If God Can Protect Those Who Go To Hard Places as Missionaries, He Can Protect Those Who Go in to Culture-Shaping Vocations As Well
This is a great point I just came across in some of my notes, from I think the book Fearless Faith:
I’ve always wondered why we could be so quick to sacrifice our children to become missionaries but stand in the way of their becoming broadcast journalists, film and television actors, photographers, and painters. It’s almost as if we believe God is strong enough to take care of his own only as long as they stay within the safety of the Christian ghetto.
I’m all about missions and taking the gospel to unreached people groups. I think that, in addition to this, we also need to realize that the gospel also spreads through the vocations of all Christians, wherever they are (as long as we understand the proper relationship between faith and work — which most don’t!) — and that more Christians are needed in culture-shaping vocations.
In other words, the recovery of a robust doctrine of vocation is just as essential to the completion of the Great Commission as embracing the challenge of going to hard places to bring the gospel to those who have never heard.
(And, beyond that, as people come to faith through the vocations of every Christian, there will be more who in turn go to the unreached.)
The Geography of Neglect
I just received in the mail the latest episode of Dispatches from the Front by Frontline Missions. Andy Naselli notes that this episode is excellent, just like the previous ones. I’m watching it right now and find it to be excellent as well.
My only recommendation to Frontline Missions is to get these in to Netflix as well so that people can easily watch them on their iPads and TVs without having to deal with discs. I bet this could double the exposure, or more.
Before putting this DVD in, I spent some more time on Frontline Missions’ website, and here’s what stands out to me most of all: even more significant than the Dispatches from the Front series is the organization of Front Line Missions itself.
The reason is that they are calling the church to put greater focus on advancing the gospel in the hardest to reach — yet most populous — areas of the world. And, more than that, they give us a way to get involved even if we aren’t frontier missionaries ourselves.
Here’s the gist of what they do:
We believe in the centrality and finality of Christ’s work on the cross — of His radical rescue work for all of us. Knowing its life-giving power, we desire that all people hear this Good News. Many have heard it often, but many more have never heard it even once.
We focus on those with the least opportunity to hear, going to them with urgency, joy, and confidence because we have been sent by our King.
Frontline’s key objective is to advance the Gospel, forming vibrant, Word-centered, disciple-making churches, especially in those regions of the world that have the least Light.
So Frontline Missions focuses on advancing the gospel in the least reached and most difficult places of the world.
Which brings us to the 10/40 Window, the “geography of neglect”:
10/40 is missions shorthand for the most populous and least-reached region of the world. The 10/40 Window is 10° north latitude to 40° north latitude. It contains two-thirds of the world’s people along with the superlatives of despair — worst poverty, shortest lifespan, greatest persecution, least access to the Gospel.
The 10/40 Window is the geography of neglect because, although it contains two-thirds of the world’s population and the least access to the gospel, 90% of American missionaries go to countries outside the 10/40 window, and “less than a nickel of every missions dollar is spent targeting this region of neglect.”
That’s why I am so excited about the work of Frontline Missions: the are focusing on this “geography of neglect.” As a church, we need to give far more focus to the task of reaching those who reside in the hardest to reach places. Frontline Missions calls attention to this urgent priority, and is taking action to address it:
Frontline Missions is serving in many of these countries by providing training, Gospel literature, and support for new church planting efforts. In addition, Frontline funds creative platforms such as education, business, and medical efforts to gain greater access to difficult countries in this region.
We need to make the 10/40 Window a higher priority as a church. Let’s not allow it to remain the “geography of neglect.”
But how do we do that? I first learned about the 10/40 Window when I took the Perspectives course almost 14 years ago. And it doesn’t sound like the needle has moved much since then.
We need to recognize that good intentions are not enough, because they too easily get overcome by the challenges of everyday life. Instead, you make something a high priority not simply by deciding to make it a priority, but also by beginning right away to take actions in light of that priority.
The best way I know to do this for the 10/40 window — besides praying regularly through a book like Operation World — is to get involved right now in the work of solid, biblical organizations that are seeking to advance the gospel in those regions. Frontline Missions is one such organization, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take at least a small step toward inclining your focus more toward the advancement of the gospel in the most difficult places by learning more about Frontline Missions or taking action through prayer or giving or advocacy.
And, for a taste of how the gospel is advancing in the hardest to reach places (which is often one of the most motivating things you can do), it would be worth checking out Dispatches from the Front.
