Reflections from Lausanne III, Cape Town 2010

November 21, 2010

Good friends, ministry partners and colleagues–local and global,

Welcome to Part One of my Lausanne Reflections

I have unforgettable memories and a cascading series of impressions and reflections of Lausanne III-Cape Town 2010.

Let me start on a personal level

This South Africa trip was special for me because my daughter, Christine, traveled with me for two of the three weeks. Yvonne has had enough of long-distance air travel, and she wanted Christine to have the opportunity to visit South Africa. Cliff, husband, pastor and co-parent of the four children, along with Yvonne and others, covered the home tasks. Christine got the OK from the private, Catholic university where she teaches, so we had a marvelous time together.

Our first days were in Pretoria, where we, and Willie Crew, spoke at a younger adult mission gathering, a network led by MC Associate Adriaan Adams.

After preaching that Sunday morning in a new and growing church, Willie and Lydia Crew drove Christine and me to Kruger National Park for an unforgettable three days in God’s creation—the Big Five and many more. Christine fell in love with the gentle giraffe.

Later that week, now time to leave Pretoria area, my younger colleague and mentoree, Matt Fries, met us in at the airport in JoBerg and together we flew to Cape Town, staying a few days at a farm (vineyards, olives and plums) run by Ebony Lilje and owned by her parents, friends of the Crews—where Yvonne and I have stayed before. It gave time for a memorable visit to Rustenberg Vineyards for a wine tasting with friends.  We were overwhelmed again by the remarkable diversity and beauty of South Africa.

Then it was time for Lausanne to start. Christine was able to visit the opening night and the full first day of Monday before flying back to home, family, work and church. I am so thankful to God for the two weeks she and I had together, and the privilege of introducing her to scores of friends and colleagues in SA.  Her high-capacity tank was full, and her family and students awaited her return.

For a very complete report on Lausanne, go to http://www.lausanne.org/. For the videos (including the dramas), go to http://www.lausanne.org/cape-town-2010/schedule.html

For the Cape Town “Commitments” http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/conversations/detail/11544

Here is the first series of impressions and reflections of Lausanne III-Cape Town 2010:

• The profoundly moving story of the young North Korean school girl, Soo Kan and her family story of sadness, exile, the conversion to Christ of her parents, prison, the leukemia-caused death of her mother while pregnant, the father’s reuturn to the North to preach the Gospel, and now surely executed. Her narrative of faith, courage. But then also my deep concerns for her pastorally, relationally. So I spoke in depth with my Korean friend and colleague, Dr. David Tai-Woong Lee about this matter. He is tracking that case.

• The calm, clear narrative from Mrs. Libby Little as she told of the martyrdom of her husband this past August in Afghanistan, along with some 10 other Christians in medical ministry. After 31 years of life and family-raising in that nation, having survived so many radical regime changes, now his death, a modern martyr. I spoke with my good friend, Paul Bendor-Samuel, head of Interserve, the mission the Little family had served with all these decades. She is with her US-based family for now, and she has the wise and careful watchcare of Interserve’s personal resources.
• The joy of seeing so many friends (I stopped writing down names at 98) and spending some significant coffee, lunch or dinner, or skipping a plenary or multiplex to be with someone. To pray quietly with bonded friends. To drink a lot of espresso coffee at all breaks!\
• The memoral time with the dedication of the new edition of the magnificent Operation World, and the invitation by author Jason Mandryk to pray over the book, and to annoint it with oil. I have the annointed copy!

• To meet new people, to listen to new voices, particularly from Africa, whom I did not know. To see again the power of the church in Africa. Some thought the scales were too weighted towards Africa, but after all, they were our continental and national hosts.
• South Afica came through with another global event for 2010. Others: the Global Day of Prayer, and that cosmic event called The World Cup.. Good on you, SA!!!
• To spend time with Allison Siewert, leader of the drama team, and her colleagues; to give each one of them, as well as the worship team, coordinated by friends, a copy of our “Arts iin Mision” issue of Connections.
  

  Session on arts with drama team, Allison Siewert on right

  

  Dancers opening night

• To lunch with Tonica van der Meer and Reg Reimer, co-editors of our new book, “Mission in Contexts of Suffering, Persecution and Martyrdom”, with the goal of releasing the book in the summer of 2011. Tonica and Reg had not met before, so it was a great time. I shared with them my idea to dedicate our book “to the nameless ones who suffered, bled and died because of and on behalf of Christ, whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and who wait under the altar until the full number of the martyrs is completed.” We were all encouraged to complete the book as soon as possible.
• To listen to six different approaches to Ephesians, to trust the expositors to have listened to the Spirit as they studied and then taught the Word of God; and then to listen to our small group engage with Scripture and pray.

