They are based on our book Dysciples: Why I fall asleep when I pray and 12 other discipleship dysfunctions. This has been our best selling book to date and is now in its third reprinting. Check out an independent review of the book here. What really encouraged us is to hear that some churches are using the book as a teaching curriculum as the book includes both personal questions and small group studies. Here are the chapter headings to give you a flavour of where the book is going:

1. Dissatisfied: Why I feel I am going nowhere
2. Despairing: Why I shout at God
3. Disoriented: Why I won’t step out of my comfort zone
4. Disgruntled: Why I struggle with Jesus’ teaching
5. Dismissive: Why I’ve heard it all before
6. Disconnected: Why I feel such a hypocrite
7. Distant: Why God seems out of reach
8. Disappointed: Why I can’t move mountains
9. Dispensable: Why I want to be the best
10. Disturbed: Why my mind wanders during communion
11. Dispassionate: Why I fall asleep when I pray
12. Disloyal: Why I can’t tell people about Jesus
13. Disqualified: Why I could never be a missionary

Each chapter looks at a discipleship dysfunction based on a passage in Matthew’s gospel and explores the kind of transformation that Jesus can bring.

You can download the 2 minute excerpts which will be on Premier Radio’s “thoughts for the day” all next week  by clicking below. There’s also a free excerpt for the book for you to read. Let me know what you think.

Download an excerpt of the book to read
Download “thought for the day 1″
Download “thought for the day 2″
Download “thought for the day 3″
Download “thought for the day 4″

cheers

krish

Cape Town 2010

As I flew back to the UK from Cape Town this morning I was sat next to a complete stranger who had not been to the congress. She asked me what it had been about and what difference it would make. These are the two questions that we need to ask ourselves at the end of the third Lausanne Global Congress on World Evangelisation, and here is my attempt to begin to answer them.

I’d love to have eavesdropped on other people’s reflections as over 4000 similar conversations were probably taking place on planes, trains and automobiles as the exodus from the International Convention Centre began. I have no doubt that the majority of them were, like mine, brimming with encouragement that there is so much to thank God for in terms of the vibrancy of the church all around the world. I personally met believers from Sudan, Turkey and Hong Kong that gave me great reason to be excited from the way in which they demonstrated that “God is on the move.” The buzz of excited conversations during break times, the enthusiasm that delegates showed for discursive small group bible study at the congress itself as we met around tables, the exuberance of our communal worship as we all tried to dance like Africans or sing like Latin Americans – are all great encouragements that will stay with me for many years to come. And I enjoyed a number of very useful introductions that will be tremendously useful for partnerships in mission – from New Zealand to Sri Lanka to North America to Romania.

However, it is very difficult to quantify and assess whether the congress was worth its $16 million dollar budget and what must have been nearly 650 000 working hours of senior global leaders. (5000 delegates and staff x 10 days (+ travel time) working from 830am – 9.30pm each day). Yes it was encouraging, yes we heard some amazingly challenging testimony and some very encouraging reports, and yes we heard four plenary sessions that were I thought seminal to our moving forward as a church ( Antoine from Rwanda, Ziya Meyal from Turkey, Raymond Fung from Malaysia, and Chris Wright from the UK). All these challenged colonial pride, faith in pragmatism, the reductionist gospel and triumphalism of much of the western missionary movement and called us to deeper discipleship, a bigger gospel and authentic partnerships. But the real significance of this challenge will be in what happens next.

The first half of the Cape Town Commitments has been drafted. It is a weighty theological statement, but it is framed by love and relationality. Here is the structure of the document

PART ONE

FOR THE LORD WE LOVE:

OUR COMMITMENT OF FAITH

1. We love because God first loved us
2. We love the living God
3. We love God the Father
4. We love God the Son
5. We love God the Holy Spirit
6. We love Godʼs word
7. We love Godʼs world
8. We love the gospel of God
9. We love the people of God
10. We love the mission of God

PART TWO

FOR THE WORLD WE SERVE: OUR COMMITMENT TO ACTION

Chris Wright has done a masterful job as chief architect / secretary of the group. Here are some stand out quotes I have digested so far:

“We fall into syncretism, enticed by the idols of greed, power and success, serving mammon rather than God. We accept dominant political and economic ideologies without biblical critique.”

“Such love for all peoples demands that we reject the evils of racism and ethnocentrism, and treat every ethnic and cultural group with dignity and respect, on the grounds of their value to God in creation and redemption.”

“We love the transformation the gospel produces. The gospel is God’s life-transforming power at work in the world. “It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” Faith alone is the means by which the blessings and assurance of the gospel are received. Saving faith however never remains alone, but necessarily shows itself in obedience. Christian obedience is “faith expressing itself through love.” We are not saved by good works, but having been saved by grace alone we are “created in Christ Jesus to do good works.””

“We confess that we have not always shown such loving solidarity with our persecuted sisters and brothers, being more concerned for our own safety”.

We commit ourselves to the integral and dynamic exercise of all dimensions of mission to which God calls his church.God commands us to make known to all nations the truth of  God’s revelation and the gospel of God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ, calling all people to repentance, faith, baptism and obedient discipleship.God commands us to reflect his own character though compassionate care for the needy, and to demonstrate the values and the power of the kingdom of God in striving for justice and peace and in caring for God’s creation.”

This is all right and proper and helpful, but I wonder whether we picked too many topics to meaningfully engage with for one congress: truth, reconciliation, world religions, priorities and partnerships.

My favourite times of the congress happened in the non-programmed time, as there was incredible opportunity to make the most of the huge variety of people that gathered for the congress. Perhaps this is always true of conferences and congresses, but it makes me wonder if there’s another way to find these opportunities to relate. But as we try to find ways to bring “the whole gospel through the whole church to the whole world” these congresses are the closest thing we have to getting at least some of the right people in the same room. Political wrangling, power plays, polemics and posturing aside, and even without a clear mandate or a clear end product – this was a fantastic occasion.

My answer to the lady on South African Airways Flight 220: The conference was an opportunity to celebrate the fact that the global church is alive and kicking,  that God is on the move doing some extraordinary things around the world and we need to make sure we are following his lead.

Sorry for the lack of live blog yesterday. I had some challenges with the internet…

Day 6 Final morning Bible reading

I came in late after a helpful conversation with one of the English delegation. He was upset about the negative tone of some of the blogs that have been posted. I hope readers will have picked up my desire to rejoice in the great things in the programme of the event and to ask questions of some of things that have been going on. I hope I have not been judge, jury and executioner of the congress. I am sorry if I have come across as this. I am very happy to receive comments about things I have written that may have been unfair. The delegate wanted the bloggers to talk about the highlights which for him had been the corridor conversations and the new networks that are happening outside of the main sessions. He was very critical of what had taken place in the main sessions – but delighted by what has been happening outside of them. As someone that was live blogging only the plenary sessions I think it’s worth a few comments about what has happened outside of them.

The informal time has been a highlight not just for this conference but for any conference. I have really enjoyed meeting up with old friends from Albania, Australia, Norway, New Zealand, Zimbabwe as well as making new friends from the USA, Sudan, Jamaica, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka. There is an incredible excitement walking through the conference centre – it is an extrovert’s dream come through as you could be queueing up to get some food and end up chatting to someone who is doing the same kind of ministry as you in a different continent or while browsing the bookshop you’ll end up chatting with another customer and discover you know 3 people in common on three different continents. There’s been an openness to prayer in those contexts too – I enjoyed praying with a brother from Togo unsure about what God wants for him next, after only meeting him for 3 minutes. Its great to walk past people praying together in the enourmous walkways of this majestic looking convention centre.

Prayer

On the last day of the conference we are being lead in prayer for China, thanking God for their faithfulness in their prayers for us.

Now we are being introduced to the incredibly multicultural sung worship leading team. Now we sing “Lord of Lord and King of Kings” in different languages – the group sing each verse in a different language and we echo “Hallelujah” nice touch guys. At the same time we are being presented with commemorative certificates for being part of the conference. I also get a nice piece of artwork for doing my 6 min presentation. Nice touch – thanks for that guys. We also get a DVD with all of the conference video clips on it – again very well thought through – and professionally presented.

Bible Poverty

We watch a video about ending bible poverty – with a testimony from a Russian young man who has been converted through receiving a Bible at his school in Siberia 1992. “Thank you to those people that shared this book with me, maybe they have forgotten about that moment – I have not” It’s a lovely video – real well shot.

