The world is shrinking. One can hardly go a day without hearing about events in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea, or Israel. Recently leaders from around the world gathered in New York for President Clinton's Global Initiative Conference to discuss the challenges we face. Pastor and Leadership's editor-at-large Gordon MacDonald was there.

I was recently invited to the Clinton Global Initiative Conference in New York City by the former president. As far as I know only a handful of evangelicals were present among approximately 1,000 political, business, and cultural leaders.

The CGI Conference is a crossroads of ideas and networking to reduce cultural and political barriers that separate human beings and create the grounds for conflict and disaster. Panel topics included (1) Energy and Climate Challenge; (2) Global Health Issues; (3) Poverty Alleviation; and (4) Mitigating Religious and Ethnic Conflict. They were populated by people like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Colin ...