From: Godfrey Yogarajah, Chair of International Council | London, UK
Brothers and sisters, friends, and fellow pilgrims in faith.
What a joy it is to stand in this house of worship, in this community of believers, to mark 180 years of God’s faithfulness to the body we call the World Evangelical Alliance.
180 years. Let that number settle for a moment.
In 1846, when our founders gathered in London, the world looked very different. Empires were rising and falling. The industrial age was reshaping human society. And yet, in the middle of all that upheaval, a group of evangelical Christians from across denominations and across nations dared to believe something radical: that the gospel is bigger than any one church, any one tradition, any one nation. They gathered not to compete, but to connect. Not to divide, but to declare together that Jesus Christ is Lord.
That conviction has never grown old.
We have not always walked an easy road. No organization of human beings ever does. There were seasons of struggle, seasons of silence, and seasons of renewal. In 1951, our fellowship was reimagined for a new post-war world, a world hungry for reconciliation, and in need of the hope that only the gospel provides. Then in 2001, we took the name that reflects what we had truly become: the World Evangelical Alliance, not a Western alliance, not a Northern alliance, but a global family of faith, spanning every continent, every culture, every tongue.
At the heart of the WEA is a living network of believers working together across the world. Our alliance is made up of 143 national alliances and 9 regional alliances, each rooted in its own context yet united by a shared commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
From a small gathering in London in 1846, this movement has grown steadily over the years into a truly global fellowship. Today, the World Evangelical Alliance represents more than 630 million evangelicals worldwide.
We are the church in the marketplace. The church at the table of the nations. The church speaking where others will not, serving where others cannot, and praying when all else fails. But I want to be careful this morning not to simply give you a history lesson. Because the real story of the WEA is not a story about us.
It is a story about God.
Every time our movement seemed too fragile to survive, God sustained it. Every time the world dismissed the evangelical witness as irrelevant, God proved otherwise. Every time we were tempted to shrink back in the face of hostility, persecution, or cultural pressure, somewhere, somehow, the movement prevailed.
That is not institutional resilience. That is divine faithfulness.
So, what does this anniversary call us to?
It calls us, first, to gratitude. Not pride in ourselves, but thanksgiving to the God who chose to work through imperfect people and imperfect institutions to accomplish His perfect purposes.
It calls us, second, to humility. One hundred and eighty years is not a reason to congratulate ourselves. It is a reminder that we are stewards of something far greater than ourselves. The next generation of believers is watching. The unreached billions of the world are waiting. We have no time for self-congratulation. We have work to do.
And it calls us, third, to courage. The challenges facing the global church in 2026 are real. Religious persecution is rising on every continent. The voices seeking to silence the Christian witness are louder than they have been in generations. And yet, the church of Jesus Christ has outlasted every empire that ever tried to bury it. We will not be the generation that breaks that streak. There is a verse in the book of Isaiah, chapter 46, verse 4, where God says to His people: “Even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.”
180 years. And He has carried us every step of the way.
So today we do not merely celebrate an anniversary. We raise an Ebenezer, a stone of remembrance, and we say with the psalmist and with every generation of believers before us: Thus far the Lord has helped us.
And He will help us still.
To God be the glory today, and for the next 180, and beyond.
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