Michel Kemonge from Cameroon is now on stage talking about the need to eradicate Bible poverty. The United nations will not take responsibility for Bible poverty. It is our responsibility before God and before man to share the treasure of the scriptures. We need a commitment to the Bible use in our lives. We need to prophetically challenge the ungodly social norms and respond with compassion. We need to invest in the youth so that the emerging generations can engage with the scriptures.

We are now directed to a commitment to eradicate Bible poverty – we are asked to stand and pray together.

“Lord you promised that the earth would be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the water covers the sea. We promise to play our part so that your word may be fulfilled sooner rather than later.”

David Oginde – Kenya is now on the stage.

“put on the full armour of God” is the theme for today he says. We are reading ephesians 6:10-24. This passage is a lot shorter than the Pentecostal preacher from Kenya had to look at yesterday : Ephesians 4:13-

Ramez and Rebecca Atallah the General Secretary of the Bible Society

Ramez makes an apology in French that he will be speaing in English. Rebecca translates and then apologises to the women listeners that ramez will do most of the speaking but she will be speaking later on. Rebecca prays for her husband asking that they not rely on their natural gifts but on the power of the Holy Spirit. She then goes and sits alone on a stool on the stage just to the side of the pulpit.

Ramez tells the story of a prayer meeting in the 1970s that Lindsay Brown was at as Operation Mobilisation prayed for a ship to do their ministry. Youth For Christ then considered a competitor with OM had been raising some money for their own ship and the deal had fallen through and so they were donating

Ephesians 1 – the blessing

Ephesians 2 – when God reconciles people with himself he also integrates them into his church

Ephesians 3 – we learned about how the church declares glory of God to the devil by suffering.

Ephesians 4 – church need to be marked by faitfulness to the word and for unity

Ephesians 5 -the church needs to be distinct in its lifestyle and relationships

Ephesians 6 – today

Section 1 Our responsibility

Finally after all you have heard about the gospel – be strong not weaklings. Don’t abandon the faith. Put on the whole armour of God so we can stand against the schemes of the devil.

Many Christians don’t withstand the devil’s schemes. Lets pray together for 2 minutes in silent prayer for them. (brave move from Ramez to give up 2 mins of preaching time to pray – this is longer than any stretch of time we had at the prayer meeting last night). Ramez says “don’t worry about the time – as programme chair – I am deducting these minutes from the talk time.  ( The clock at the back hasn’t reset though…)

We hear a practical example:
How did God’s power overcome the power of evil in a very poor district in Egypt. In 1982 Rebecca everyone in this village lived at the same level – they lived amongst their garbage, there was no services except for drug or booze. (we see some pictures on the screen.) In garbage village people thought of themselves as garbage. There are high rise buildings , services, markets – (we see an incredibly different place on the screen.) In one generation this change has taken place. One person did this by God’s strength. He lead his garbage man to the lord and then he went with them to their garbage village and many people came to faith and many miracles were done. He had prayer supporters who prayed everyday for this family. Soon there were enough believers in the village that the coptic orthodox church built a church for them and the lay man that lead his garbage man to the lord became its pastor. Father Simon. The believers worked with Father Simon to build a school. They became great recyclers – they were still garbage collectors but world class recyclers.

They built these cave churches – the biggest one seats 20 000 people. The largest church in the middle east. 1 Corinthians 1:27 God took the weak things of this world to shame the strong. Now they are doing a great ministry amongst the disabled.

Section 2 God’s equipment

Essentail Values – truth, righteousness, intgegrity. The shoes of the gospel of peace. The church needs peacemakers in the church and outside. In this conference we have seen a CEO and a high school graduate have served this conference humbly together.

Essential Beliefs – the shield of faith – we have to have faith to envision in his name task ahead of us. He offers us salvation (the helmet of salvation)

Essential Resources – the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. The Bible unites people. We use the book to give ourselves an opening in the country – we sell the Bible in Egypt to make it available.

We are to pray on all occasions, for all people and all kinds of different prayer. Paul ask for prayers to be bold .  Even Paul needs it. Paul ask for boldness not for comfort and safety. Is this your passion? Is this mine? May we stand together for God’s glory. Amen.

We have a table discussion – we wonder if the genius of this passage is that Paul has been pushing for reconciliation and unity in his letter – between jew and gentile especially. That by identifying the real enemy that we need to fight there is a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” mentality. So by identifying the “principalities and powers” as the enemy it should draw us together in greater unity. The devil seems to be the only unreconcilabe, unredeemed person in the universe so it is fitting to fight against him.

We enjoy some time together to pray as a table – the use of tables to meet around and consistent groups have been great – really enjoyed spending time with Jake from India, Knut from Norway, John from Jamaica and Reagan from Sudan.

Today we are going to look at how to use God’s weapons not the worlds.

We are doing individual study.

(This was an encouraging model sermon – integrating in prayer, men and women working together, some great visuals and good story telling. Sadly because time was so short – we didn’t really get below the surface reading of the text. I felt that this Bible reading did not have an agenda to it. There has been an interesting dilemma this week as they have tried to connect a general theme and the Bible readings together – this may have put the Bible readers under pressure to work the theme into the text. Ramez and Rebecca did a great job overall, they preached with integrity, passion and clarity – but it missed some bite – it felt like an introductory level study.)

Plenary session

John Stott Video

John Stott’s double listening – listening to the word and the world. Most christians listen to the word but not the world. “It comes more natural to shout the gospel at a distance than to involve themselves in their lives” Christ is the model and the message for evangelism.

John Stott has had a lifetime friendship with Billy Graham, Billy asked John Stott to be the chief architect of the Lausanne 1.

Its moving to think about the impact of Stott’s life – his legacy is imense.

The Pentecostal twang of Billy Graham and the measured Etonian tones of John Stott are poles apart – yet they together have had a huge impact . They have been faithful to the call of God in their generation – they lay down an enourmous challenge to the rest of us.

Doug Birdsall- President of Lausanne Movement

There is an apology about the Latin American video shown at the Lausanne congress. Doug very graciously apologises and thanks the Latin Americans for their generousity and patience.

We live in an age of single issue politics, we are seeking to develop a culture of grace. We do not want this event to be about a single issue.

There have been 4 invitations for people to host Lausanne 4 – but we are undecided about whether there should be a fourth event. We want to be light on our feet but not over institutionalised. Reliable, Strategic and continually committed to developing younger leaders.

Many have said “I will never attend a conference again, unless it contains table groups”.

Video

28 full time intepreters (clap for their work)

Trying to create an environment not just a programme.

The focus is on partnership today.

The focus is on partnership today.

David Ruiz from latin america

We hear who wants to correct the picture of Latin America that was portrayed in the video. He talks of a vibrant church and mission agency. We have work together to make unity possible – we prefer to serve ourselves. He speaks to us from 1 Cor 15:58. It’s difficult to hear the talk from the press room.

We are hearing about some exciting coalitions in Algeria. Next the large scale sports collaborations at major events like the Olympics and the World Cup. There is a partnership field guide which is a Lausanne document to encourage good practice amongst missional partnerships.

Leslie Segraves and Chad Segraves a US couple are on stage.

John 17 has been a theme passage for this couple, they had it preached on their wedding day. They co-founded 10 years ago an interdenominational mission agency – aiming to help the unity of the denominations and generations. They try to work in partnerships between the west and indigenous people movements. Through their marriage and organisations they are trying to get men and women working together. Lesslie explains when she was at a missionary conference speaking, leaving her husband at home. “What are your husband’s spiritual gifts that allow him to do his ministry,” she was asked. when I heard this I felt excluded and isolated.  The unity of male and females is a keep part of how we will see the world won.

In the creation God made men and women equal and to have shared dominion. The fall changes this but in Christ these are renewed. We are committed to releasing women into church planting. As a man I fight against the fall when I seek to empower my sisters in the body of Christ to use every gift they have received in the body of Christ – including teaching, training and leading. Am I teachable? My role is not to hold onto my own power

As a woman I have learned that I work against the fall when I use every gift that God has given me. The church can be a very restrictive place. I cannot let other people’s restrictions be a limit to my obedience. (loud claps). On Delhi university campus a young woman came up to us and said “in Hinduism and Islam – we are taught that men are higher than women – in your religion what is your beliefs about male and female relationships and how is this practiced?”

