uncle in GA whom I was planning to visit just weeks after returning from Manila. Two weeks later I was in Billy’s living room, meeting his family, and standing at the altar at the family camp where 20 years TO THE DAY he had surrendered his life fully to the Lord. I began a painting on that very pew, the same place he had proposed to his wife, the same place he had knelt in thanks when he received confirmation of his completed doctorate, to begin the painting.