A God-Centered Theology Has to be a Missionary Theology
John Piper:
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the video:
“The unwasted life is the life that puts Christ on display as supremely valuable.”
“A God-centered theology has to be a missionary theology.”
“The need of the nations who do not know the name of Jesus is an immeasurable need. It is an infinite need.”
“2.6 billion people live in unreached people groups.”
Cape Town Anniversary
The Lausanne Movement blog has a series of post from two weeks ago in recognition of the one-year anniversary of the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization last October.
- Sunday –One Year Ago Today: Cape Town 2010 Begins
- Monday – Cape Town 2010: From An Event To A Movement
- Tuesday – Cape Town 2010: Calling Christians To Action
- Wednesday – Cape Town 2010: Africa Responds
- Thursday – Cape Town 2010: John Stott And The Lausanne Movement
- Friday – Cape Town 2010: Priorities For World Evangelization
- Saturday – Cape Town 2010: Living A Life That Is H.I.S.
What Was the Most Important Thing About Cape Town 2010?
Here’s a key reflection from one of the posts on the most important outcome from the Congress last fall:
In an interview at the close of the Congress, Doug Birdsall, Executive Chair of The Lausanne Movement, said he believes the personal connections made by leaders were among the most important accomplishments of the gathering. Additionally he said leaders were able to sense the magnitude of what God is doing around the world and that together the Church regained its footing and regained its nerve for world evangelization.
I agree 100%. Making connections and seeing what God is doing are the central purposes of any conference — most of all a convention such as Cape Town 2010 that brought together delegates from almost every nation in the world. And from the results of the past year, it looks like these outcomes have born much fruit — and will continue to bear fruit for a long time to come.
Here’s a closing video that looks back on the congress: Cape Town 2010: Looking back at the Congress
Piper: God’s 4 Purposes for Mission
God’s purpose is to be known: “That your way may be known on earth” (v. 2)
God’s purpose is to be praised: “Let the peoples praise you” (v. 3).
God’s purpose is to be enjoyed: “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy” (v. 4).
God’s purpose is to be feared and reverenced: “Let all the peoples of the earth fear him” (v. 7).
“And God’s purpose is not to be known and praised and enjoyed by any little clique, but by all nations.”
“What does he man to be known for? What does he mean to be praised for? What is it about him that he intends to be enjoyed? And what is is about him that makes us tremble?”
There are 4 of them:
1. He aims to be known as the one and only true and living God. He is not the God of any other religion. I gather this from the fact that an inspired Israelite is praying that his God be praised by the Gentile nations who have other gods. “Let the peoples praise you, O God” (v. 3). Here’s what Isaiah 45:5-6 says: “I am the Lord, and there is no other. Besides me there is no God. …There is none besides me. I am the Lord, there is no other.” God did not say “May all the nations become sincere worshipers of their god.” The whole Israelite religion is the opposite of that.
“Let’s be super clear about this, because we are in a world super charged with Islam. It doesn’t help the cause of truth to say we worship the same God as Muslims do. I am putting the emphasis on the word worship. We do not worship the same God that Muslims do. Muslims do not believe in Jesus dying, giving his life as a ransom for sinners, who raise from the dead and claims worship as the divine Son of God. They don’t affirm any of those things, which for us are the center and essence of our faith. And Jesus has something to say about people of whatever religion who don’t believe those things about him: ‘You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father’ (John 8). John 5:23: ‘Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father.” If you don’t worship Jesus, you do not worship God. Liberals who don’t believe Jesus rose, they don’t know God. No one who denies the Son has the Father. And everyone who truly worships the Father also worships Jesus: “Whoever has heard and learned from the Father comes to me’ (John 6). Neither Muslims or anyone else in any religion — including Baptists or any denomination in Christianity — knows God if they do not trust in Jesus.”
2. He wants to be known and praised and enjoyed and feared because he is a God of justice. Verse 4: “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity.” When the judgment comes, God will not be partial. No bribes will be considered, no sophisticated plea bargaining, all will proceed along the lines of perfect, divine righteousness. Everyone stands on equal footing. There will be one standard for everyone: perfection. Therefore, the universal failure to love God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind means the only salvation is the death of Jesus in our place. The perfections of Jesus and the punishments of Jesus are the only remedy for the entire world.