• To mull over the long-term impact of such a high-cost event, wondering how will the church be different because of Lausanne, how will mission be done differently, what concrete measurable things will we see?  I do not know and I have a lot of questions and reservations. I think I am hopeful, but still uncertain.

Below are some more in-depth observations on Cape Town 2010. I am processing and evaluating it, so keep that in mind.  I found it personally valuable because I was at Lausanne 1974 (as a young 32 year old worker serving in Guatemala, and present at Lausanne without the clear affirmation of my immediate field leadership), Manila 1989 (a fuzzy experience with mixed program, internal tensions [between AD2000 launch and the Lausanne vision], and now Cape Town 2010. My theological, relational and mission journey can be marked by these three chapters and the 36 years of life and ministry and global changes in between.

I will never forget three primary items from Lausanne ’74: the clarion call from, primarily Samuel Escobar and René Padilla, for a truly Evangelical commitment to social justice and responsibility; the provocative address by Ralph Winter on the less-least-un-evangelized of the world (this was a new one for me serving in Guatemala); and the fact that my mentor, Dr. David Howard shared a small room with me. (Dave tells me that he registered to room with me from the start, but I suspect he moved his booking from the 4-5 star hotel in Lausanne, and moved into a 1.5 star place immediately adjacent to the railroad station, with a small room, the toilet on the floor above us, the breakfast symbolic and minimalist) All of this simply to share life with me, and to walk with me to the Congress Center. I was permanently changed. Ah, he reminded me today that on the last day we did gorge ourselves at a huge breakfast in the Hotel de la Paz, which was five star !!

I have personal friends whose conclusions on Lausanne 2010 are rather strong and rather negative: “Lausanne missed the opportunity to make the Gospel Clear”; “Lausanne showed itself in bondage to the North, particularly the American boomer generation who raised the funds and controlled the program and outcome”; “Lausanne was rather good, but at best uneven”; to “Who know what will come out of Lausanne or what will be remembered or what will have long-term impact”.  One younger leader mused, “Could this be the last similar event working out of a modernity model, conceived, directed and primarily funded from the North?”

Others of my close colleague chose not to come because of their disagreement with the Lausanne process, or due to significant mistakes made in the past or because they did not feel it really added value to their life and ministry and thus was not worth the high financial investment–and that, Lausanne, was!  It cost to get there and to cover fees, lodging and meals.

Paul Borthwick has a thoughtful article published written in November 2004 for Evangelical Mission Quarterly, which still has relevance. He and I have chatted about Lausanne since last month. His “Seven open questions concerning global Christian gatherings in general”:

1. Are we trying to recreate historical visitations of God by these events?
2. Do we give serious consideration to the financial cost factor?
3. How does technology affect the need for and effectiveness of these global gatherings?
4. Again implicating myself, I found myself wondering, are we catering to a certain “global conference” culture of attendees at these events?
5. What about the rich/poor gap issue?
6. Do these conferences give us in the West a false sense of our leadership in the Global Movement of Christianity?
7. Where do these conferences go?

I still mull over these pregnant questions and I know that Paul does even more than I. Ajith Fernando, a friend and colleague for many years, had written some of his concerns in a letter prior to Lausanne. He and I had a delightful divine encounter at Lausanne where we spoke about these issues—and he gave permission for me to circulate his thoughts. So what were my (and his concerns)? From Ajith’s letter:

