Dale and Ann Little

The theme of Day 6 was “church partnership.”

Ramez Atallah, General Secretary of the Bible Society of Egypt, Honorary President of International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), and Program Chair for this Lausanne Congress, spoke from Ephesians 6:10-24, reminding the Congress that our enemy is the Devil—not ourselves or even the world.

“It would revolutionize the way we look at life and mission if we stopped looking at people as our enemies.”

David Ruiz from Guatemala, Associate Director of the WEA Missions Commission, spoke on the necessity of humility for partnership in our day when the scope of missions extends “from all nations to all nations.”

Patrick Fung, General Director of Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF), headquartered in Singapore, emphasized that making disciples of Jesus Christ must be our most urgent goal. One way we can do this is by partnership.

“The foundation of all Christian partnerships is reconciliation.”

“People who were once enemies because of political or racial conflicts, can now work shoulder-to-shoulder to proclaim the message of reconciliation. This message is to be lived out by God’s new community, and the fragmented world needs to see it.”

The theme of Day 5 was “church integrity.”

Calisto Odede, pastor of a Nairobi Pentecostal Church in Woodley, and former leader of IFES in Kenya, preached from Eph. 4:17 – 6:9, telling us that Christianity is losing credibility. Our lifestyles do not support the things we say, our relationships with others, or the way we handle money. Many of these issues discredit us.

Christopher Wright, International Director of Langham Partnership International and chair of the Lausanne Theology Working Group, reminded us that our calling as Christians is both evangelistic and ethical. He prophetically taught that the greatest problem God has in his mission is his own people:

“The idolatry in the church of power, prosperity, and wealth, is the biggest single obstacle to mission.”

View of Cape Town from Table Mountain

The theme of Day 4 was “world priorities.”

Vaughan Roberts, rector of St. Ebbe’s Church in Oxford (UK), reminded us from Ephesians 4:1-16 that our two priorities as Christian leaders are first to love God and one anther, and then demonstrate that love to the world. According to Roberts, one way we show that love in the context of today’s starvation for the Word of God is to “keep the ministry of the Word the main thing.”

Paul Eshelman, Vice President of Partnerships for Campus Crusade for Christ and director of the JESUS Film Project, noted that we at this Lausanne Congress represent 5 million local churches and 12 million believers from around the world. He then challenged us to consider the unreached people groups of the world by asking,

“Where is the church not present, and what are we going to do about it?”

Lausanne Congress 2010, typical plenary session

The theme of Day 3 was “world faiths.”

John Piper, Pastor of Preaching and Vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis Minnesota (USA), preached on Ephesians 3. God reveals his wisdom and glory through the Church that is to proclaim the death of Christ to all peoples—including people of other religions. The cross of Jesus is necessary before God the Father can extend his grace because it is through that cross that the “wrath of God” is appeased. Without the cross of Christ, all humanity would suffer in hell for eternity. Piper declared,

“We evangelicals care about human suffering, especially eternal human suffering.”

Piper then explained: If we feel uncomfortable with the last part of that sentence, then we have a defetive view of hell. On the other hand, if we feel discomfort with the first part of that sentence, then we have a defective view of the human heart [where evil lurks].

Benjamin Kwashi, an Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Nigeria, described the horrific story of the rape, burning, and blinding of his wife by those who hated her Christian faith (and who lives to tell her own story). Kwashi has himself been threatened with death on several occasions. He testified,

“The gospel is worth living for and it is worth dying for.”

Michael Ramsden, European Director of Zacharius Trust and lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Christan Apologetics, grew up in Saudi Arabia. He reminded us that

“It is difficult to preach the gospel with words, but it is impossible to preach it without words.”

Typical crowd of delegates at Lausanne Congress 2010

The theme of Day 2 was “reconciliation.”

Ruth Padilla DeBorst, General Secretary of the Latin American Theological Fellowship, preached on Ephesians 2, reminding us that the church needs credibility in the eyes of the world and that Jesus has broken down the barriers between the multiple ethnic groups within the Church.

Her sermon was followed by several speakers who shared about slavery and ethnic hatred in the world, including South African apartheid history and the Palestinian/Jewish tension. The majority of the 25 million slaves of the world are in India—the Dalit people who are considered the lowest of all because they do not even qualify as part of the caste system. Antoine Rutayisire, Dean of the Anglican Cathedral of Kigali in Rwanda, declared,

“Jesus on the cross bears both the sin of the oppressor and the pain of the victim.”

The theme of the first full day of the Lausanne Congress in Cape Town (Oct 18) was “truth.”

Ajith Fernando, Director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka, powerfully preached on Ephesians 1. He observed that

people come to Christ to meet a personal need, but stay with Christ when they are convinced and know that he is Truth.

And he reminded us that although St. Francis of Assisi is frequently quoted as saying, “Preach the gospel—and if necessary use words,” he himself constantly used words of truth to portray the gospel. Fernando exhorted us to avoid using that quote from Francis of Assisi to excuse our silence in proclaiming the gospel.

Cape Town International Convention Center, location of Lausanne Congress 2010

Carver Yu, President of China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong, lectured on postmodernism’s challenge to the idea of universal truth, with the reminder that the relativism at the heart of postmodernism is inconsistent. That is, although postmodernism declares that all truth is relative, it assumes that that particular foundational truth of postmodernism is absolute rather than relative. This is self-defeating and demonstrates the logical implausibility of postmodernism.

Michael Herbst, Dean of the Faculty of Theology and Vice Principal of the University of Greifswald (Germany), presented creative and sometimes humorous insights into applying truth concepts at the practical level.

Os Guinness, well known author, international speaker, social and church critic, and co-founder of the Trinity Forum, provided six reminders that truth is important and foundational to Christian faith, mission, and evangelism.