(Fascinating – the only upfront deliberate expression of male and female roles has been a clearly egalitarian one. This was what this couple was asked to speak about – this was not snuck into a section of the conference by someone seeking to grind an axe. I would read this was a clear statement of intent for the Lausanne Congress on the complimentarian / egalitarian issue. )

Now some tap dancing / street dance with an african twist – with a rap – it’s pretty good – well done guys.

Raymond Fung

is preaching partnership with passion.The world is in a holitic mess it needs a holistic gospel.

He prays for humility in the Asian church and not triumphalism.

Mission is from everywhere to everywhere – arrogance and self pity will be the two things that prevent us from pursuing real partnerships. No one nation has all the answers or the resources to finish the missionary task. I pray that there will be true long lasting, authentic friendships that will offer reconciliation to the world.

There’s an interview on stage involving Femi from Africa and Brenda from America.
“we need to ask questions like what are native americans saying to the global church”
“the day of the superhero is over for the evangelical movement  – we need new partnerships”
“we need local partnerships- lets put our mission

which way now? Lausanne Cape Town 2010

Vaughan Roberts is preaching

Our gracious loving heavenly father we bow in your presence. May your word be our rule , your holy spirit our teacher and your greater glory our supreme concern.”

John Lennon’s song imagine must be one of the most contagious songs in the world… how we long for a world as one… a world completely united. Divisions of creed and color and class, sometimes progress is made when the the Berlin wall was toppled and four years later the end of apartheid. Progress in one place is matched by trouble in another – Palestine

We have never been more united – drawn together by the world wide web, we drink the same colas and yet we are still are as divided as ever.

Divide from God, Divided from eachother , Divided from creation.

There is division which grieves us, but Christians will never despair because God has a cosmic plan to unite all things in Christ Eph 1:10, God promised to fulfill the plan to Abraham – through the seed of Abraham all nations will be blessed. We live in the days of fulfillment. Through the lord Jesus who opened up his arms wide to draw all people to him. The fruit of this is local churches gathered around the world. The unimpressive local church is a pointer to the future, a foretaste of the unity of everything. We should look to the diverse groups of people in local churches and say “wow” look how those Christians love one another.

Christian unity requires an outworking of God’s call

In the light of all Paul has said god has done for us and in us. Paul pushes for unity v.3 we are not urged to become united, we are to maintain the unity of the spirit. Christian unity is a fact because of the saving purpose of christ. We are one body because we have been called by the one lord by the one spirit to share one faith, one baptism, one hope. Our unity is not organisational or denominational it is spirit. The 20^th century could be called the great Ecumenical century. 100 years ago at the Edinburgh missionary congress – a concern for unity marginalised “ecumania with its uncontrollable urge to merge” core doctrines like “Uniqueness of Christ, sanctity of marriage” have been watered down in the sake of unity – that is not the unity being talked about here. It needs to be evangelical unity – one family in Christ. Now Paul calls us to live out the implications of that truth.

Vaughan tells the story from Lindsay Brown’s book about Hutus and Tutsi Christians during the Burundi genocide and how the principal of the university said: “our culture is disintegrating there are three types of people in our univeristy: Hutus tutsis and christians.” The chritians challenged the ethnic division of the campus and the country.

One notice outside of the church said: “we are a premillenial, single rapture church we welcome all who are one with us” this cannot be the nature of unity. We must work in local churches to work for unity – with all humility and gentleness, often our divisions are not about theological unity but pride. We strut around expecting every day to meet our terms.

We must not see division first: Calvinist, Arminian, baptist, Presbyterian but we need to see first of all as christian. Christian unity requires an outworking of God’s call.

(preach it brother! – the EA stands for just this unity)

Christian Unity requires a proclamation of God’s word v.7

Unity doesn’t mean uniformity. In v.7 he talks of one way in which we are different. We all receive different gifts. When human being freezes water we make ice cubes everyone the same, when God freezes water he makes snow flakes everyone different. (claps) . Some of you are the hands you do the practical work, some of you are the appendix we didn’t know you are there until something goes wrong, some of you are the tonsils we are better off without you, some of you are the false teeth sometimes you are in and sometimes you are out. God distributes booty after a victory so the risen Christ gives out gifts to men. Apostles, Prophets in Ephesians 1 are those – we may believe in a continuing gift of apostles and prophets today if you do don’t make over vaunted claims on this they are different from the foundational gifts of new testament apostles and old testament prophets .

He goes on to explain the word based gifts of evangelists, shepherds and teachers. These word gifts have a number of consequences:

1)   Ministry – all the flock do ministry – we cannot be like a bus where all the people are sitting passively and the driver does all the work apart from the guy that collect money

2)   Unity – the objective gospel – The gospel comes propositionally – god is love, christ died for sins, propostional truth leads to personal knowledge. The church is like a bicycle wheel the closer we get to the hub the closer we get to one another. As the word is taught these words gifts are needed for unity.

3)   Maturity – till we all reach maturity in the faith – to mature “manhood” (ESV) so we won’t be immature and childish – there is a famine of the word of God in our world – there is no greater problem than that – we need evangelists. There is a famine of the word of God.

We are to speak the word of God in love – truth and love is what we need – truth is not a weapon to attack others with – some people love a theological fight much to much. Love demands truth telling – so evangelists and pastor teachers are absolutely central to God’s plans for the world. People from all nations brought together in christ.  There is no greater need of mission than the recruiting training and deploying of those that will minister the word of God in his church. So much of our training is weak – we are to expect in apologists, intern programmes, training. Many of those who are in word ministry the main thing the main thing. In the book of Acts as the word goes out there are great obstacles – one of the main challenges is the squabble of the distribution of food to the poor. They did not say practical things don’t matter – they made provision for social needs, they gave themselves to word of God and prayer and so the word of god spread. Satan’s great ploy has not worked. Sadly Satan’s ploy has worked in many places as evangelists and teachers are distracted- this is the great ministry of reconciliation that matures people in christ. As the word of God goes out by the spirit.

If we send out preachers then we will see greater unity and a foretaste of the unity of the gospel that christ will be all in all. Amen.

Vaughan finishes bang on time. He preached very clearly, lots of great illustrations and he communicated at a measured and even pace. He was very easy to follow and I think it was one of the best sermons I have heard Vaughan preach. He gets a good clap as he leaves the stage.

(Vaughan  is the president of the Proclamation Trust – which is a training initiative to help grow preachers and teachers. Its interesting that vaughan argues that training preachers is the most important issue facing our world. He didn’t dismiss the work of social justice but on the day marked in the Lausanne Congress on priorities he made a clear bid for the priority of preaching above these other calls. Warning about being distracted from the main thing of preaching. There is another way of reading Ephesians 4 – not that the word based ministry is primary (that would undercut Corinthian teaching on the nature of spritual gifts no one can say one part of the body is more important the the other) but that it is as Vaughan put it “catalytic” – but catalysts are not the main reaction they facilitate the reaction to take place quicker. We equip all the saints for ministry. The practice of St Ebbes church in Oxford focuses on the word based ministry side of things as preaching centre church that people commute to come to. It is widely known as a centre of preaching but does not have much of a reputation for social justice, service to the poor, environmental care, service to the city of Oxford. ( You can check for yourself at their website : http://www.stebbes.org.uk/ - I couldn’t a reference to the poor or serving the needy but i might have missed it)

I was really encouraged by Vaughan’s opening statements about unity across denominational / theological lines – arminianism, calvinism etc. (He didn’t mention egalatariansim and complimentarianism where the battle lines are particularly drawn in the UK and USA at the moment.) His gospel essentials were interesting – he championed the uniqueness of christ and the sanctity of marriage (something the Anglican communion particularly is wrestling with on the homosexual debate). I really liked Vaughn’s emphasis on the local church – but wondered what spiritual unity really looks like? The invisible unity of the church does not help the church to be a foretaste of the kingdom – it seemed only the local church could be a foretaste of the kingdom not the united church across a city or across a nation.)

PM BLOG UPDATE

The theme is Africa

A great set of songs, including my own personal favorite “God’s not dead – Jesus is Alive”… with full on African dancing. We are loving it ! Great job Lausanne on possibly the most international sung worship I have ever been too.

The Africans are clapping the brothers and sisters from the west – saying thank you for being obedient to the call in 1910 to preach the gospel in Africa. Thank you for your work. By the grace of God Africa has now changed from being a missionary receiving church to be a missionary sending church.

