World changers to meet in Cape Town to talk strategy

There's a saying that goes: "The strength of your diversity is the strength of your unity."

It means that many parts can function well if they are motivated under a common purpose. It's also a picture of the body of Christ, united in making His name central. That's a driving force behind Cape Town 2010, the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization. It's a ten-day gathering that begins October 16, reports MNN.

Asian Access is just one group of hundreds participating. A2 President Joseph Handley says, "This event is only held once every 15 to 20 years, so it's a significant event that will set the course for world evangelization for the next decade or two."

What is the Lausanne Movement? It's a body formed from a movement aimed at "The Whole Church taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World." Lausanne III will take a cross-section of church leaders and help them figure out how to keep the Gospel at the forefront of their ministry.

A little history:

1966--The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, in partnership with America's Christianity Today magazine, sponsored the World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin.

1974--2,700 participants and guests from over 150 nations gathered in the Swiss Alps for ten days of discussion, fellowship, worship and prayer. The Congress achieved an unprecedented diversity of nationalities, ethnicities, ages, occupations and denominational affiliations. Out of this meeting came the Lausanne Covenant. It helped set the stage for new collaborative efforts among Christians. To this day, the Lausanne Covenant serves as a basis for unity and a call to global evangelization. Organizers got a mandate to establish a Continuation Committee that would build on the momentum created at the Congress.

1975--The Continuation Committee held its first meeting in Mexico City. Committee members expressed a wide variety of viewpoints regarding the future of the movement

2010--The goal of Cape Town 2010 is to re-stimulate the spirit of Lausanne represented in the Lausanne Covenant: to promote unity, humbleness in service, and a call to action for global evangelization.

Handley says, "We'll be sitting down together--there will be 4000 global leaders and delegates at the congress--discussing several key issues, and kind of wrestling through the problems that we are facing and how can we address them."

The issues run the gamut from bioethics to social justice to spiritual warfare as they relate to the future of the Church and world evangelization. Ministry leaders are hoping to draw on their strengths, work together united under Christ, and become more effective.

While some leaders tend to shape their ministry approach after a business model, there are others who promote a more relational model within the context of the community. For everything there is a season. Cape Town 2010 will be a time for listening, building, helping, changing and growing. For some, it means starting over.

It's a time for casting vision and figuring out how to make that a reality. There's a lot of anticipation about how this will look once the Congress concludes.

One thing is clear, Handley says: "At the end of the day, at the end of this ten-day congress, we hope to come out with a greater sense of unity in the body of Christ worldwide, a great sense of clarity for the Gospel, and then finally, [a greater sense of] the top priorities of the task before us in reaching the world for Christ."

There are challenges before Cape Town 2010. Some of them involve finances. Some involve spiritual warfare. Some are physical, with endurance tested in keeping things moving forward for the delegates.

Momentous kingdom building strides were made at the last Congress. "Pray for a sense of our own centeredness in Christ; for peace and wisdom with all the things that are coming our direction. And then, for us, as an Asian Access family, we have our own financial and prayer needs as well. "

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TAGS: South Africa Cape Town 2010 Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization Asian Access A2 President The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Lausanne Covenant

[10/11/2010]

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