Lausanne Cities & WEA: Together for the World's Cities

In October 2025, the Lausanne Cities Network signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the World Evangelical Alliance Commission on Cities. It was a formal moment — but it marked something that had already been growing for over a decade.

Partnerships in the global church often begin with a shared table, a shared burden, and a shared question. For Lausanne and WEA, that question has been consistent: how can the global church engage its cities with both theological depth and practical wisdom? The answer, it turns out, has been built through years of collaboration that predates any formal document.

The Root: Urban Shalom Society

The story begins with two work streams that converged around 2015. The first was the International Society for Urban Mission (ISUM), led by Dr. Ash Barker, which had been cultivating theologically grounded urban engagement across the global church. The second was the World Evangelical Alliance's Creation Care Task Force, led by Dr. Chris Elisara, which was bringing the WEA's voice to global city and environmental conversations.

Together, these streams formed the Urban Shalom Society (USS) — a platform where Lausanne and WEA convictions about cities could meet, and where scholars, practitioners, and policymakers could think together.

The catalyst that gave USS its first major expression was Habitat III — the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, held in Quito, Ecuador, in October 2016. In preparation, USS convened the Gospel and the Future of Cities Summit, which produced A Call to Action — a foundational statement signed by a coalition of global Christian organisations including the World Evangelical Alliance, the Lausanne Movement, Micah Global, Tearfund, and the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA).

"Cities require more than good intentions — they require understanding and meaningful collaboration."

A Growing Ecosystem: Campuses, Forums, and CitiesCollab

From that starting point, the collaboration grew through a series of concrete expressions. Faith-Based Urban Thinkers Campuses — structured learning and dialogue spaces connecting faith leaders with urban planners, policymakers, and city practitioners — were launched in Singapore in 2019, in preparation for WUF10, and are now held across five continents. These campuses were among the first places where Lausanne and WEA voices were formally convening together around city transformation.

Alongside these campuses, USS developed the C@WUF (Church and Faith Communities at the World Urban Forum) model — a guided participation framework enabling faith communities to engage meaningfully with the World Urban Forum process. This model was deployed at WUF in 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024, each time bringing a larger and more coordinated faith presence to the global urban conversation.

The transition from Urban Shalom Society to CitiesCollab represented a strengthening and broadening of that work — preserving the legacy of USS while opening the platform to wider collaboration. CitiesCollab now serves as a shared space where Lausanne and WEA streams contribute content, convene conversations, and connect city leaders around the world.

The MOU: What It Means

Formalizing the partnership through a Memorandum of Understanding was not about creating a new structure. It was about naming what already exists — and making a mutual commitment to deepen it. The MOU between Lausanne Cities and the WEA Commission on Cities establishes a shared framework for:

• Joint programming and content through the CitiesCollab platform
• Coordinated presence and contribution at global forums such as the World Urban Forum
• Shared convening of city movement leaders across the Lausanne and WEA networks
• Collaborative development of resources for city practitioners and pastors

"Two global streams. One shared conviction: the church must know, love, and serve its cities."

What Carries Forward

Dr. Chris Elisara and Dr. Ash Barker, alongside other founders of the Urban Shalom Society, built something that has outlasted its original structure. The relational trust, the theological depth, the practice of engaging urban forums with faith community presence — these carry forward.

The Lausanne Cities Network brings its continental deep dive series, the TRUST Pathway emerging from those conversations, and a growing network of city movement leaders across six continents. The WEA brings its constituency of national alliances, its presence in global policy conversations, and its decades-long commitment to holistic mission in cities.

Together, they represent something the world's cities need: a global church that takes its cities seriously — that traces urban realities honestly, that relates to city leaders with credibility, that unites across streams and traditions, that builds structures for durable engagement, and that transfers ownership to local leaders who carry the work forward.

That is not just a partnership goal. It is the TRUST Pathway, lived out at the global level.