The Lausanne Movement: I returned to London on the overnight flight from Lausanne III in Cape Town, weary but

stimulated. The 2010 Congress theme was "God in Christ, Reconciling the World to Himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19) and how to bear witness to Jesus Christ and all his teaching ... Over 4000 mission leaders from 197 nations gathered to wrestle with a wide range of related issues (see program overview in PDF or on-line with links to video & details here). As inevitable in gatherings of this size, the experience was a multi-faceted overload of sights, sounds, issues, agendas, side-meetings and networking in the context of a vast number of old friends and new; an extrovert’s paradise! Ok, ok, I'm not an extrovert but I tried to keep up!

Access: One significant difference between this experience and Lausanne II in Manila in 1989 is the internet. A wide variety of video clips are now available and I encourage you to peruse areas of interest here.

The Cape Town Commitment: Lausanne has produced statements which have shaped the evangelical movement (Lausanne Covenant, 1974 and Manila Manifesto, 1989) and Lausanne in Cape Town will be no exception. "The Cape Town Commitment" is still in draft form but Part I is available in PDF and on-line. I've not yet studied it in detail but like what I've seen.

Church Planting: I connected with church planting leaders in a variety of settings – breakfast, lunch and coffee meetings, a GCPN information meeting which went well, and more- looking always for regional leaders with the heart and capacity to mobilize church planting in entire nations or regions. (These are being invited to Turkey next spring for prayer and training to develop teams to resource mobilizers at both levels.) It was encouraging also to see the distribution of pen drives to all Lausanne delegates containing background and link to a research survey which is part of a GCPN partnership effort towards identifying towns and villages globally where disciple making communities are not yet inviting people to follow Jesus.

A helpful strategic input in my view was a paper presented by Paul Eshleman highlighting the need for coordination between what have sometimes become mission specialities. A diagram of his 10 mission foci towards completion of the Great Commission can be seen here.

Then there is personal impact. A teammate asked me to summarize and I would focus on two words:

Integrity and Suffering: Integrity has to do with the right to offer the world the reconciliation of the Gospel. We were confronted in Cape Town with the reality that too often the lifestyles of those who claim the name of Jesus are too little different from the lives of those around us. If we are to speak of reconciliation, we must live in reconciliation with one another. If we speak of newness of life in Christ, we must live in the newness of communion with Christ as His obedient disciples. Too often those who claim the name of Christ seek power, wealth and success in the same terms as the world. This is not that to which we have been called. We have been called to be servants, lording it over no one, givers rather than takers. Integrity requires that repentance begins with us before we speak of it to the world. To the degree to which we become indistinguishable from the world we lose our right to speak of Him.

This is especially true in regard to suffering. Let us stop asking, 'where was God when I hurt?' as if the point of the Gospel is to avoid suffering. Rather let us seek to absorb more suffering of the world than we inflict on others. If we suffer, let it be because our Master suffered and we are following Him. Let us not find suffering a surprise or seek to avoid the cost of following Him. If we are persecuted let it be because of the consistency of our lives with the Gospel, not because of our lack of integrity. If we suffer, let us suffer for our integrity with the Gospel and let us live in integrity with the Gospel.

The Lausanne Movement may be the most influential evangelical mission movement of the last 35 years, and likely longer. In the perspective of history, it could be argued to be the greatest legacy of it's founder, Dr. Billy Graham.