Questions

How did HfE emerge?

Several gatherings in recent years addressed the challenge of the re-evangelisation of Europe, including the first Lausanne-Europe conference at Stuttgart (1989), the Budapest Summit (1991), and the Bad Boll Consultation on Evangelisation (1992). Meanwhile, other new movements and alignments had entered the European arena, both east and west. A perceived need for co-ordination to prevent a 'confused, crowded and competitive' European landscape led to the first European Round Table in late 1992, where some 20 representatives of pan-European evangelistic networks met to build relationships, trust and understanding. At the second European Round Table, December 1993, the Hope for Europe proposal for a framework of co-operative evangelical action emerged.

What are the elements of HfE?

Grounding
Hope for Europe, grounded on the Lausanne Covenant, is motivated by an evangelical theology of hope, maintaining the biblical tension between the present (already) and future (not yet) aspects of the kingdom of God, helping Christians in Europe convey the contemporary and eternal hope of the Gospel.

HfE Networks
Hope for Europe affirms and encourages the development of pan-European specialty networks to facilitate trans-national partnerships and information sharing.
Current HfE networks are:
| Apologetics | Artists | Broadcasting | Business in Missions | Business and Professions | Children's Ministries | Church Planting | Church Renewal | Cities | Communications | Culture, Value and Politics | Disabilities | Education | Evangelism | Families | Health Care | Leadership Development | Men's Ministries | Missions | Prayer | Reconciliation | Refugee Highway | Relief and Development | Sports | Theology | Women in Leadership | Worship | Youth |

Regional Initiatives
Hope for Europe also aims to encourage regional, neighbourhood and city-wide initiatives towards the goal of saturating every region, neighbourhood and people group with the hope of the gospel.

Co-operation
Hope for Europe is co-sponsored by: the European Evangelical Alliance (EEA) and the Lausanne Europe Committee (LEC), interfacing globally with: the AD2000 & Beyond movement and the Lausanne Europe Committee, and is coordinated by a Working Group.

Partnerships
Hope for Europe is committed to partnership, to the promotion of a spirit of unity with diversity, respect and co-operation, relationship and trust, the resolution of tensions in a biblical way, and the promotion of each other's ministries and activities.

What should be the outcomes of HfE?

How could Europe look, say, in the year 2020, if these aspirations for Hope For Europe were to be realised?

• Evangelicals across the continent would share a renewed consciousness of the implications of Christian hope for the future of European society.
• Creative expressions of prayer would continue to be released from every corner of Europe.
• United prayer would lay foundations for bold, powerful and colourful co-operative evangelistic initiatives in key cities and neighbourhoods across the continent.
• In every European country, the number of fellowships in each nation will be approaching the goal of one for every 1000 inhabitants.
• Research networking will have placed relevant information in the hands of pastors, youth workers, mission leaders, and denominational strategists throughout Europe.
• Christian communicators will have made early application of the 'electronic highway' to partner in the task of effective delivery of the gospel message to a media-oriented European public.
• A multinational force of young women and men will be salting European society in all manner of professions, with a conscious biblical worldview, grasping opportunities to present biblical approaches to ethical, economic, educational, political and social issues.
• A renewed church of Jesus Christ in Europe will have a renewed sense of responsibility and mission to help the church world-wide in the fulfilment of the Great Commission.
• The Church of Jesus Christ, in short, will be more effectively helping to shape the spiritual, social and cultural life of the peoples of Europe.
• Christians in every walk of life will be demonstrating the hope of the gospel in word and deed, through their lifestyle and verbal witness, being salt and light among neighbours, friends, colleagues and relatives, and influencing the values and infrastructures of society.
• Followers of Jesus Christ will again be known in Europe as the people of hope.

Why Hope for Europe?

Millions of our fellow Europeans face an uncertain and sombre future, despite the overthrow of dictators and the passing of the Cold War. Christians have a word of hope for modern Europeans that no-one else can speak. The credibility of this message of hope, however, has been impaired through disunity, unbiblical pessimism and withdrawal from being salt and light in society. We have thus often implied to our fellow Europeans that there is little hope for Europe's future. Yet it is our responsibility as Christians to pray and work for God's kingdom to come, for His will to be done among the European peoples, as it is in heaven. We accept that the people of God are his primary agent of transformation (Eph.3:10), and are thus called to be the people of hope.