Lausanne Blog

2010 Is Here!

Doug Birdsall, Lausanne Movement Executive Chair — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 07:58:00 +0000

“2010!” Can you believe it? This much anticipated year is now upon us. Cape Town 2010 (CT2010) is just nine and a half months away. The vision we have been articulating and the plans that we have been developing since June 2005 will soon be a reality. How we pray that this Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization will be a moment in time when God reveals his glory to his gathered people in a powerful way that has global and historic impact. How we pray that we will hear God’s voice in such a way that will bring unity, vision and strength to the church which enables us to be agents of hope and reconciliation in our world desperately in need of hope.

Call to Action: Prayer and Bible Study
As we enter into this final stretch of preparation for CT2010, I would like to issue two challenges to each person in the Lausanne Movement. First of all, I ask you to intensify your prayers on behalf of the Congress. We have invested much by way of organization and preparation for this Congress. We are deeply grateful for the quality of work and the caliber of gifted people who have worked so hard to ensure that CT2010 is meticulously planned. We are also encouraged by the enthusiasm and momentum that this has created among evangelical leaders all around the world. Given the great potential of this Congress, we should anticipate and prepare ourselves for more pointed and intense spiritual warfare in these coming months as Satan will certainly attempt to discredit, divide and disrupt the plans and the planners for Cape Town 2010.

Second,

The Countdown Is On

Naomi A. Frizzell — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:16:00 +0000

While we were in Cape Town a couple of months ago, the local host committee unveiled a large Cape Town 2010 Countdown Clock. This huge clock will count down the days until the beginning of The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization.

As I write this blog today, Cape Town 2010 is 311 days away.

311 days away – whew.

311 DAYS AWAY – YIKES!!!

Part of me grows short of breath and weak in the knees (figuratively and sometimes literally!) when I think about how few days there are between now and then. We’ve been planning for Cape Town 2010 (CT2010) for almost five years and it has seemed sometimes as if the day would never come and now it’s just around the corner.

To serve the 4000-plus people onsite is no small task. Papers need to be written by speakers, multiplex sessions organized, volunteers identified, media registered, meals planned, website pages developed, equipment and furniture ordered, videos edited, Internet technology expanded, registrations completed, hotels booked, airplane tickets purchased, music and drama rehearsed, and on it goes.

Every day I receive emails from people who are just learning about Cape Town 2010 and want to attend onsite. Understandably, many express disappointment when I tell them that the application period for onsite participants ended several months ago.

Yet, many also express surprise and delight that being onsite in Cape Town is not the only way they can participate.

God willing, as never before Cape Town 2010 will bring leaders together

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Partnerships: Spaces of Authenticity and Inclusion

Caldwell Manners — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:18:00 +0000

During the month of November members of the Word Made Flesh team share reflections on partnership and challenge us to move beyond our current understanding of what it means to be partners with one another to the glory of God and for the advancement of the Gospel in word and deed.

Most of us want to be in partnerships and like the idea of it. It may have worked well for us in the past, and may still be a significant portion of our work. However, the pressing question for us is, are the partnerships liberating for those involved, and not just accomplishing the objectives of association? It’s obvious to all of us that partnerships are rooted in relationship, which is the base of this spirit-led initiative.

The gifts of partnership embolden alliances, inspire creativity and encourage collaborative progress, but its essence is nurtured in sustained egalitarian relationships, confessing domination, mutual empowerment and embodied love.

In light of the above, the critical challenge for us in the mission community is finding ways of how we can wade through the legacy of colonialism, keeping in mind how it has defined these basic relationships that are so essential to life giving partnerships. The distraught it has brought in relationships make firm the institutions of nationalism, militarism, patriarchy, and racism that stand as a stronghold working against the partnerships we hope nurture.

The legacy of colonialism challenges our “good and right” intentions. Those of us who find ourselves working tirelessly alongside the worlds most vulnerable can sometimes find ourselves living in tension – the tension of
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Standing in the Room

Anna Monteviller — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:46:00 +0000

During the month of November members of the Word Made Flesh team share reflections on partnership and challenge us to move beyond our current understanding of what it means to be partners with one another to the glory of God and for the advancement of the Gospel in word and deed.

