Langham Partnership International

Affiliation with LPI

Chris Wright is the international ministries director for Langham Partnership International (LPI). This rather cumbersome title needs some explaining!

For many years John Stott himself led the ministries that he had founded. Gradually administrators were found to handle the Scholarship and Literature programmes. As you can read in the History section, there came a time when John and his friends felt it was time to hand over the leadership of the movement. Not only are there three separate programmes, each with their own directors, but there are five national movements around the world, providing the resources of prayer, funds, staff and support for the programmes. Such a large and loose worldwide network requires someone to hold things together and maintain good liaison between all the different parts.

This is the job that Chris Wright was asked to do when the Langham Partnership International was officially created in 2001. John Stott said at the time, “There is nobody to whom I would rather hand over the leadership of the Langham ministries than Chris Wright. I believe he is God’s man for the job.” Chris responded, “There is nobody in whose footsteps I would rather follow, as one of millions who have benefited from John Stott’s books, and one of many hundreds who have been blessed by his personal friendship.”

Chris prefers to see himself not so much as John’s “successor” (for he needs none) but rather as an enthusiastic inheritor of his vision and passion for churches in the Majority World to be richly fed with effective and well-resourced preaching of the Bible as God’s Word.

Chris’s leadership role in LPI has three main dimensions.

Programmes. Each of the three programmes (Literature, Scholars and Preaching) has its own international programme director, and in some cases other support staff. These people make sure that the programmes work effectively around the world. Part of Chris’s role is to make sure that there is good communication and integration between the three programmes and their directors. Chris meets with these senior staff regularly.
National members. Five national members (Australia, Canada, East Asia, U.K. and Ireland, and the United States) have their own national boards and staff working hard to raise the supporting prayer and funds to carry on the ministries. Chris supports these national members, encouraging national staff members and keeping them in touch with one another internationally. He visits the countries for promotion and other ministry, and maintains everyone’s focus on the key vision, values and objectives of the ministry as a whole.
Regional councils. The focus of all the ministries of LPI is on the Majority World, so we want to have good input and guidance from our partners there. But the Majority World is a very big place! So LPI has been establishing councils in about ten major regions of the world. Getting these set up and then meeting with them, along with other senior programme staff, is another of the jobs that fall to Chris Wright.

Chris himself, of course, loves preaching and teaching the Bible, so in addition to these leadership functions within LPI, he often travels to conduct preaching seminars in association with Langham Preaching.

As the senior leader within the international network of LPI, Chris is accountable to the Langham Partnership International Council. This body meets once a year and includes senior board members from all the national members of LPI.

Chris Wright