1. How should we maintain the passion for reaching lost people with the gospel of eternal salvation at a time that the evangelical church has (thankfully) discovered some of the other aspects of the mission of the church, such as social involvement, commitment to social justice and the environment? I fear that many of us we are failing here. I cannot see how we could maintain a biblical balance unless our hearts break from a burden over the eternal lostness of people apart from Christ (Rom. 9:1-3).
2. How should we respond biblically to the enormously popular teaching of prosperity theology, which is attracting millions of people today?
3. How can we respond adequately to the challenge from religious pluralism on the one hand and religious extremism on the other, both of which oppose the idea of conversion to Christ? How can we wisely and boldly proclaim the gospel in that environment?
4. In an age when truth and proclamation are being devalued, how can Christians proclaim and believe that, in Christ, God has given us excitingly living and powerfully life-changing truth which every single human being desperately needs. As it is for all people everywhere we call it Absolute Truth. We have always needed evangelists for the gospel, now we also need evangelists for truth. If people did not believe that truth was important they would not see any necessity to consider the gospel.
5. that the leaders would catch a glimpse of the body of Christ and return with a strong biblical theology of the body so that they would never think of their work or church without reference to the rest of the church universal. Evangelicals have a weak theology of the body. Perhaps this is as a result of discovering the glorious experience of individual and personally experienced salvation which differed from the once prevailing idea that salvation came through the church and its sacraments. So we have shied away from insisting on the inseparable link between salvation and the body of Christ.
6. Always in history, exciting periods of growth in the church have been connected to persecution. How can the church persevere faithfully in the midst of this and never lose its cutting edge by trying to avoid suffering?
7. I would like us to be open to any surprising and unplanned messages that God wants to give to the church.

His concerns became mine, with a few others tossed in to boot, which I have worked into the following reflections.

Lausanne Cape Town 2010 was experienced and characterized in four main caregories for me:

First of all, a global celebration: Some 4000 official participants with another 700 stewards and observers, surely the largest assembly of the global body of Christ I have ever been to, from 197 nations, gathered together to grapple with some of the most critical issues to the Christian faith, and that faith on mission, sent by the Sending Father, Son, Spirit.  Doug Birdsall compared it to a Church Council, but I doubt it was that significant.

• I thank God for the small role I had in the Participant Selection Committee, particularly assuring invitations would be sent to many international leaders who by virtue of living in a non-passport country, would not be nominated by either their home or “adopted” Lausanne committee. Some 100 of these apparently received invitations. To work alongside and under Dr. Hwa Jung, Methodist Bishop of Malaysia, was a high honor. Other friends also served on the broader PSC.
• The themes were clearly given in the program, but relatively little time was provided for the speakers to develop them. There were just too many different themes. While the program had to be time-controlled (and the countdown clock was clearly seen from the platform), some speakers went over their time. I can understand that one!
• To put 4,000+ (or so) people in one massive room required 4-5 jumbo screens, but that was OK. It would have been easy to get lost in the massive crowd, unless you had friends and colleagues.
• The role of the arts in mission was clear and very strong: the drama team magnificent and creatively acted out the key themes. The worship teams remarkable. The visuals, especially the incredible display of historic and contemporary icons in the closing ceremony unforgettable.
• We missed the 200-250 or so Chinese delegates, thanks to a thankless government ban when they arrived at their exit international airports. We heard that some 60 Chinese sites were hacking the Lausanne web presence. It would seem to me that a key Lausanne hard drive was hijacked in China with all of the data and network information now exposed. I do not know what percentage of the Chinese participants were to have come from the registered church, the unregistered church, the new more-open stream of churches.
• Technology played a strong role and it is a treasure to be able to go on line and view most of the sessions. We only lack the visual of the holy communion (Eucharist) service, and not just the message and final blessings. The simultaneous participating (after the hacking was dealt with) and the worldwide conversations became possible because of the high use of appropriate technology around the world. I doubt that much was sent by regular post, AKA, “snail mail”.
• The opening and closing ceremonies were stunning celebrations, and I loved the adaptation of the sung, Kenyan Anglican liturgy for the final 2 ¾ hour service. For perhaps the majority, it was the first-ever celebrations of Holy Communion (the Eucharist) from the Anglican tradition. I was sitting next to a Latin American dear friend raised in Catholicism, and her reactions were memorable, like “This is just what we learned in the nun’s school”.
• The presence of so many Anglicans, evangelical and evangelistic, committed to and now connected to global Evangelicalism, was unique to Lausanne.
• I was glad to see the various levels of collaboration between Lausanne and WEA. My WEA colleagues were swamped at the WEA information table and reconnected with solid friends and made hundreds of new ones. Geoff Tunnicliffe was warmly introduced by Doug Birdsall, and had a brief introductory spot on the program on opening night. I was especially happy to chat with other WEA colleagues, Sylvia Soon, Ndaba Mazabane, Gordon Showell-Rogers and Rob Brynjolfson, amongst others.
• The WEA Mission Commission leadership was able to convene a number of special lunches and dinners, and Bertil feels at least 120 MC Associates were present. Our official role within the Congress had been changed without us knowing it, and that frankly affected how some of the team viewed the process, leadership and event. We want to serve in the delivery of the value-added outcomes of Lausanne, and this will depend in signficant ways with the responses of Lausanne’s leaders in the next months.