When God called me to begin serving with Word Made Flesh (WMF), I made my first visit to Romania. It was my first trip outside of Peru, and I spoke almost no English. I spent long hours, daily, speaking to God in Spanish. I saw many things, so many realities that not only filled my heart, but that also set my heart on fire. The best way to describe it is, I wanted to “burn” everyone! I wanted to return to my church and start a huge fire; I wanted my friends to burn as I did. I am thankful to God for the dream when Jesus nudged me along and spoke to me in ways I could understand. Jesus placed this message in my heart.

Now after many years in the WMF community in Lima, Peru, I have seen this same passion begin to burn in many people. This is how I see the process as we invite new people to serve with us in community:

Watching from the window: At first, one gets to know what is happening in the city. One begins to understand and say, “Wow! Look at all of the things happening here.” Themes begin to awaken inside the person: marginalization, abuse, lack of
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Partnership and Mission

Alex and Esdrianne Cohen de Araujo — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:36:00 +0000

During the month of November members of the Word Made Flesh team share reflections on partnership and challenge us to move beyond our current understanding of what it means to be partners with one another to the glory of God and for the advancement of the Gospel in word and deed.
Let’s understand a little more about the topic of partnership in mission, examining the true essence of why we serve the Lord. There exists a necessity to speak of Jesus to all those who don’t know him.
John 3:16 says, “Yes, God so loved the world as to give the Only begotten One, that whoever believes may not die, but have eternal life.” We’ve heard this verse so many times, that we ‘re jaded by it and assume that there is nothing new in the words, but the reality is that the majority of people don’t pay attention to what is fundamental in this text.

God so loved the world so much as to give the Only begotten One, that whoever believes may not die but have eternal life. Try to imagine yourself in the same situation. Could you love someone so deeply that you would have the capacity to give the life of your only child in the place of the one you love? Also consider that in giving of your child, you’re dealing with the imperfect human condition, a condition of imperfect faithfulness and insincere promises. Yet God’s sacrifice was given to pull us out of sin and eradicate
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On Partnership

Angelene Samuel — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:55:00 +0000

During the month of November members of the Word Made Flesh team share reflections on partnership and challenge us to move beyond our current understanding of what it means to be partners with one another to the glory of God and for the advancement of the Gospel in word and deed.

I have been ruminating on what the Word of God says about partnership and how well we can reflect the same in our Word Made Flesh Community. As I understand, a partnership would involve understanding, sharing of concerns, being in agreement, including agreeing to disagree. It would require openness to one another’s weaknesses and strengths, and facilitate dignity and self worth.

When I glimpse through Scriptures, I can see a thread of partnerships running from Genesis to Revelation. I have found that they focus on two major aspects:

Essential Process in Fulfilling the Mission of God
Partnership is ordained by God as a mission which propels Gods will. When we look at the life of Moses we find that when God chooses to work through an individual, God usually chooses unusual partners in his plan for fulfillment of the mission of God. Each of these individuals are utilized in their own capacity (with what ever they have to offer) in advancing the mission of God.

Take for example Moses’ parents who were ordinary slaves in the land of Egypt. By faith they hid the baby boy who was to be deliverer of the huge nation of Israel. We also see the sincere
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Humility: The Starting Point

John Koon — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:55:00 +0000

During the month of November members of the Word Made Flesh team share reflections on partnership and challenge us to move beyond our current understanding of what it means to be partners with one another to the glory of God and for the advancement of the Gospel in word and deed.

Sitting in a meeting in our hotel’s conference room outside of Kathmandu, Nepal, I found myself distracted and disengaged. A wave of anxiety, the afterbirth of the release of that odious phrase dominant culture, had crept up and smothered me. These two words, uttered just moments before, were reverberating like an obstinate pinball through the alleyways of my mind. And though the air continued to buzz with discussion and thought on the role of North Americans in the mission of Word Made Flesh, I remained silent, held prisoner by my worry. This is me. I am a white, North American male. I come from a dominant culture.