“We are marching in the light of God” is being sung now – the Bundu style base is my favourite. We sing it first of all in Zulu and now in Afrikaans. There’s  maybe a 100 women in national costume dancing on the stage. Its amazing. The room is bouncing as 4200 guests try to dance. Now a man blows Vuvuzela from the back of the room.

Now a man tells us about a plan to train up soccer coaches to become life coaches because of the ubiquity of football in the continent of Africa.

A fatherless generation – many fathers are dead, dying or absent these soccer coach missionaries – what a great idea ! I hope we can tie it in with the local church – in the UK we’d need to rethink Sunday service times anyone up for it? Great testimony from some converts from this programme and they are now throwing footballs into the audience.

Nice video on the importance of children in the life and mission of the church. Now there’s a young girl on stage from a township – she gets an enthusiastic clap. She is doing a great job of reading a prayer.

I think the highlights of the plenary parts of the conference  have been:

a)     The Testimony of the 18 year old girl from China who told her powerful story of losing both her mother (to cancer) and father (to religious persecution in North Korea) and how she wants to become a lawyer / missionary standing those who are being repressed by an unjust regime.

b) The testimony of Libby Little who has served as a missionary in Afghanistan only days after the memorial service for her martyred husband stands up and reads a sermon from the blood soaked pages of his journal.

c) The Testimony of Prainitha Timothy who highlighted the plight of the world’s 27 million slaves and 10-15 million child slaves in India alone.

d)    Bishop Ben Kwashi of Jos, Nigeria who testified humbly and powerfully about God’s grace sustaining him despite the physical abuse on his family and the constant threat of death he faces for witnessing to the good news about Jesus in a fundamentalist Islamic part of Nigeria.

e)     Singing a Latin American authored song in the sung worship time. “Con Con Con Con Podore ( With Power).” The international flavour of the singing and music at the conference overall has been excellent– there have been some terrific solos from the multicultural team. 4200 people dancing and declaring God’s praise was wonderful as was hearing the whole conference pray the Lord’s prayer in unison in 200 different languages.

f)      Table groups – great idea to have us meet regularly for Bible study and reflection around consistent tables – my friends from Norway, India, Sudan and Jamaica have been great. It a) helps build community b) it gives potential for feedback c) it models that in theory our communication with eachother as delegates is as important as our listening to the speaker at the front. Ramez Attilla said at the IFES gathering tonight that other conferences (not just christian ones) want to follow this model.

Theological / Missiological Analysis

Apart from the inspirational stories , the relationship building and conversations with all sorts of interesting and amazing believers from around the world. It is hoped that Lausanne will make a significant contribution to world evangelization. Lausanne 1 did that with the tying together of social responsibility and evangelism. Lausanne 2 was slightly hijacked by the DAWN 2000 / AD 2000 church planting agendas but did help with the concept of people group. What will Lausanne 3 offer?

I would like to suggest that many of the plenary sessions have not advanced the conversation very far. We have heard the need to stand up for truth – but did not have truth sufficiently defined for us. We have heard pluralism denounced without the nuance of how pluralism can help us without leading to relativism. These presentations felt reactionary, there seemed like an overwhelming sense of pessimism, a retraction back to solid ground rather than a sense of seizing the opportunities in front of us. The thinking feels 20 years out of date with a reactionary approach to Postmodernism without the appreciation of the new aspects of common grace that are shining through at this moment in history. There are some exceptions and the voices from Africa, Latin America and Turkey have been very helpful.

I would suggest from my limited vantage point at the fringes of the congress that the themes that the Cape Town Confessions need to address are:

1. GOSPEL CONTEXTUALISATION

Antoine Ruytashire from Rwanda, a theological college principal, provided the conference with a powerful contextual analysis of western missionary practice. He challenged the conference to think about the message we have been communicating. By drawing attention to the 91% chrisianisation of Ruanda before 1994 that had insufficient depth to prevent “christian” people from participating in a genocide that killed a million people in a 100 days. There was a lack of contextualisation of the gospel hat failed to deal with the ethnic diversity of the country. Ziya Meyal also drew sharp attention to this in his presentation on evangelism and Islam arguing for the need to reexamine the individualistic gospel being presented.  There does not seem to be clarity amongst platform speakers or delegates on the need for, or the nature of contextualisation. From the platform the gospel is being consistently reduced to 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; as John Piper preached and Michael Ramsden reiterated – again showing the lack of awareness of  the social implications of the gospel and repentance. I wonder if a bigger gospel would help to reinforce Lausanne’s commitment to evangelism and social justice as if a fuller, more contextually aware, less pietistic / individualistic gospel is preached social justice and evangelism are even more tightly integrated. There has been little talk of the gospel of the kingdom. In fact an overemphasis on the epistles rather than the whole of scripture; even outside of the bible reading sessions. A bigger gospel that speaks of our relationship with God restored, our relationship with others, our relationship with creation and our relationship with ourselves. (I have written on this subject elsewhere). I have been frustrated that we have been asked to choose between prioritising evangelism or social justice. As my friend David Westlake puts it – that is a redundant question – why do we have to prioritize. We don’t prioritize between bible reading and prayer? We have heard that we must becareful not to be distracted from preaching by too great a focus on social justice. But I have never been warned about reading the Bible too much to lead me away from prayer. because everyone knows the more you read the Bible the more you want to pray. A bigger gospel would help us with this absurd dichotomy.

2. AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE

I felt the Bible expositions have often demonstrated more about the expositors own particular agendas than the text in front of them. The scripture has been used on one very particular occasion as a platform to push a particular doctrinal position which was not actually contained in the text. If truth is a major theme and “biblical truth” at that and the expositors have been chosen “as models for younger preachers” then we may have done more damage to the cause of biblical authority than good and instead demonstrated some of Michel Foucault’s observations on the relationship between power and truth. In the cause of world evangelization – the bible is often abused in our evangelistic and apologetic presentations and preaching. How do we model submission to the Bible this relates directly to both to the nature of contextualisation and of discipleship?
3. DISCIPLESHIP

Antoine Ruytashire, Renee Padilla, Ziya Meyal and Samuel Escobar have all called for a re-examination of the nature of discipleship. We have often produced shallow expressions of the gospel and then not sufficiently catechised converts to have a worldview transformation through the work of the Holy Spirit and submission to God’s word. Sometimes discipleship “programmes” have abused scripture treating the word of God as set of proof texts to be memorised rather than appreciating the richness of the genres, the flow of the narrative or the scope of the gospel. Biblical contextualised discipleship that is based not around individuals or mission agencies but around the work of the local church.

4. ECCLESIOLOGY

I have felt the church has taken a back seat at this event to the call for individuals to speak truth, face matyrdom and work for justice. Partly due to the overly individualised western gospel. There has been little talk about what mission should look like for the local church. I would like Lausanne to be clear about the role of the church.  The church as the basic unit of mission, the church as a contextualised sensitive expression of the kingdom of God which both preaches the gospel and offers help to the needy. The church as a disciplemaking community that seeks; under the spirit’s guidance, to call people to be reconciled with God, eachother, the creation and themselves. There has been little talk so far about the church as a united body – what does it mean apart from “Ulav Rykse Tveit “ who argued right at the outset of the conference that the needs of the world are too big to be met by a divided church.

Lausanne 2010

The band are on good form tonight we sing “When the Spirit of the Lord come upon me…” with lots of guest solos and dancing in lots of languages. I know I talked about the globalisation of western worship music – but I go with the flow  tonight and am enjoying the mix of colours , hearing the languages.

Now we are singing a truly spanish song (Con Con Con Poder) atleast I don’t recognise it as an English song translated into Spanish. There’s some great spanish guitar going on and a great vocalist. Everyone around is singing in Spanish – including the Egyptian, Turkish and Scots. The scotts have already asked for forgiveness about their lack of rhythm ! Here’s some of the lyrics from the song:

“Jesus first, second chance, turned…
In my work, in my school,
In this land God is moving spread the word”
Live his love make it real
Til divisions start to heal
God is not dead
Jesus is alive
He’s living in me
He changed my life…

This feels Caribbean and the Africans have got a dance on, things really going well tonight. Lots of energy and celebration of God’s global goodness. I think I saw my Scottish friend tap is foot in time ! There’s some great guitar work , the bass is jangling along, harmonies and the percussion is doing some great stuff. Smiles all round.

