The eyes of much of the Christian world these days are on Berlin, where the World Congress on Evangelism convenes October 26 to November 4. Evangelicals pray for signs of victory and tongues of fire, and they wait for man-made walls to tumble—walls segregating races, walls dividing nations, walls embittering social classes, and, not least of all, walls separating believers. Their concern of concerns, however, is the removal of the wall of hostility between man and God, and the driving urgency of fulfilling the Great Commission.
The Berlin Kongresshalle seats 1,300 participants—delegates, observers, press. From more than 100 nations around the earth, evangelists and other Christian leaders are searching their souls in view of parting instructions that the Risen Christ gave to his followers.
This may be the last time in our generation such a world conclave is possible.
But the future of Christian evangelism depends not simply upon Christ’s disciples’ gathering in Berlin.
No question now presses more insistently upon the evangelical conscience than this: In view of Jesus Christ’s Great Commission, what is the most important step my local church ought to take—beginning this very week?
