Today, many of my friends and many more co-laborers are thinking through issues of the mission of God in Cape Town at the Lausanne Congress. That's an exciting and important moment for the church.
Obviously, I did not attend-- more about that later. But, I am supportive and even hopeful. Actually, I even attended one of the Twelve Conversations, though I found myself a bit disappointed at the lack of participation.
Since there is much discussion of mission going on, I thought I would share a bit with you about some mission history that may be hopeful.
For only the third time in history the Lausanne International Congress on World Evangelization is convening. Over 4000 people from over 200 countries are in Cape Town, South Africa.
Lausanne's leaders consider themselves "A worldwide movement that mobilizes evangelical leaders to collaborate for world evangelism."
Billy Graham provided the impetus for the first congress that met in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1974. That meeting hosted over 2300 leaders from 150 countries.
In 1989 the second congress was held in Manila with even greater participation. As you learn the history of Lausanne you see value. The intent and outcomes seem to be things that most of us would embrace.
Anytime that evangelicals gather to talk about and focus on God's global mission, I am excited. But, I think the connection with a meeting 100 years earlier is worthy of our consideration.
The Lausanne Congress has made a point that this meeting takes place on the 100th anniversary of another meeting. Unlike Lausanne, that meeting, the World Missionary Conference, would get mixed reviews.
In 1910, mission leaders from around the world gathered in Edinburgh, Scotland. The connection between the two meetings is listed on the Lausanne site:
We believe 2010 is a significant year in which to hold the congress. 2010 is the 100th anniversary of the 1910 World Missionary Conference, convened in Edinburgh, Scotland under the leadership of John R. Mott. CT2010 gives the church an opportunity to celebrate the Edinburgh Conference and the progress made in missions and evangelization since that time.
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Cape Town intentionally opened with the same song as Edinburgh, "Crown Him with Many Crowns."
I am very glad that there is a connection between the two--they both began well. But, as evangelicals, I can tell you that we don't want to end up where the Edinburgh meeting led the involved churches.
Now what's interesting is that people have different views of the success of Edinburgh 1910 and its influence on Christianity. As a conservative evangelical who reads history, I think Edinburgh ended really badly. It failed to value theology and formed a movement that would later de-emphasize conversion and focus on social justice and eventually walk away from so much of what they treasured at Edinburgh.
The dirty little secret about the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference in 1910 was their mistake, for which the Christian movement is still paying a great price. David Hesselgrave, my co-editor for the book, MissionSHIFT: Mission Issues in the Third Millennium, wrote a helpful paper I have uploaded here. And, my friend Andrew Jones actually makes some helpful comments on the paper along the way, which can be seen here.
Over the next few days, I will share some thoughts about how we can collaborate in the mission of God without walking the path of what would come of the World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh.
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