Dear Friends in Christ:
Recently Leighton Ford and I visited the founder of The Lausanne Movement, Dr. Billy Graham, at his home in North Carolina. He offered encouragement and counsel as we look forward to Cape Town 2010 in just over two weeks. His main advice was “Keep evangelism at the center. Make Christ your focus. Base everything on Scripture. And pray, pray, pray.” Wise counsel indeed and the deep earnest prayer of my heart for this Congress.
Billy Graham also expressed delight with the Congress updates that we shared with him. He assured us of his prayers on behalf of the Congress and all attending. He was particularly interested in China, since his wife, Ruth, was raised in China of missionary parents.
His last question was “How’s the funding coming?” When we told him we are at 91% of the budget and that we had received gifts from all around the world, he raised his hands and said, “Hallelujah, that’s great news! Let me know when you get to 100%, and I hope it is soon.”
We have just US$1.5 million remaining to be raised to ensure that the needs of the Congress are fully subscribed. If you, your church or your organization would like to make a gift, you can do so on line at http://www.lausanne.org/give. More information on how to mail a gift or give by wire transfer is available at the end of this email.
I hope you’ll be encouraged as I was by this letter from CT2010 Programme Chair, Ramez Atallah, General Secretary of the Bible Society of Egypt. His letter is followed by additional information that will help you prepare for the Congress.
Letter from Ramez Atallah
Dear Cape Town 2010 Participant,
Soon we will all be together in Cape Town for one of the most significant gatherings of the 21st Century! As you know, this Congress is unique in a variety of ways. Never before has such a large Congress been planned with the intent of active involvement of all participants. Here is a list of some of these unique aspects and how they impact your preparation and involvement in the Congress.
GLOBAL CONSULTATION - The six themes of the Congress and the many other topics (www.lausanne.org/prepare) are the result of the broadest ever consultation of Evangelicals worldwide. Begin thinking about these issues (http://conversation.lausanne.org/topics), discuss them with your friends and come prepared to share your concerns and insights.
TABLES OF SIX - Each morning you will be seated at a table with five other participants who speak your language, several of whom will not be from your region of the world. Prepare yourself in prayer for sharing with and learning from your table group.
GLOBALINK - More than 600 sites worldwide will be hosting remote Congress gatherings of Christians who will be watching the Congress sessions and engaging together locally. Encourage your family, church and friends to participate at a GlobaLink location near them (http://www.lausanne.org/globalink).
PARTICIPATE ONLINE - Thousands of others will watch video of the Congress online and participate in virtual discussions through the Lausanne Global Conversation (www.lausanne.org/conversation). Help spread the word about online participation.
FOCUS ON EPHESIANS - We will be studying together in small groups and through Bible teaching on Paul's letter to the Ephesians. This is the Biblical backbone to the Congress. Study Ephesians before you come.
SHORT PRESENTATIONS - Other than the Bible teaching, no plenary presenter will speak more than 15 minutes! Presenters have prepared their papers ahead of time and are eager to hear from you about their topics. The papers are available online in all eight Congress languages. To benefit from the Congress you need to read the papers before arriving and respond online with your feedback for the presenters. Here’s how:
Log in to the Lausanne Global Conversation website using your special participant access:http://conversation.lausanne.org/login.
Select an Advance Paper from this list: http://www.lausanne.org/prepare.
Read the paper, then click “Post Comment” below the paper to add your response in any of the eight Congress languages. If you don’t have your special participant access information or have any questions, simply contact conversation@lausanne.org for assistance.
MULTIPLEXES - Each afternoon you have the opportunity to choose between three or four sessions on a crucial topic. We'd like you to choose now which Multiplexes you want to attend and read their papers online (http://www.lausanne.org/prepare) before you get to Cape Town.
Please pray that our carefully made plans for the Programme will be used by God to bless you and all those at Cape Town as well as those who will be participating remotely through GlobaLink and online through the Lausanne Global Conversation. See you in Cape Town!
Final Global Conference Call: 6 October 2010
The final Lausanne/Cape Town 2010 Global Conference Call will be on 6 October at 15h00 GMT/UTC. We will discuss final-stage preparations for the Congress as well as the future of The Lausanne Movement. You won't want to miss this call. Our most recent call featured an informative and lively discussion with Chris Wright, Chair of the Lausanne Theology Working Group, and Lindsay Olesberg, Coordinator for the team of expositors who will be teaching on the book of Ephesians. To join the call, please go to www.lausanne.org/prepare and click on Conference Calls. A recording of the call will be available soon after 6 October.
