27 Oct Doug Birdsall Named to Lausanne Post

Doug Birdsall was installed as International Chairman of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization during the organization’s global forum in Pattaya, Thailand, in October.

Doug is the brother of Brent Birdsall, pastor of College Park UB church (Huntington, Ind.) and of Brian Birdsall, a UB endorsed missionary serving in Ukraine. A sister, Connie, attends a Missionary Church congregation in Berne, Ind.

The forum brought together 1500 church leaders from around the world to focus on the task of global evangelism.

The Lausanne Movement is an outgrowth of a 1974 International Congress in Lausanne, Switzerland, convened by Billy Graham. At that historic meeting, several thousand participants from 150 countries signed the Lausanne Covenant “to be more intentional about world evangelization.” Lausanne’s vision is to energize churches, mission agencies, networks and individuals “to respond with vigor and courage to the cause of world evangelization.” The unifying theme of the Lausanne Covenant and the Lausanne Movement is, “The Whole Church Taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World.”

Since 1980, Doug Birdsall has served as a missionary in Japan with Asian Access/LIFE Ministries, an organization that focuses on evangelism and church multiplication. He is currently President of Asian Access. He is a graduate of Wheaton College, Gordon-Conwell, and Harvard University. He and his wife, Jeanie, have three children, Stacia, Judd and Jessamin, who were all born and reared in Japan.

Doug returned to Gordon-Conwell in 1999 to help establish the Wilson Center for World Missions, and is seconded to the seminary for 20 percent of his time by Asian Access/Life Ministries