Second, it represented for many a global shift: from North to South (though this congress seemed yet to be conceived, directed, produced, controlled and primarily funded by the North, and in particular from the USA.  The last Sunday morning sessions on partnership featured David Ruiz and Patrick Fung, MC colleagues, who did a great job. For David’s plenary, go to http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/conversations/detail/11607

Yet, I am not sure that some of the organizers really discerned the importance of what David  and Patrick said in their shortened plenaries (originally 20 minutes, then down to 15, then 14!). Their words are prophetic.

And it remains to be seen whether the future of Lausanne will be guided by this tectonic shift, or whether the prior leadership will continue in place in the near and distant future.

Already it is very clear that Lausanne is continuing a very broad spectrum of consultations, study groups, networks and other gatherings around the world. Will this be done only in the “L” name, or will there be true, collaborative, truly-equal partnerships into the future.

We wait to see this but we must be prepared for a very influentual Ongoing Lausanne Movement.  Even so, we ask the sovereign Spirit of God to bless only that which deserves to be blessed, and make the path clear that we simply cannot continue as before (go back to Ruiz and Fung’s plenaries, please!) and the global shift cannot be simply a nodding of the head, but then the Global North continues “in the spirit of partnership” but in control.

We wait.

Third, it attempted to deal with a global set of challenges: human, creational, spiritual, theological, missonal, ecclesial, other.

The daily program was rich, overwhelmingly so, impossible to take it all in. I was reminded of Iguassu Falls, with a massive, central torrent, flanked by some 274 smaller falls. I found it necessary to take serious breaks from some of the plenary sessions to simply get simple. The week was grounded in the very diverse but generally valuable exposition of Ephesians by six different Bible teachers–for all of these I was present, each from a unique perspective but committed to the authority and relevance of the Word of God.

The theological issues of the day were clear (amongst many, themes of Christology, truth, prosperity Gospel heresy (by an African), world religions, globalization, pluralism and too many others); then the practical, missiological issues of our day—from the least reached peoples and nations of our world, to orality and story-telling, to HIV-AIDS, children at risk, human trafficking, and countless more. The afternoon sessions moved from four major mega-plexes to the scores of smaller meetings. Lunches and dinners allowed for more one-on-one times to other gatherings.

Some of the speakers were controversial, and that was a good challenge for all of us. A few were rather hard to understand in English, but that’s a common reality in these gatherings. Many were delighted with John Piper’s treatment of Ephesians 2 (his dealing with spiritual warfare, and the need to be concerned about both human and eternal suffering) but some felt he had gone beyond the borders of the Lausanne spirit. We shall see.

We met at tables of 6, (I was at table D-834) for the morning sessions: prayer, Bible exposition and study, applicational discussion, relationships. For the first time in my life, I met a Nigerian mission leader named Bathsheba, and four other new friends from other nations…South Africa, New Zealand, India.

Finally, it produced a global statement of commitments; with a strong Christology, a clear Gospel, and a truly Evangelical statement, (though some of my friends would prefer we leave behind the term, “Evangelical”, I disagree). The Cape Town Commitments, Part I, was strong, and we await Part II. It was good to know personally most of the “Commitment” team, with four of them Mission Commission Associates. We continue to pray for Chris Wright and his team of 8 as they finish their task. Their hours pre, during and post Cape Town are countless and un-paid.

One major question facing the Lausanne leadership is how to cascade the reproductive and valuable outcomes to the global church and mission leadership, to say nothing of the grass roots Evangelical world. I was gratified to see that significant leaders like Archbishop Orombi             of Uganda was profoundly impacted by the congress and wants to see his own church on the             mission journey as never before.

We would hope that Lausanne seriously takes into account the role that WEA can play in this             cascading movement, as well as other siginificant global networks, such as the WEA Mission Commission.  I know that the WEA global community can play a very significant role in this future process, without having to create new, competitive or duplicating structures.

Here we await with realistic anticipation and hope.  We shall see……….

The end of Lausanne III Reflections, Part One

And this draws Part One of my Lausanne Reflections–stay posted in a few days for Part Two.