Future of The Lausanne Movement
The most frequently asked question of Lausanne Movement leadership these days is, “What is next for Lausanne after the Congress?" The next Cape Town 2010 update will preview some of the plans being developed by the Congress Leadership Team for follow-on activities in the year after the Congress and share the vision for the future of the Movement.
We believe that if Lausanne continues to be “light on its feet” so that it retains the dynamics of a Movement, Lausanne will continue to serve the global church in the work of world evangelization as a thought leader, a facilitator of new partnerships and as a convener of leaders from missions, churches, academies, and from the world of business, government and the media.
Please join me in prayer that God will do something truly wonderful for the Church and for the world as we gather together in Cape Town. I look forward to seeing you very soon! God bless you.
In Christ,
Doug Birdsall, Executive Chair
The Lausanne Movement and Cape Town 2010
P.S. Information for giving gifts by mail or wire transfer are below:
To give a gift by mail, please send to:
Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization
P.O. Box 9020
San Dimas, CA 91773
U.S.A.
Gifts may also be sent by wire transfer to our bank in South Africa or in the U.S. as follows:
South Africa (Transfers in South African Rand)
Bank:ABSA
Branch Code:632-005
Account Name:The Lausanne III 2010 World Congress Trust
Account Address:Cape Town, South Africa
Account Number:406 897 8047
SWIFT Code:ABSA ZA JJ
USA (Transfers in US Dollars)
Bank:BOFA
Account Name:Lausanne Committee of World Evangelization
Account Number:00881-14552
ABA Number:121000358
SWIFT Code:BOFAUS3N
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
The Most Diverse Gathering Ever - Lausanne III is pulling a cross-section of 4,000 world leaders to keep the gospel front and center.
by John W. Kennedy
The Lausanne movement's third global gathering will feature a younger, more ethnically diverse, and more geographically varied consortium of evangelical leaders than ever before.
The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, known as Cape Town 2010, will take place next month, October 16-25, with 4,000 leaders from 200 countries. Planners have made sure that 55 percent of participants are under age 50.
Billy Graham convened the first International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland, in July 1974, drawing 2,700 evangelicals from 150 nations. The parley comprised mostly white Western leaders at a time when the massive growth of Christianity in the developing world had just begun. British pastor-theologian John Stott served as chief architect of the Lausanne Covenant, which resulted in multiple alliances and spawned many other conferences. The second gathering, held in Manila in 1989, drew an influx of attendees from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and also incorporated Pentecostals and charismatics.
This time around, Americans aren't dominating the behind-the-scenes preparation or the on-stage program. Only 5 of the 25 members of the congress's Advisory Council, which has developed a theological foundation and strategic vision for the event, are from the U.S.
Two-Thirds World Showcased
Program Committee Chair Ramez Atallah, general secretary of the Bible Society of Egypt, pushed for a discussion format of seating six attendees per table, discussing speeches that will be shorter than those from years past.
"We don't want people to come because of big names," Atallah says. "We're not choosing the stars of the evangelical world to speak. People coming to be entertained by great speakers and great music will be disappointed. They could get that sitting at home, watching television."
Executive Chair Doug Birdsall, an Asian Access missionary based at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, doesn't have the name recognition of his Lausanne predecessors. But he has painstakingly guided the event planning to include a cross-section of pastors, scholars, academics, missionaries, educators, and business leaders. Two-thirds of the speakers and presenters are from Africa, Latin America, and Asia, where two-thirds of today's evangelicals live.
"If it's the whole church, it needs to be people from north, south, east, and west," Birdsall says. "These leaders, carefully chosen from thousands of applicants, will represent the demographic, theological, and cultural realities of the global church."
Leighton Ford, program chairman for Lausanne 1974 and chair of ongoing committees 15 years later, says Americans will leave Cape Town understanding the importance of listening to and being helped by leaders from other parts of the world.
"Back then we thought we had quite a bit to give—and we did," says Ford, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and adviser for this year's Lausanne. "Now we have a great deal to receive. It's an attitude change that will result."
Atallah says Western evangelical leaders tend to be goal- and result-oriented, adopting a view of Christian work and life that mimics a business model. He hopes Americans focus on ministry relationships rather than donor responses.
"When Americans evaluate things, they do so from a grid that is counterintuitive to the New Testament," Atallah says. The grid "goes counter to the relational model that Africans and many other cultures espouse."
Birdsall says evangelism and social justice must go hand in hand. In light of pluralistic societies and the New Atheism, he says, Christians are more likely to embrace justice and mercy matters at the expense of the foundational truths that Jesus is the only way to God and that Scripture is the ultimate authority. It's never hard to find enough American churchgoers to build a house, but drawing interest in a Bible study is another matter, says Birdsall.