3. God aims to be known and praised and enjoyed and feared for his sovereign power. Verse 4: “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity, and guide the nations upon earth.” Many nations boast of their independence, but God made all nations and determined their boundaries and periods of time (Acts 17) and “he removes kings and sets up kings” (Daniel 2:21) and “he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of men” (Daniel 4:35). God means to make himself known as sovereign over the existence and rise and fall of nations. He sets the destiny, not any president.
And part of this destiny is that they will hear the gospel.
4. God aims to be known as a gracious God. Verse 1: “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.”
Piper on God’s Strange Path to Save All the Nations
Piper’s quick summary of God’s path, through Abraham and Israel, to save all the nations:
God chose Abraham and said “I will bless you to be a blessing, and through you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12, 15). Psalm 67 is a realization and praying into reality of that promise ahead of time. “May God be gracious to us and bless us…that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.”
God fulfills this through Christ, who is the seed of Abraham. All who belong to Christ — whether Jew or Gentile — become the seed of Abraham and are heirs according to promise.
Galatians 3:13: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles” — that is, the nations. “Know then it is those who are of faith are the sons of Abraham.” “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring — heirs according to the promise.”
“God’s plan to save the world is that he created it, it fell, and on his way to redeem the nations he chose a nation, Israel. You might say: ‘That’s strange. He focused on one nation for 2,000 years’. It is strange. That’s why Romans 11 is in the Bible. Romans 11 is all about why God took this strange, circuitous route to the nations through focusing first on Israel primarily for 2,000 years.”
Piper Up Now
Piper is starting his message now, “Let the Peoples Praise You, O God Let All the Peoples Praise You!” He is preaching from Psalm 67 and Genesis 12.
Platt: 3 Reasons We Must Go to the Unreached with Urgency
“Let’s apply these truths to the unreached.” “There are 6,000 plus people groups with little or no access to the gospel. Over 2.5 billion people. Why must we give our lives, losing them if necessary, to spreading this gospel? Why must we go to them with urgency?” 3 reasons:
1. The knowledge of God in nature is sufficient to condemn, but not to save. All people see the glory of God in nature, and reject it (Romans 1). It is only through the gospel that God cuts through this and brings salvation (Romans 1:16; 10). Will God condemn someone for not believing in a Jesus they never heard of? No. “But the problem is there are no innocent people in Africa — or anywhere — waiting to hear the gospel. There are only guilty people. The innocent person does not exist. That’s why we need the gospel.”
2. “We must go to them because the gospel is powerful enough to save them forever. Because the gospel is truly good news for every people group on the planet, and it works.” “You can go to the hardest, most difficult people group to reach, and you can have confidence that that people group will be represented around the throne of God. This gospel is powerful enough to save. There is not a people group on the planet that God cannot save. And people who believe that cannot stay in their seats and do nothing.”
3. “The glory of God is good enough to satisfy them forever.”
Platt on God’s Remedy for Sin
A summary of Platt on God’s remedy for our sin:
How can a holy God look at a guilty sinner and say: “Innocent”? We rightly expect God to justify the innocent and condemn the guilty. And none are innocent. So how can God call the guilty innocent?
Jesus’ death is the payment for sin. All the suffering of Jesus is for our sin. Isaiah shows that Jesus stood in the place of sinners, in our place, to bear the penalty for sin: Isaiah 52:13 – 53: 12.
Is it true that “God hates the sin but loves the sinner”? In one sense, certainly. God loves sinners. But when we see God’s holy wrath against sin, we need to understand that it’s not as though sin is something outside us. Sin is at the core of who we really are. So when Jesus went to the cross, he wasn’t just enduring the penalty of sin as though it is something outside us. He was doing this in our place — taking the full wrath of God due to us as sinners.
Here’s the deal: We are sinners. All of us by nature went our own way. God has both wrath and love towards sinners. How can God’s judgment and love toward sinners be reconciled? That’s the cross. God takes away all of the judgment due us. The beauty of the gospel is that God takes away all our sins and does not count any of them against us.
“Think of it: Of the God of the universe looking at us and saying ‘I have no record of anything going wrong in your life.’ Because God cancelled the debt at the cross. In fact, because of Christ’s righteous obedience, he looks at us and says ‘I only have a record of you doing right.’”