Now the Africans are helping us learn how to dance – it’s hard dancing and typing…!!

That was great – so back to “He is Lord” the multicultural vibe was going really well.  Ah well – lots of hands lifted. A powerful voice from an African singer – she’s amazing like a cross between Aretha Franklin and Dame Kiri Tikiwana. Poor German lady has to follow her – but we all join in to help her out. Now the Korean diamond cardigan man is back and we do our best to sing along with words which contain more vowels than consonants. Now we sing in Arabic “Anta Arrab… Anta Arrab – He is Lord, He is Lord”.

We’re enjoying this a lot. The timers at the back have given up – there’s a huge screen pointing at the musicians telling them they have 00.00.00 minutes left for this song – but there’s a real spirit of excitement, unity and celebration so they wisely keep on going.

Great job musicians – and singers – choruses of Hallelujah, Amen echo around me.

Some great visuals of the world on the screen and now we have a brief history of urbanisation – (its better than it sounds).  There’s some great Scottish accents in the background. Now more than 50% of the population of the world are city dwellers. 100 years ago 20 cities had a population of a million or more now  over 400. 2 people per second join the urban population. There are 27 megacities, which have over 10 million city dwellers.

Acts 17 is read out over images from cities around the world. Now pictures of urban churches.

Lights go up and Tim Keller is on the stage:

Why we must reach cities

Culturally we must reach cities
“The financial times” and “Foreign policy” magazines did major issues on mega cities recently. “Cities rather than states are islands of governance…”
(just wondering why no one uses power point – there are lots of quotes that would be easier to read than hear.)

Missiologically we must reach cities

- young adults are in the cities – we must reach them there.
- the most unreached people in the world – are more reachable in cities, when they emigrate to cities – they break kinship ties, they are far more open to the gospel.
- The people that tend to make the films and form the cultures- you reach the elites
- The poor are also in the cities and God loves the poor

Viscerally- from the heart
-       Jonah is unhappy that God hasn’t destroyed the city but he is very attached to a vine and he loves it. When the vine dies and he gets angry. God says “Jonah you love plants but I love people. ” In cities there are more images of God per square inch than anywhere else.

In the country there are more plants than people,
In the city there are more people than plants,
God loves people more than plants
God loves the city more than the country.

-       8 million people move into the city every two months, that’s one new Bangkok every two months. The people are moving to the city faster than God is.

City Churches must:
Churches in cities has to show faith relates to their work / vocations.
People in cities are more involved in their work
Church has to be intensely evangelistic and famous for justice.
There has to be a commitment to the arts.
Churches in the city have to be co-operative

“What good is the church that shows you nothing about what is 9/10^th of your life.” Dorothy Sayers

We can do it!

In genesis 18 God visits Abraham and tells him he is going to destroy these cities. Abraham prays for the unbelieving cities (unheard of in the early patriachs) Why didn’t Abraham say let Lot go free and then blast them. Abraham endangers himself for Lots sake.

This could have been Abraham’s opportunity to get rid of them, instead he made a theological case for these cities. Abraham made a case like a high priest. In effect he made the case: Could the righteousness of the few somehow save the underserving many.

Abraham ultimately failed, he interceeded for people who might have killed him.
Jesus interceeded for people who did kill him
Abraham risked his life for the city
Jesus gave his life for the city.

When Jesus becomes our high priest  we can become the priests that these cities really need.

(Keller has been great – gentle, persuasive, eloquent, theological, biblical. There’s no swagger or shouting. Lots of good comments around me in the room. I am a huge admirer of Keller’s work (see http://www.eauk.org/squaremile where Keller is one of the featured bible teacher in a resource we created to help churches think about integral mission in their community.) Keller holds the Lausanne line so helpfully – passionate about evangelism and about social justice – but in an ecclesiologically joined up way. I do always feel slightly sad for those who live in the countryside, the towns and villages. Or for those that have given their lives in service outside of the city- every time I have heard Keller argue for urban ministry he never caveats that God might have called people elsewhere – the impression can be that unless you are in the city like me – you are wasting your time. Keller is gracious I am sure he doesn’t want to come across like this. But I have challenged him about this face to face back in 1990s. I argued that Jesus actually did most of his ministry outside of the city – he came from Nazareth, he ministered in the foothills of Galillee and only towards the very end of his life ended up in Jerusalem. What do you do about Philip called away from revival in the city to the dessert to meet the Ethiopian Eunoch. I believe with Keller that cities are vital but just ask for a caveat that affirms those with other callings. God loves the whole earth…)

We get some urban dance moves in front of some amazing visuals in the background again – well done team!

Now a video about people on the move – diaspora people. Church planting on ocean liners, iranian churches in Birmingham UK, International student ministry in the USA.

Sadir Joy Tira from Canada is up now.

Even though no one is using powerpoint – the visuals are stunning – I know I said it already but it is very impressive for a visual learner like me.

Sadir reads out the picture in revelation of the crowds of all the nations gathered around the throne… lost the sound so can’t blog anymore.

My friend Rob Hay has posted the following on his blog:

Padilla and Escobar share their thoughts (I confess I am sitting here listening to two of my missionary heroes!)

Rene Padilla and Samuel Escobar now sitting on bar stools sharing reflections including unheard histories…at least for those of us who are ‘younger leaders’ (in Lausanne definition under 50!).

Michael Cassidy (platform speaker here) was accused of being a communist (by some in the mission scene) in the pre-Lausanne 74 mini conferences, for speaking against Aparteid!

Reflections on the challenges of getting a holistic view of mission into that first Lausanne Covenant of 74 in the drafting committee! hmmm makes me pray hard from Chris Wright and Rose Dowsett and the other members of the Statement Committee.

3 concerns they have for Lausanne III:
1. Discipleship – Jesus sent us to make disciples not converts
2. Globalization – an unjust economic system that is destroying the world
3. Environment – the destruction of the entire ecosystem supporting life.

MISSION IN THE SPIRIT OF LAUSANNE IS HOLISTIC MISSION – the final comment from Escobar and Padilla, which along with the 3 concerns stand as a hanging question mark in the air now above the gathering – a warning and a challenge!

Have a good evening – it’s a day off tomorrow – so see you soon.

We kick off with some singing – Blessed be your name – people really getting into it. It does sound  a little like a male voice choir – but we are giving some “welly” as we say in England.

Now As the Deer Pants for the water – the violinist is doing a good job this morning – that 40 piece orchestra from the opening night is no longer about. An Indian lady in a punjabi suit sings a solo in Hindi I think. Some of us try to sing a long – but its seems better just to let her sing words we know in another tongue – now a lady in a dress with a zebra pattern on  sings in Afrikaans. We watch. Now a man in a diamond cardigan sings to us in Korean. A Japanese lady with a pink jumper and a large flower brooch sings to us.

I like the idea of singing in another language – its great to celebrate the diversity, and to make sure that English isn’t the only language we hear. Its interesting that we are hearing  a Graham Kendrick song from the 1980s in lots of different languages. What does it tell us about the worship music industry – the new commercial colonialism? The 1980s gave us the “charismatification of worship” but possibly a new wave of western colonialism after the waves of the book of common prayer and the hymns of Wesley. The expansion of

Now an American man with a  denim shirt and a 1980s hair cut reads to us the Bible passage Ephesians 3 in the ESV translation. He’s reading well – but to me it underlies the “unreadability” as Don Carson puts it, of the translation. Shame we couldn’t get someone to memorise the passage. No drama today – yet.  He’s reading very clearly though.

Up comes David Oginde from Kenya wearing a traditional African costume. He reads

“I suppose I knew the Bible, reading piecemeal, hit or miss, now a bit of jonah matthew, now genesis, now certain pslams the 23, first of romans, I thought I knew the word, but I found the systematic reading opened another world… you would treat the crown of writings as you would no other book.”

As you read today – remember Ephesians 3 was heard as one complete letter without the chapters and verses.

Now we have a little discussion about the passage:

John Piper

Dr Piper comes up to speak. (Piper is on a year out of ministry to work on his heart and family). He tells us he is preaching the message to us twice. The big picture first in 8 minutes. Three big pictures

SCENE ONE: The Great Cosmic Purpose of God is to make know the glory of his wisdom to the demonic powers of the universe v.8.9 and 10.