"There is a concern that our message is offensive, so there is a tendency to downplay it because respectability and likeability are important to us," Birdsall says. "If we do everything but proclaim the message, that's just a partial gospel."
Korean American Michael Oh, president of Christ Bible Seminary in Nagoya, Japan, embodies the way the global church has changed since Lausanne I. The 39-year-old is responsible for shepherding the younger leaders at Lausanne III.
"We hope to witness in Cape Town a strengthening of healthy generational cooperation and, Lord willing, the beginning of a more deliberate generational transition globally in terms of leadership," Oh says. "It will be an incredible opportunity for younger leaders to pray, worship, repent, and strategize alongside more experienced leaders."
Birdsall is optimistic that Cape Town 2010 will feature a proper blend of wisdom from veteran leaders who make well-informed decisions, and energy from younger Christians to carry them out.
This is the first time such a global gathering will be truly global via technology. Not only can individuals watch proceedings on the Internet, there will also be 400 anchor sites providing global links in 60 nations. Participants at theological institutions, mission sites, and churches worldwide will be able to interact with those at the congress.
Islam and other Strategic Challenges
Questions facing the church from within and without are enormous. Cape Town 2010 will tackle key issues that confront the church's effectiveness in world evangelization, ranging from consumerism to child sex trafficking. Birdsall says the congress will deal with three themes: the impact of secularism; the challenge of other faiths; and the nature of the church, specifically the problems of fragmentation and superficiality among evangelicals.
Islam is at the fore of challenges from other faiths. "Islam is a globally coordinated and unbelievably well-funded aggressive movement," Oh says. "The church needs to ask whether it will be reactionary or proactive in engagement."
"It's a great temptation to look upon Muslims as enemies rather than as people God loves," Ford says.
'If it's the whole church, it needs to be people from north, south, east, and west.'— Lausanne executive chair Doug Birdsall
Rick Warren, whose Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, has trained 400,000 pastors from 64 countries, advocated for Cape Town as the host site. He is on the Lausanne III Advisory Council.
"The church is truly the only global organization on the planet," Warren said in June at one of twelve pre-congress gatherings at U.S. churches. "My prayer for Lausanne is that we show why we do what we do."
Cape Town 2010 is designed to be a catalyst for church leaders to form partnerships to spread the Good News and to make disciples. Still, unity within a less homogeneous contingent than the first Lausanne might be easier to declare than to implement.
"The issue of cooperation and partnership is just as vital as it was back then—and sometimes just as hard to achieve," Ford says. "The church is growing rapidly among the poor, and we have a great deal to learn from them."
At this point, Birdsall believes he and other planners have done everything humanly possible to make sure Cape Town 2010 goes as planned.
"We want to make sure we don't plan so carefully that we leave God out of it," Birdsall says. Now he's focusing on asking for prayer from the faithful.
John W. Kennedy is a contributing editor for Christianity Today. To join the conversations at this year's congress, visit Lausanne.org/globalinkreg.
Copyright © 2010 Christianity Today.
Related Elsewhere:
Since October 2009, Christianity Today has been hosting a 12-month Global Conversation on 12 key issues facing the church that will be discussed at Cape Town 2010.
The Lausanne movement's third global gathering will feature a younger, more ethnically diverse, and more geographically varied consortium of evangelical leaders than ever before.
The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, known as Cape Town 2010, will take place next month, October 16-25, with 4,000 leaders from 200 countries. Planners have made sure that 55 percent of participants are under age 50.
Billy Graham convened the first International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland, in July 1974, drawing 2,700 evangelicals from 150 nations. The parley comprised mostly white Western leaders at a time when the massive growth of Christianity in the developing world had just begun. British pastor-theologian John Stott served as chief architect of the Lausanne Covenant, which resulted in multiple alliances and spawned many other conferences. The second gathering, held in Manila in 1989, drew an influx of attendees from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and also incorporated Pentecostals and charismatics.
This time around, Americans aren't dominating the behind-the-scenes preparation or the on-stage program. Only 5 of the 25 members of the congress's Advisory Council, which has developed a theological foundation and strategic vision for the event, are from the U.S.
Two-Thirds World Showcased
Program Committee Chair Ramez Atallah, general secretary of the Bible Society of Egypt, pushed for a discussion format of seating six attendees per table, discussing speeches that will be shorter than those from years past.
"We don't want people to come because of big names," Atallah says. "We're not choosing the stars of the evangelical world to speak. People coming to be entertained by great speakers and great music will be disappointed. They could get that sitting at home, watching television."
