Cape Town 2010

What was Cape Town 2010? Does it have any lasting impact? What about The Lausanne Movement? An excellent 14 minute documentary gives a glimpse into the Congress - well worth watching:

Order a copy of The Cape Town Commitment here, or find it in other languages at www.lausanne.org/books

Paris

When I lived in Brussels, we bemoaned the fact that the IFES Interaction teams in Paris and Nice seemed to fill up before the Brussels team - couldn't imagine why. Well, the current Paris team have gone some way to explaining it, in a rather arty way. (I have to appreciate the skills of some ex-Relay worker friends!) Not that what they say about Paris is substantially different to Brussels...

Gospels = eye-witness accounts

If you're not sure, take a listen to this engaging and up-front lecture by Dr Pete Williams (Warden of Tyndale House, Cambridge).

What's in a name?

Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?

I think our mind association is stronger than that. 'Rose' evokes so many things that we have no only a scent but an atmosphere, feelings, people, the breeze through the hills of the last rose garden visited, the anticipation of a roast dinner as we sit with friends in a garden after church.

I've been thinking of words and names, and how they not only communicate concepts, but at best, evoke whole pictures, feelings and associations.

I will not celebrate Irishness

because of this day, but I will celebrate the kind of gospel which was even for the Irish, and the belief in God's promises which took Patrick there, to share it. It continues today -

The testimony of our brother Patrick of 1561 years ago, could equally fit in the mouth of this North Korean schoolgirl, and her father:

'I give untiring thanks to God who kept me faithful in the day of my testing, so that today I may confidently offer my soul as a living sacrifice for Christ my Lord. Who am I, Lord? or, rather, What is my calling?, that you appeared to me... so that today among the barbarians I might constantly exalt and magnify your name in whatever place I should be, and not only in good times, but even in affliction?

'So whatever happens to me, whether good or bad, I accept it equally, and give thanks always to God. He revealed himself to me so I could trust in him, implicitly and forever. He will also encourage me so that, although I'm ignorant, I may dare to take on such devout and wonderful a work; so that I might imitate one of those whom, once, long ago, the Lord appointed to be heralds of his Gospel, to witness to all peoples to the ends of the earth. This is what we are seeing, and so it is fulfilled.

'I wish to wait then for his promise which is never unfulfilled: 'Many shall come from east and west and shall sit at table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.' We believe that believers will come from all the world. ...

'This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached throughout the whole world as a witness to all nations; and then the end of the world shall come.' And similarly the Lord foretells through the prophet: 'And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.' And in Hosea he says: 'Those who are not my people I will call my people, and those not beloved I will call my beloved, and in the very place where it was said to them, You are not my people, they will be called 'Sons of the living God'. ...

'Therefore may it never happen that God separates me from his people whom he has won in this most remote land. I pray God that he gives me perseverance, and that he will allow me to be a faithful witness for his sake right up to the time of my passing.'

Patrick, c.450AD, Confessio

Quote of the day: Our hearts are no longer heavy

'Our hearts are no longer heavy, they are light.' The Kimyal people receive printed copies of the New Testament - which some of them had worked long and hard to translate, others working on literacy or teaching the Bible. This moved me to tears. They know God has given them his Word, through his Son, and they receive it with joy. May it bear much fruit, even as it already is doing.

The Kimyal People Receive the New Testament (from UFM Worldwide)

Their hearts were heavy, because they didn't have all of God's word in their own language. My heart is all too often heavy because I don't read it and believe.

Who's out & who's in?

How much change are we willing to make as different people come in to our churches? Do we really want them to grow, as it means change? Ruth Padilla DeBorst, evidently shaped by a strong sense of cultural and linguistic justice, spoke of this in relation to the Ephesian church. It's not directly in the passage (Eph 2), but came across as she 'set the scene'. I wonder if she doesn't read back today's experience into the first century a bit, but it's helpful to hear her perspective and consider its application to our churches and plants.

So, an imagined description of what might have been the reaction of 1st century Jewish believers in Christ, hearing Ephesians 2: [NB there's a certain poignancy about this, that she was having to address the Congress in English in order to be translated into the other Congress languages - rather than Spanish]

'And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience' Ah, this is about them: the Jewish Christians might have sighed in relief. ... They might have rested assured of their belonging, and believed they owned the right to determine who was in and who was out of the new community being forged by the apostles' teaching. Become like us - the true believers: look at the world through our lenses, and organise your experience into our categories; otherwise, you will only ever be second class. We can tolerate a little colour here and there, a token representative of minority groups, but they must be willing to blend in, to accommodate to our standards and expectations, our jargon, our styles. Yet Paul leaves no room for such smug self-righteousness. He continues: 'We ALL once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of humankind.'

Everyone likes to control who's out and who's in - it's scarily uncomfortable otherwise. So how will we set about obeying: 'Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God', with all the discomfort, culture shock, and change involved?

Quote of the day: labour to describe

'This truth is something that is culturally distant to most people. It's difficult for them to understand: how they can be redeemed from sin, how Jesus could turn God's wrath, and how the blood could cleanse them, how they are justified because he bore their guilt. So it's a difficult thing for our people to understand that. But it was difficult for the first century Jew. Paul says in 1 Cor 1.23 that the gospel is foolishness: 'We preach Christ crucified, which is foolishness to the Greeks, and a stumbling block to the Jew.' But, what did he do? Did he not preach this message? In 1 Cor 2.2 he says, 'I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.' He laboured to get this message across. And so in the epistles he used different pictures and all sorts of things to remind us of the fullness of our salvation.