I was at Word Made Flesh’s (WMF) 2009 International Field Forum, where our focus was on partnership, the so-called round table where our international community might gather in mutual submission and trust. I imagined how such a table has historically looked: tilted grossly to the West, like a seesaw occupied by a lone child. Those on the weightless side, teetering involuntarily in the air, were dutifully nodding their heads in approval of any idea thrown at them. Acutely aware in that moment of my identity as a white North American and my role in a society that is guilty of injustices ranging from
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God’s Reign: An Invitation to Partnership

Noah Tullay — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:05:00 +0000

During the month of November members of the Word Made Flesh team share reflections on partnership and challenge us to move beyond our current understanding of what it means to be partners with one another to the glory of God and for the advancement of the Gospel in word and deed.

It is good to talk about partnership, because I believe that without true partnership we cannot participate in building the reign of God. In Sierra Leone, I have seen the love Christians share when they come together supporting one another. When they come and work together, they are able to build something beautiful.

I have been wondering what partnership means. A partnership is a company or firm with two or more members who share the risks and profits of the business. Partners have equal rights and obligations in running the business. A partnership creates ownership, because when you own something you put all your effort towards its success. In Christian partnerships we need our friends to know that they are an important part, and when they see their role in the partnership, they will put all of their effort into it.

What can be of a Christian community when we come together as partners? There are different scriptures in the Bible that talk about unity and equality. In Acts, when the Christians came together in one place they shared things together, they spoke with one voice and they did things equally to the point that other people couldn't tell who was the
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What Do We Mean By Partnership?

Chris Heuertz — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:38:00 +0000
At the very least the recorded history of modern missions has been largely read as a colonializing white enterprise of the Western (European and American) church. This version of mission has often under reported the role of partnership in service. It also fails to acknowledge the trending reality that Christianity in 2009 is no longer a Western religion, but one based among the Majority World.
Of course we know that most mission takes place locally and goes unnoticed and unreported. We also know that mission doesn't require organizational backing, but is often found in the slow and humble work of learning to love your own community.

The organization I am a part of, Word Made Flesh (WMF), falls into a traditional missional community as it relates to the international communities we've help nurtured all over South America, South and Southeast Asia, West Africa and Eastern Europe. However, rather than framing the organizational infrastructure after a franchise model where the USA office would control the international projects, we've opted for a federation. A federation of similarly named organizations that share vision, staff and sometimes funding. Each international Word Made Flesh community has a locally registered board of directors and a local Executive Director.

This model has been humanizing in its attempt to form a partnership around a metaphoric "round table"—one where each member of the federation has a voice that contributes to the development of the global movement. This is also placed within the recognition that in a globalized world, our realities may be flattening, but they are still slanted in the favor of the so-called Developed or Western World.

Working
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Proudly Christian

Gideon Para-Mallam — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:09:00 +0000

The 27 countries I visit as an International Deputy Director of The Lausanne Movement are those I cover as Regional Secretary for the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) in English and Portuguese Speaking Africa. I'm happy to be corrected, but I think there are about five Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa – Angola, Cape Verde Islands, Guinea Bissau, The Island of Sao Tome and The Principe and Mozambique. There is only one Spanish-speaking country Equatorial Guinea.

IFES is an exciting campus-based student ministry which reaches out to students in the Colleges and the Universities. The vision is completely student-driven and I love young people. I have been working with this group since graduating from College myself some 26 years ago. Why do I love young people? They are the leaders of tomorrow. They are the future church evangelists, missionaries, pastors, bank managers, college professors, high school teachers, governors, parliamentarians and presidents of companies and nations. They will be the high flyers of tomorrow. This means we must treat them with respect and dignity today. We must do all it takes to engage them effectively and productively for the future. Proverbs 20:29 says, “The glory of young men [women] is their strength...” This is a call for us to help them maximize those strengths to the glory of God and not to the service of the evil one.

My involvement with Lausanne as I work with IFES is two-fold:

Firstly, IFES is very concerned about the future today, so also is Lausanne concerned about the Church today and the Church tomorrow.
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