Executive Chair Doug Birdsall, an Asian Access missionary based at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, doesn't have the name recognition of his Lausanne predecessors. But he has painstakingly guided the event planning to include a cross-section of pastors, scholars, academics, missionaries, educators, and business leaders. Two-thirds of the speakers and presenters are from Africa, Latin America, and Asia, where two-thirds of today's evangelicals live.
"If it's the whole church, it needs to be people from north, south, east, and west," Birdsall says. "These leaders, carefully chosen from thousands of applicants, will represent the demographic, theological, and cultural realities of the global church."
Leighton Ford, program chairman for Lausanne 1974 and chair of ongoing committees 15 years later, says Americans will leave Cape Town understanding the importance of listening to and being helped by leaders from other parts of the world.
"Back then we thought we had quite a bit to give—and we did," says Ford, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and adviser for this year's Lausanne. "Now we have a great deal to receive. It's an attitude change that will result."
Atallah says Western evangelical leaders tend to be goal- and result-oriented, adopting a view of Christian work and life that mimics a business model. He hopes Americans focus on ministry relationships rather than donor responses.
"When Americans evaluate things, they do so from a grid that is counterintuitive to the New Testament," Atallah says. The grid "goes counter to the relational model that Africans and many other cultures espouse."
Birdsall says evangelism and social justice must go hand in hand. In light of pluralistic societies and the New Atheism, he says, Christians are more likely to embrace justice and mercy matters at the expense of the foundational truths that Jesus is the only way to God and that Scripture is the ultimate authority. It's never hard to find enough American churchgoers to build a house, but drawing interest in a Bible study is another matter, says Birdsall.
"There is a concern that our message is offensive, so there is a tendency to downplay it because respectability and likeability are important to us," Birdsall says. "If we do everything but proclaim the message, that's just a partial gospel."
Korean American Michael Oh, president of Christ Bible Seminary in Nagoya, Japan, embodies the way the global church has changed since Lausanne I. The 39-year-old is responsible for shepherding the younger leaders at Lausanne III.
"We hope to witness in Cape Town a strengthening of healthy generational cooperation and, Lord willing, the beginning of a more deliberate generational transition globally in terms of leadership," Oh says. "It will be an incredible opportunity for younger leaders to pray, worship, repent, and strategize alongside more experienced leaders."
Birdsall is optimistic that Cape Town 2010 will feature a proper blend of wisdom from veteran leaders who make well-informed decisions, and energy from younger Christians to carry them out.
This is the first time such a global gathering will be truly global via technology. Not only can individuals watch proceedings on the Internet, there will also be 400 anchor sites providing global links in 60 nations. Participants at theological institutions, mission sites, and churches worldwide will be able to interact with those at the congress.
Islam and other Strategic Challenges
Questions facing the church from within and without are enormous. Cape Town 2010 will tackle key issues that confront the church's effectiveness in world evangelization, ranging from consumerism to child sex trafficking. Birdsall says the congress will deal with three themes: the impact of secularism; the challenge of other faiths; and the nature of the church, specifically the problems of fragmentation and superficiality among evangelicals.
Islam is at the fore of challenges from other faiths. "Islam is a globally coordinated and unbelievably well-funded aggressive movement," Oh says. "The church needs to ask whether it will be reactionary or proactive in engagement."
"It's a great temptation to look upon Muslims as enemies rather than as people God loves," Ford says.
'If it's the whole church, it needs to be people from north, south, east, and west.'— Lausanne executive chair Doug Birdsall
Rick Warren, whose Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, has trained 400,000 pastors from 64 countries, advocated for Cape Town as the host site. He is on the Lausanne III Advisory Council.
"The church is truly the only global organization on the planet," Warren said in June at one of twelve pre-congress gatherings at U.S. churches. "My prayer for Lausanne is that we show why we do what we do."
Cape Town 2010 is designed to be a catalyst for church leaders to form partnerships to spread the Good News and to make disciples. Still, unity within a less homogeneous contingent than the first Lausanne might be easier to declare than to implement.
"The issue of cooperation and partnership is just as vital as it was back then—and sometimes just as hard to achieve," Ford says. "The church is growing rapidly among the poor, and we have a great deal to learn from them."
At this point, Birdsall believes he and other planners have done everything humanly possible to make sure Cape Town 2010 goes as planned.
"We want to make sure we don't plan so carefully that we leave God out of it," Birdsall says. Now he's focusing on asking for prayer from the faithful.
John W. Kennedy is a contributing editor for Christianity Today. To join the conversations at this year's congress, visit Lausanne.org/globalinkreg.
Copyright © 2010 Christianity Today.
Related Elsewhere:
Since October 2009, Christianity Today has been hosting a 12-month Global Conversation on 12 key issues facing the church that will be discussed at Cape Town 2010.
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