'I fear that today many of us have surrendered to the culture and focussed on what is easy to understand, rather than labouring to describe what the work of Christ really did. We must be using our greatest creative energies to get through the Biblical concept of the work of Christ to the people that we minister to. That's the challenge that we have. Not to present God just as one who meets needs, but the One who has a plan for the whole universe.'

- Ajith Fernando, on Ephesians 1, from Cape Town 2010 [more expositions and talks here]

For more, watch the exposition below, in which Ajith Fernando advises that while many people come to Christ to fulfil a felt need, to keep going they must be taught the difficult truths, to recognise that Christ is Truth, and that they have been welcomed into something a lot bigger than a solution their initial felt need. 

Bible Exposition:Ajith Fernando (Ephesians 1) from Lausanne Movement on Vimeo.

Over the next while, I hope to highlight some quotes and teaching from The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, from those of various cultures and countries. This is partly because I didn't get to attend the sessions, so am catching up now; partly because I tend to hear only the negative crit so want to acknowledge the work of the Spirit during the Congress; and mostly because I do believe that for the health and growth of the Church, it is vital to listen to perspectives that Christ has given his people in different parts of the world.

Grasping for the wind, or beyond

Many people have commented on this BBC interview - Jeremy Paxman in an unusual interview with comedian Russell Brand. Unlike his public persona (of which, to be honest, I know very little, as his speech seemed vulgar enough to put me off listening to him ages ago), Brand shows has real insight into culture and human nature. I often think that comedians are left to be the only ones in our age and culture who are permitted insight and understanding of human nature and society. They are the court jesters, who are allowed to preach unpleasant truths to the powerful and comfortable, in the name of entertainment.

Brand - I don't want to dwell here with such trivial things for very much longer.
Paxo - You mean you seek death?
Brand - Not death. But between now and death, it would be ever so nice I think, if I were able to achieve something that is truly valuable, some evocation of beauty, togetherness, an exposure of the illusion of separation, and some connection between people; perhaps use this energy for something better than leaving voicemail...'

Brand - Now I am famous and what does it mean: ashes in my mouth. ... Someone told me once that all desire is the desire to be at one with God in substitute form. So perhaps we can draw attention not to the shadow on the wall, but the source of light itself.

The substance of the interview is worth hearing (if you can ignore the few profanities).

I want to send Brand a copy of C.S.Lewis' Surprised by Joy. He seems to have 'got' that celebrity, or mundane non-celebrity, are all vanity and grasping for the wind. He wants to get through it and find something genuinely weighty, which will transform him. But would he cope with the weight of glory, if he held it in his hand? It might pierce him right through, unless he has been transformed to bear the image of the Man from glory.

[Aside: Paxman finds it unusual that Brand's so intense or in earnest about what he's saying. One of the aspects of British culture which I really don't like is how being in earnest or passionate about serious things is found somewhat Odd, and Not To Be Encouraged.]

What to say?

Quote of the Day: A new kind of ending

Dr Jeremy Begbie:

Death, of course, is the reality hovering over everything I've been saying. The ending of all endings. The reality which threatens every hope in a rich ending. The reality which makes us hesitant about hoping for anything too strongly. But this is how God gets our attention. He meets us here, where human false hopes meet their abyss, where all purely human hopes have died.

But from here also, a fresh kind of hope emerges. Three days pass, and the followers of Jesus find themselves with a new kind of hope, in a new kind of ending. Rumours of an empty tomb, and then the man himself, nailmarks in his side & hands, alive, newly alive, more alive than before. What kind of ending can they now look forward to?

Here is an ending we don't create but God gives.

Dr Begbie continues about the ending which breaks in in the middle and transforms. If you care anything for music or theology, watch The Sense of An Ending, below, and hear how the Christian life should be something like playing second violin in the middle of an improvising orchestra. Powerful and informative.

Where is your God?

A video worth playing a couple of times, on which to ponder:

Bish informs us it comes to us courtesy of UCCF Relay workers Millie (performer), Rael (poet) and Andy (director/cameraman).

[HT: Dan Steel]

Theology Matters

I have no idea what the book's like, but the video's good!

[HT: Chris]

Dreams of theology and world evangelization - Piper questions

How do we listen to Christians around the world, to better spread the good news of Jesus Christ in our situation and worldwide? DesiringGod has posted a video of John Piper chairing a discussion with Doug Birdsall, Chris Wright and Lindsay Brown (3 leaders in the Lausanne movement) on that topic, and the Cape Town 2010 congress. Dr Piper confesses that if he went to plan such a congress, it'd flop - so watch the interviewees discuss how we hope, by the grace of God, it will be effective - and catch many pearls of wisdom from these four servants of God in the course of discussion.

Some of the questions asked and topics shared were these:

• What are the issues facing the global church today, for world evangelization?
• How does the cross of Christ address those issues?
• Why are we evangelicals those who need reformation as in the 16th century?
• How an evangelical 'swagger' should be replaced with humility and hope?
• What is the Lausanne Movement anyway?
• What's wrong with prosperity theology? How it leads to desolation, discouragement and dissertion.
• Sharing as a part of the body of Christ in the world - how should we partner in the new equilibrium? What have we to learn in the West?
• How can we be different as the people of God?
• What's new in each of the areas identified as key for world evangelization? What are the implications of globalization for world evangelization?

And to wrap up, Dr Piper asked the others for 30 seconds each on: 'Cape Town 2010, 16-25 October, 4000 people, 200 countries, coming together with these issues in mind, all informed by the gospel, to advance world evangelization: what are your dreams?'

Well worth watching.

Are you too easily pleased?