Paul must preach the unsearchable riches of Christ . v.8
Paul must preach must make known the mystery hid before the ages .v9

Why? So that “through the church” the manifold wisdom of God may be made known – to the rulers and authorities so we know this means demons from chapter 6 (guess he doesn’t like Walter Wink’s work on the powers …)

GOD IS NOT A TRIBAL DEITY.

If there had been other Christians in other galaxies they would have been invited to Lausanne. We are not about global manifestation of the cosmic purposes of God

SCENE TWO:  God gathers a people from the nations through the suffering of the missionaries.

v.1 for this reason I, Paul a prisoner of Christ

v.13 I ask you not to lose heart as to what I am suffering for you

Paul draws attention to his suffering for pity, he wants us to see that his suffering is for our glory. (v.13)

God’s design is that the church will be drawn into the glory of the unsearchable riches of Christ through the suffering of her missionaries and ministers. (wow he speaks in long sentences sorry if I don’t capture them all.).

God gathers a people from the nations through the suffering of the missionaries. Why would God glorify his church this way? God displays his infinite wisdom in doing it this way? (Piper is preaching with his eyes closed now.)

Scene 3 “God has chosen that the supernatural power required to see the glory of his wisdom and to suffer for his name come to us through earnest prayer” v.14-21

Paul prays that his preaching will come to pass. He is taking the ideas of chapters 1 and 2 and prays that it will come to pass. Paul wants us to see and enjoy the unsearchable riches of Christ, the mystery hidden before the ages.

Paul prays for this to happen, because no human being can grasp the height or depth of his love… unless divine supernatural omnipotent power comes into our lives. It comes into our lives through prayer.

Now John Piper wants to goes back and look again.

Scene 1:

1. the wisdom of God manifest to the powers – demons and satan himself
2. the riches of the glory of christ v.8
3. revelation of the mystery of the ages

What is the relationship between these three parts. The clue as to how they relate is found in the meaning of mystery. v.6 gives us the meaning. The mystery is that the gentiles and nations are now fellow heirs (members of the same body) partakers of the promise through the gospel.

How does unsearchable riches, participated by all the nations – how is that  made known to the demons. It is made known through the gospel – the clearest most concise expression of the gospel 1 cor 15:1-4 “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures that he was buried and raised on the third day according to the scriptures”

We are streaming into the unsearchable riches of the Messiah we get that through christ’s dying for us – it happens through the cross.

How does the Cross relate to the wisdom of God made known to the devil. 1 Corinthians 1: “jews demand signs and greeks demand wisdom but we preach christ and him crucified” he gets a big clap.

Looks like John Piper had an agenda here – how to get to Penal substitution from Ephesians 3. The link is wisdom – the cross is the power and wisdom of God.  Ruth wanted to get women in leadership in and Ajith wanted to get proclamation evangelism in.

(He preaches at a good pace for people to follow – with lots of gesticulation – but in pretty long sentences. There’s lots of passion here and lots of claps.)

Now we are back in Ephesians – we don’t just see the wisdom of God in christ and his work but also through the church – the manifold wisdom of God is known through the church. Piper mentions the lake of fire arguing that the demons will be forced to confess

John Piper rewrote this last night – (I thought people had to submit a script? And that everyone had to prepare in community as well? This feels like Dr Piper is shortcircuiting a process in order to get his particular views on eternal conscious punishment into the conference.)

Why does it take cross; the price? Ephesians  2:3. Piper argues that we must get the gospel right. We must get this right. “we were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind”  All human beings are children of wrath. Christ didn’t have to die because I am a sinner, but because we are all children of anger. This is the greatest problem for mankind in the universe, there isn’t anything that comes close to the problem of being under the wrath of God. If God hadn’t put christ in the way of the wrath of God – Galatians 3; if God had not done this then all people would be under the wrath of God.

He’s running short on time now to get through Ephesians 3. Piper begs God that we would go with him here. There are two truths that are in tension in the global church –

1. “when the gospel takes grip of our souls it works with us to work against injustice in our world”

2. “when the gospel takes grip in our souls it awakens us to the eternal suffering of lost souls in hell. It impels us to cry “flee the wrath to come” because christ has died to absorb the wrath of God.”

Some love the one truth preeminently others the other. Could Lausanne say , could the global church :

“for Christ’s sake we Christians care about all suffering especially eternal suffering” (long pregnant pause).

Then.. we don’t have to chose, Christ is calling us to pull this together.  Piper makes a bid for us – we either have a defective view of hell or a defective heart.

(Lets reflect a little on this sentence– it sounds pretty orthodox – it is arguing for both social responsibility and evangelism – which is what the first Lausanne convention asked for. So nothing new here. But by mentioning eternal suffering – Piper is deliberately trying to challenge John Stott – one of Lausanne 1’s founders, view of annhiliationism.)

Now Piper turns to scenes 2 and 3 (he’s got 3 mins left)

When Paul was going to prison for the gospel – he showed the nations the Christ is more precious than freedom.

When Paul was willing to suffer for Christ – he showes the nations that christ is more precious than prosperity – we are not after prosperity we are after christ.

Nobody can see the breadth and depth of the love of Christ – nobody says with the apostle Paul “I count everything as loss except for Christ” unless God’s power has broken into our lives and unless that is through prayer.

Piper gets a big clap.

(He spoke with passion and energy.  Not sure he really captured the heart of the passage – felt like he turned it into a systematic theology getting on to his hot button issues of Penal Substitution and Eternal condemnation. Wish he spent more time in the passage – he was getting some really interesting ideas in scenes 2 and 3 – particularly the idea of God being glorified through suffering rather through prosperity – talking with some African pastors here – they are wrestling with the challenge of prosperity teaching. That would have been helpful – I think the best part of his sermon.)

Libby Little an american lady is telling us about 10 US missionaries who were murdered in Afghanistan in 2010. She reads the name out slowly and lastly mentions “my husband Dan little” They were returning from a 3 week medical missionary trip and driving home – they were pulled out of their cars and then murdered. She speaks very quietly and yet there is a rapt attention.

We do not know who killed these 10 people, we do not know why they were killed, but we do know this all encompassing reason why they were there. My husband had 30 years experience of living in Afghanistan it is where we raised our family.

She has her husband’s journal in her hand. She has his sermon notes which are blotted with blood – Ephesians 2:8-10 and  ephesians 5:2. She tells us the Nurostari Cheese story – alluded to her husband’s last semon notes. On a windy day you can smell Nurostari cheese for miles – some find it offensive, horrible. It takes some getting used to – one has to develop a taste and then you are hooked – you can’t wait for more.

She reads from a John Piper poem.

Sadly we are over time so no time to discuss…

Plenary Sesion: Jesus and other faiths

Bishop Ben Kwashi from Nigeria is speaking. He is sharing testimony about the persecution he has experienced because of preaching the gospel. He talked about the almost unspeakable abuse his wife suffered when men came looking to kill him, she was beaten nearly to death and left blind. By the grace of God she recovered from her ordeal. But a year later Ben was confronted by 30 men that had come to kill him, they said they were going to kill him outside, he asked for time to pray and when he had finished his son came to him and said that the men had gone. Ben speaks with passion and authority. He says I don’t know how I will die, but until the day I die – “I have a gospel worth living for and I have a gospel worth dying for.” Ben’s testimony is incredibly stirring and there is rapturous applause.

Now a monologue drama from an American girl  with a blue top and a red scarf– nice to be using drama – but after hearing from the sheer power of Ben’s talk it feels tame. She is speaking out the story of Rahab – nice touch to have the red scarf . Again the background graphics are amazing – well done team.

Now an Indian lady wearing a turquoise sari speaks about her conversion from Islam and how in 1978 Jesus entered her life to being a daughter of Ishmael to become a child of God. For 10 years after that she struggled to keep her faith. But somehow her orthodox Muslim husband also came to God. She talks about her ministry around the world helping to reach out to scores of Muslim women. Till 2003 she was one of the pastors of New Life church  in Hydrobad. Through a vision and prophecy she felt the call to work training up believers to understand muslims, love muslims and then witness to muslims. God spoke to her through the book of Esther “for such a time as this…” She has been working with a US church to help train up believers all around the world, particularly trying to plant house churches. They are planting a contextual services – they do not have a pastor but a Christian imam. They meet in an Islamic format– “you’ll need a paradigm shift to even think of such a church” (cheers). Though the church is Islamic in format it is thoroughly Christian in its format – it’s a pentecostal spirit filled church. “Some people came to church thinking it was a mosque – the good news is they stayed!” My brother Ali has baptised 25 Muslim men, and I have baptised 12 muslim women all in 7 years. (cheers and claps) She did great. Really good to see another woman giving a good chunk of time and also to see more Pentecostals upfront.

