World comes to Cape Town
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA—"God is at work all over the world in amazing ways despite ourselves," says Dion Oxford, one of 50 official Canadian participants at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, which convened October 17-24 in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Canadian contingent joined more than 4,000 other participants from 198 countries in a historic gathering that aimed "to strengthen, inspire and equip the Church for world evangelization in our generation, and to exhort Christians in their duty to engage in issues of public and social concern."
Participants included a veritable who's who of the broader evangelical world, including plenary speakers such as Alpha founder Nicky Gumbel, theologian and pastor John Piper, Chris Wright of Langham Partnership International, Africa Enterprise founder Michael Cassidy and many more.
The Cape Town gathering extended the platform of two earlier global evangelical events. Billy Graham convened the first in 1974 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Delegates there worked long and hard to develop "The Lausanne Covenant," a seminal document that articulated a new awareness of the number of unreached people groups and a fresh discovery of the holistic nature of the gospel.
Most of the crafting of the document emerging from this gathering was done ahead of time by a group of senior evangelical theologians. "The Cape Town Commitment: A Declaration of Belief and Call to Action" A second part incorporating resolutions and calls-to-action generated by participants in South Africa will be released by December 1.
"The Cape Town Commitment is really a challenge," says drafting committee member Ajith Fernando of Sri Lanka. "We challenge the Church to pursue certain areas. It's not a covenant, but a challenge."
"The key themes of the Cape Town Commitment are humility, integrity and simplicity," explains Wright, who headed the committee. "We didn't want a jamboree of evangelical triumphalism. We need a critique and repentance within the church."
Beyond documents
The documents are expected to be distributed widely and will serve as an ongoing resource to the broader church. They will be become the key reference point when historians and others gauge the beliefs and priorities of evangelicals. But documents were far from the minds of most participants during the event itself.
About 700 tables were crowded into the congress hall, each seating six participants who would meet with the same group of people for most of the plenary sessions. Each morning they studied a chapter of the book of Ephesians together, share observations and sought to apply Scripture to their own contexts. In the process, many groups of six erstwhile strangers from various countries forged little pockets of close community amidst the larger swirl of the congress crowds.
And they listened to inspiring speakers from all over the world exposit Scripture, address challenges and tell inspiring stories. Libby Little, the widow of an eye doctor murdered in Afghanistan in August, for example, shared transcripts of her husband's last phone calls and challenged listeners' with a brave example of a Christian witness willing and eager to help needy people in even the most remote and dangerous areas regardless of their religious beliefs.
Or Amber, a young American woman who lives simply in a small Islamic village in an unnamed country where she makes friends with women and tells them Bible stories in their own language. Calling herself a "Scripture servant," she now has 47 stories in circulation, which are being told and retold—daughters telling them to their fathers; mothers telling them to their children.
"I am not a Bible translator," says Amber. "I'm just a woman who loves Muslim women."
A tremendous highlight of the congress was the testimony of Sung Kyung Ju, an 18-year-old student from North Korea who is committed to returning to her home country to work for reconciliation. "I want to bring the love of God to North Korea," she says.
Big tent
Such a diverse gathering was bound to have its share of discord. Observers were keenly aware of some of the tensions gathered under the big tent of global evangelicalism. The North American mission movement (primarily U.S.) was roundly criticized for exporting a management mentality.
And although the official documents champion an integral gospel, caring for the whole person, platform speakers such as John Piper of the U.S. raised the ire of many when he went out of his way to insist on an understanding of hell as eternal torment and to champion a special priority. "We Christians care about all suffering," he said, "but especially eternal suffering."
ChristianWeek will provide continuing coverage of Cape Town 2010 and its ongoing impact in Canada both in print and online in the weeks and months ahead.
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