From October 17–24, 2010 over 4000 key leaders from 200 nations around the world will gather in Cape Town, South Africa to discuss the challenges and progress of world evangelization. This was the third Lausanne Congress, following up on the first convened in Lausanne, Switzerland in July, 1974, and the second in Manila, Philippines in 1989.

Why should you pay attention?

For many of us, ministry is largely a response to the issues and crises that arise from within our congregations. Relational breakdown, sickness, financial crises, etc. consume whatever time is left after preparing next Sunday’s sermon. Youth are drifting away from the church, society seems to be discriminating increasingly against a Christian worldview, and the new Canadians that are moving into our neighbourhoods don’t seem interested in joining our churches. What is the future of the church in Canada? Is anybody doing anything new and different that might make a difference here?

Lausanne might not be the place you would instinctively look for answers to these very Canadian questions, but some of the winds that are blowing across our land have a global origin, and the answers we need in order to respond may require a global perspective. Lausanne will have sessions that cover topics as diverse as  Globalization and the Environment, Religious Freedom and Poverty, Urban Missions and Islam. Here’s a complete list of topics.

For the first time ever the content of Lausanne is going to be available via the internet. Globalink sites around the world are hosting Lausanne events—there may be one near you.

But here at Outreach Canada, we’d like to host a distinctly Canadian conversation. We believe that the conversations begun at Lausanne will need to continue in Canada in order to find an expression that responds to our uniquely Canadian realities. If you’d like to be part of that conversation then we invite you to join us. Listen to Lausanne presentations, read related articles and then join us in wrestling with how these dynamics affects our ministries here in Canada. Please join us.