Now a video montage –

Ram Gidoomal explains how he came to faith and particularly the challenge of communicating the faith in language and concepts that Hindus can understand.

Michael Ramsden is going to give the next talk.

He quotes Acts 20 – “I am innocent of the blood of all men”

He is speaking clearly, deliberately and urgently.

Ramsden says he feels inadequate to the task of talking about bearing witness to christ, like a lion in a room of Daniels ( David Bosch said the same thing in Fuller Seminary !). Paul’s gospel is not a gospel of pompous self righteousness – he is full of the holy spirit not full of himself. Paul knows he is going to die. It is a sad reflection that we look for models of evangelism that cost nothing. We have the money and export them around the world, the gospel must be lived, it must change our live, we have no option, we cannot simply be silent, even though it will cost us our lives, are you willing to lay down our lives for the gospel? Are we doing whatever we need to do to make Christ glorified.

Someone said to Michael “If I found from my doctor that I had cancer and only had a few months to live, I would get on a plane and go to Saudia Arabia to preach the gospel there.” It doesn’t seem to fit  with what Paul said. Why do we need to wait until we get cancer before we go and share the gospel in Saudi Arabia.

“There are no closed countries to the gospel, there are only places where Christians are too afraid to stand up.”

What are we waiting for?

A short while ago I was in a setting that I cannot name, I tried to explain the gospel as best I could. The final question was asked by a man who had a long beard and was training to be an imam.

You Christians said Christ had to die for us to be forgiven? What does this mean?

I was praying this question would come up. I had said to my friend “Please be clear in your answers, I don’t want to get shot for a bad answer, its one thing to die for the gospel, its another thing to be shot for a bad answer.”

Michael outlines the gospel: propitiation of God’s wrath and the need for personal repentance

It was a pleasure to pray with the man that asked the question

Do we love the gospel, do we love Christ more than life itself?

Michael alludes to those yesterday who talked about campaigning and working for justice, he critiques those that do this kind of work to make a name for themselves “we do not preach the gospel for Christ not us” (Michael works for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries RZIM).

Michael tells the story of a couple who were giving the Bible away in an unamed country. How they smuggled Bibles in and prayed who to give it away to. The husband went to buy water from a shop and prayed and decided not to give it to the shopkeeper. His wife prays to God and says “on the day of judgment may the blood of this man not be on my head but my husbands” they spend the whole days arguing about this and then the husband finally goes and gives the man a Bible. He says “I received a dream from God to wait for someone to bring me the book of life I have been waiting for 5 days”

Make sure whatever we do we do with humility and with love knowing that “our life is not worth preserving but the gospel is worth proclaiming” – great closing line from Michael.

Ziya Meyral from Turkey is up front – a former London School of Theology student.

He talks about the fact that he was attracted to the Christianity not for any supernatural reason but because of a newspaper article that said there was a local church that offered $100 to those that attended, eligible young women and visas to the america. He went to the church because of this but only found elderly people, no visas and you had to put money in the collection plate not take it out!

Ziya critiques the gospel we have been presenting – as individualistic, cliché formulation of the gospel, hero bible smugglers, reductionistic formulations of the gospel,

Techne and theo are confused – technique rather than the God.

Most publishers only want to hear about miraculous one off conversions not the long term discipleship of Muslim believers.

60% of new followers of Muslims give up Christianity after 3 years. The church does not always grow under persecution – in some places the church is being wiped away.

(Ziya’s talk challenges some of the previous talks that we have heard today. I am not sure if Ziya had had sight of Michael Ramsden’s talk or John Piper’s before the event. Michael offered quite a individualistic model of the gospel – not mentioning the church but personal faith in propitiation and personal repentance and a miraculous bible smuggling story. Not sure if Ziya had Michael in mind when he gave his talk or John Piper who talk a passage which was predominantly about ecclesiology into a talk about personal faith in propitiation.)

We talked around our table about the session – one question that came up was where Michael Ramsden lives. I had to confess he lives in Oxford. Someone asked me why Michael didn’t move to Saudi Arabia? It was discussed that it would have been easier to take if Ben Kwashi had called us all to be willing to die for our faith, but the Bishop had humbly just said what he was willing to do not what we all should do.

capetown 2010

Ok So we’re singing Jesus put this song into my heart – with full on yiddish fiddle and line dancing from the delegates (at least some of them).

The band are doing a great job – the lead singer is an African  singer / worship leader and has a fantastic infectious smile , the backing singers are doing some great harmonies – it reminds of the best of Lady Smith Black Mambozo and the work they did with Paul Simon.  Very African feel tonight – well done everyone!

The focus is on the middle east this evening – we have video interviews from Egypt and Jordan, Iran. The voice over had an asian accent which was nice.

Now an Iranian leader says that :

“more Iranians have come to christ in the last 30 years than in the last 1300 years before that.”

Hundreds of copies of the Bible are being distributed, people coming to faith in prison and are taking the gospel to other countries.

Now in North Africa… Libya, Tunisia etc. it’s a region that had no church for the last 8 centuries. “The challenge is persecution:” says Imad Dabour. “We have to teach people that persecution is a basic teaching of the faith. It is a daily challenge.”

Now Palestinian Church leader – Salim Munayer: “We must anchor our identity in the Messiah Even the Bedouin are asking how can Palestinians and Jewish believers can embrace eachother and we talk about the love we have in the Messiah”.

Rajael Achi explains about childrens ministry in the Lebanon. As a parent I have serious concerns about my own children. So many people are leaving the country. We are concerned about how we can reach children who are outside of the church. If we want a better future for the lebanon then we need to start reaching children. If we don’t reach the children, someone else will reach them.

Claire Gayers from Egypt is talking about the work they do to feed the hungry.

Now a video clip – US voice over and nicely put together visuals.

Saudia Arabia 50 years ago had only 50 believers and today over a million!

A Lebanese song then a drama.

Now Vladimir Steurnagel from Brazil is speaking – sadly the sound has gone in the press pool and so he’s doing some great gesticulating but that’s all I can make out. He is a very good mover – I get snatches of sound “God’s overwhelming love, his unending capacity to…” Getting some fantastic hand action – a point, cupped hands, interlocking fingers… now he’s gone…

Now the focus is on Sex Trafficking and HIV AIDS.

A video clip from Cambodia – it’s a moving story about a young girl who left home at 16, she was picked up by a taxi driver and taken to help find a job. But this job was not what she deserved or hoped for, she  was forced into the sex trade. She had to have sex with up to 10 men a day. Some of the children involved in this trade are as young as 6 years old. The young girl in the taxi was liberated from the sex trade four and a half years later. She was taken to a World Vision centre and is now trying to help others out of the sex trade.

Vladimir is back; this time his mike is up and working,  – we are encouraged to talk around the tables about our experiences of being being restored by God. (Wonder if some people might turn to pray instead after that horrific sex trafficking story.)

Good News Ruth Padilla’s excellent talk from this morning is now online at http://player.vimeo.com/video/15996092.

The content is very good if delivered a little fast, enjoy )

Vlad’s back… we are being called back to order… we are need to be back to hear about “Jesus’ reconciling touch” Cristo Greyling is on stage and towers over Vlad in a white suit.

We are hearing about a Princess Kasune Zulu’s experience of losing her family to HIV – she went for a HIV test. She is HIV positive when she found out it came like a bright light in my life and there was unspeakable joy and reassurance from God – she came to realise that people living with HIV can glorify God. The church has an opportunity to walk it’s talk – “I became convinced that my little town in Zambia that even though I was given 6 months to live.” She has written a book called Warrior Princess and runs a ministry called Fountain.

Cristo who is a white South African man felt the call from God to reach out with the gospel to people with HIV on the drive back from the hospital. He was afraid to let anyone know that he had HIV for fear of being judged.

Cristo challenged us “How many of you have been asking yourself how did he get HIV?” it was because of that judgemental mindset that I was at first afraid to let people know about my diagnosis. Then I felt I had to shout about this. I did get infected through infected blood as I am a Hemophiliac.”

Now a powerful prayer from the warrior princess… If her book is half as good as her powerful prayer it will be amazing…

Vlad is back and doing a great job “May God bless you with anger… anger at injustice”

We are singing the doxology “Praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise God all creatures here below…” some wonderful harmonies as 4200 sing in acapella..

Thanks for joining us tonight – Please pray for the church in the middle east, and for the fight against people trafficking and for the church to reach out with compassion to those who are HIV positive.

The delegates welcome eachother

The morning kicks off with an amazing story of sobbhe who was captured and forced to be a child soldier in sudan and then ran away became a christian!

Now we are singing a song in Arabic. An awesome start to day 3

Now we are being lead by a south african band in a song “the peace of the lord”

Its amazing to watch 4200 delegates greet each other with “the peace of the lord”. The band are doing an amazing job.

Now the background graphics are up showing the catacombs as an African man reads out Ephesians 2 in preparation for the morning bible reading.

There’s an excitement in the room – last night’s testimony from North Korea seems to have really lifted the event.

Now David Oginde is talking us through manuscript Bible study methods. We are being told to underline key words and draw on our Bible texts in front of us.

We are reading ephesians 2:1-22

¹As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ²in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature^[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. ⁴But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

One in Christ

¹¹Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men)— ¹²remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

¹⁴For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. ¹⁷He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

¹⁹Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, ²⁰built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²²And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Have just noticed we are using on all the printouts on the table the ESV translation of the Bible- I wonder why we are using this translation. As you know this is a highly political move as the ESV has been championed by Wayne Grudem and John Piper.

these translations seek to capture as fully as possible the precise wording of the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts.

Why didn’t we go for a translation that is easy to read in a second language like the good news – which would have avoided the politics?

Here comes Ruth Padilla Deboerst

She starts off by connecting with the world cup that took place here in South Africa.

There was a rumour yesterday that people would avoid this talk because Ruth is a woman preacher. But thankfully this has not been the case. The Gospel wins! Unity Wins!

Ruth is giving some of the cultural background – she talks about the “hegemony of Rome” and the challenges facing people living under the power of the emperor. Ruth is explaining that the Jewish christians could have thought that this applied to non-jewish believers but actually Paul leaves no room for this smug satisfaction – “all of us” were this way.

“But God” ruth bangs the pulpit – this is the turning point of this darkness of human sin.

1. God in Christ recreates human kind.

2. God reinstates human kind – giving us a place at the right hand of christ – to the displaced people you have been carried from dust to glory. in the roman empire you are considered as nothing, barely acknowledged as a cog in the roman economy. But God has raised you above all this.

3. God gives humankind purpose - v.10 The creation mandate of family and work are restored in christ. Our reign with christ in the heavenly places is to be given concrete expression in the here and now.

Wow – she is going pretty quickly – she is reading pretty fast. There’s a lot of passion here and content, but because she is reading its hard to catch what she is saying. Would have been great to have some stories.

The depth is here – she throws in comments like “Triune God” and the “Pax Romana was shattered the repressed silence by proclaiming peace on earth – in the shape of a poor baby” Jesus power was not marked by power or economic might – affirming the dignity of women and children and others who were marginalised by Jewish culture.

Jesus made peace by his life – affirming women and children, touching untouchables.

Jesus made peace by his death – tearing the temple curtain in two

Jesus made peace by his resurrection – sending the church out to the ends of the earth

Ruth explains how Paul honoured women and young people in leadership, he taught mutual submission for men and women, and especially to the powerful – not strictly in her passage – but I guess just like Ajith had a wider agenda than the text yesterday – so ruth had some things she wanted to say to this crowd.

Can’t see if a) John Piper is in the room listening or b) if he is nodding along or not.

This feels more like an academic paper than a Bible exposition– she has definitely raised the bar of the scholarship of the conference. There’s a prophetic edge to what she brings. But still not sure the style of communication is going to connect with the breadth of the cultures in the room. I pray that the translators aren’t having their brains fried.

Well done Ruth for a brave and courageous talk tackling some major issues such as justice, peace, equality in relationships. I would enjoy reading this sermon again as I think I missed too much of it. Content was excellent .

Our small group reflected that we have heard many sermons on Ephesians 2:1-10 and many churches would preach this as the gospel. But we neglect Ephesians 2:11-21.

Our small group reflected that we have heard many sermons on Ephesians 2:1-10 and many churches would preach this as the gospel. But we neglect Ephesians 2:11-21. Ruth’s talk did a great job of setting the text in the context of the political and economic realities of first century imperial life.  Ruth corrected the balance in a helpful way.

The guy from Zimbabwe is giving a notice about the God who can hear us when we pray, that understands our accents . He received a big clap because of his Godly enthusiasm .

–

Plenary Session – Restoration

Prainitha Timothy from International Justice Mission

From India explains that she had a brain tumour and so she has a strange voice. She says “I use my voice to be a voice for the voiceless” working for International Justice Mission. There are over 27 million slaves and most of them are in India. 10-15 million children are held in slavery in India alone.

Families trapped in rice mills, quarries and brick making compounds. She is showing hidden camera footage of women carrying 70 -100 pounds in weight. They face beatings, torure, rape and murder. She shows a picture of Raman who is a third generation slave. His slave master told him that he is a nobody “who will come to rescue you.” She shows hidden camera footage of his slave master laughing at raman’s captivity.  He was bragging about how the slaves can never leave. Raman was rescued and his family and friends with IJM working with the police. Raman testified in court against this slave master  and he was convicted and imprisoned for 5 years. (Spontaneous applause breaks out in the hall).

May God bless you “learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, plead for the widow” Isaiah 61

Now the Brenda Salter McNeil from the USA is preaching.  We  are hearing a passionate and humble exhortation for us to live out the truth of Ephesians. Our credibility is at stake by how we live.

Dr Billy Graham said: “racial and ethnic hostility is the foremost systemic problem facing our world today … this hostility threatens the very foundation of modern society”

She is on fire – preaching Ephesians with clarity and passion – there is a huge clap when she works off stage. She was the best communicator so far. Lets have her back.

Now we are hearing a Palestinian and Jewish believer speak from the front about the need for reconciliation in the name of Jesus.

Antoine Ruytashire from Ruanda

Now a Ruandan principal of a theological college is presnenting. “I am not speaking from an academic perspective but from the perspective of a wounded healer” I grew up angry , hurting and  hatred but the cross of Jesus Christ has made a difference in my life.

There is a contradiction between the growth of the church in South – we have the fasted growing churches but the worst attrocities. What has gone wrong with our discipleship?

We had known the East African revival in Ruanda that effected the surrounding nations and yet in Ruanda we had the worst genocide of the 20^th century. With 1 million people being killed in 100 days.

There is a contradiction between the growth of the church in South – we have the fasted growing churches but the worst attrocities. What has gone wrong with our discipleship?

We had known the East African revival in Ruanda that effected the surrounding nations and yet in Ruanda we had the worst genocide of the 20^th century. With 1 million Tutis were people being killed in 100 days.

The first problem with the evangelisation in Ruanda was a lack of contextualisation. The preachers of the gospel never dealt with the ethnic diversity of the country.

The second problem was presentation – the Ruandan world is one – there is no division between the living and the dead, the

We had a catechism of memory of scripture and not touching issues of daily life. People were baptised but when they fell into problems they fell back to their ethnic worldviews. They relied on what they had been taught by the fathers

The third problem was their missionaries. They came preaching love – while they modelled division. Christianity was not a force for unity

The fourth problem- the  relationship of church and politics – the church worked with the political leadership and so they did not have critical distance and could not offer a prophetic critique.

After 1994 and 2002 Christianity has grown 4% – we are now at 95% christian – the church has redisovered the message of reconciliation. There are four levels of alienation – between God and us, God and each other, God and the world and God and our selves.  We need reconciliation. Jesus came as our sin bearer and our pain bearer. that is the message we need to preach. We have to rediscover our identities in christ.

(Am really excited as this is the kind of gospel i have been trying to encourage the church to recapture – see my book DESTINY.

(This is brilliant stuff – lots of applause -)

Our mission will be credible if we are united. Jesus prayed and said that we would be one so that world will know Jesus sent us.

(preach it brother – this is why I am in the Evangelical Alliance)

We need to reconsider our gospel and discipleship.

We need to see our identity as agents of ambasadors.

Let reconciliation be a lifestyle not a programme or a project.