David Platt on Total Depravity
“Everything in all of creation responds to God, until you get to man and we have the audacity to look him in the face and say ‘no.’ From this sin, we see lostness all over this book (Isaiah). What does it mean to be lost? It means to be cut off from God. To live alienated from God. Separated from Christ (Eph 2:12). Romans 5:18: one trespass led to condemnation for everyone. In our sinfulness we are cut off from God, we are enemies of God. We are slaves to sin, John 8:34. Jesus said ‘truly truly I say to you: everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.’ 2 Timothy 2:26 says we are captured in the snare of the evil one, having been captured by him to do his will. We are children of wrath, Eph 2:3, and darkened in our understanding. And this affects every facet of our being. And this is the natural state of all of us. Romans 3: ‘there is none who seeks God, not even one. There are none who understand.’”
A side note: I know this is not Platt’s purpose, but it is really remarkable how well he knows the Scripture. He is quoting dozens of Scriptures from memory. This is a good model for all of us.
Platt is really driving home the lostness of the human condition. A reflection: I’m reading through Jeremiah right now, and over and over you see Jeremiah denouncing the sins of Israel. And what stands out is: this is the state of all of us, by nature apart from God. Jeremiah isn’t just denouncing the sin of “those people over there.” The point of the book is that we are all fallen, every one of us, and our only hope is to look to God in Christ for mercy. That is, we cannot come to God on the basis of our good works. Apart from him, we don’t have any. The way to a relationship with God is to acknowledge our sin to him and trust in Christ for mercy, not in anything we do, have done, or can do.
David Platt Up Now
Piper introduced David Platt with two things he loves about him most: his love for the Scriptures and passion for God’s glory among the nations.
Platt remarked how the passages he planned on speaking on are the same ones Louie Giglio went to last night — so maybe the Lord wants us to go deep into these passages.
Reading from Isaiah 6 now.
“There is no one like our God. It is folly to compare anything to our God. All of the earth is a continual explosion of the glory of God. ‘He brings the stars out one by one and calls them each one by one.’ And he is sovereign over all nations. Go to Isaiah 46. This is part of the purpose of Isaiah — to show the sovereignty and supremacy of God over the nations.”
This is a key point he is making: God’s sovereignty over nature is meant to buttress our confidence that God is sovereign over human history as well. We shouldn’t think “God is sovereign over rocks and trees and stars, but human history is out of his control.” He is sovereign over human history just as much as he is sovereign over the course of the stars and workings of nature.
Louie Giglio’s Mashup of Stars Singing “How Great is Our God”
Louie Giglio brought in some amazing illustrations from astronomy to illustrate the supremacy of God.
Apparently, the electromagnetic radiation that quasars emit translates into sound. “Stars don’t just shine; they also sing.”
So he put some quasars up on the screen and then the sound their signals reduce to. Then he did this for some whales, mashed it all together, and laid over Chris Tomlin’s “How Great is Our God.” And it all fit. It was pretty cool.
It seemed so hard to explain that I captured the video on my iPhone. Here’s the video:
And here was his point:
“The point is simply this. God is a God who doesn’t need anything. He has a band, he has a universe, that is singing to him. Every bird’s wing that flaps through the sky, every ocean wave that crashes on the shore, every snowflake that falls imperceptibly to you and me, or when a baby cries or a human being laughs, it is all God’s creation praising him, and he is big and powerful and amazing and expansive in every way, and he is the one asking the question: ‘Whom shall I send? He doesn’t need us, but he invites us to be a part of what he is doing.’”
“God is Bigger Than We Think He Is”
Louie Giglio:
There is a ripple effect of the gospel that is undeniable. It doesn’t lead us to just contemplate what happened to us, but proclaim what Christ has done.
God is bigger than we think he is. I don’t know how big you think he is, but he’s still bigger than that.
God is not just a global God, he is a galactic God. And he is even bigger than that. I love the quote “the universe is one of God’s thoughts.”
Isaiah 6 has been in my heart over the last few weeks, and this is an incredible passage. Isaiah saw a God who is “high and lifted up”–not low and bowed down.
Worship is happening with or without you. Worship happens wherever God is present, and Isaiah saw this. The vision of God was so great it wrecked him. He didn’t need anyone to tell him what kind of trouble our sinful condition puts us in. And God restored him, and Isaiah heard “whom shall we send?”
You cannot be near the cross and not hear that. Because the world is messed up, and God cares.
Talking about the Sombrero Galaxy now, 34 or so million light years away. “Most of you didn’t even know about it. And so you are saying ‘then what’s it doing there/’ It’s there for God, not first you.”
Astronomers are perplexed: why is the universe so big? And they are saying “There’s got to be more people in this place. It’s way too big if it’s just for you and me.” I agree — if the universe was created just for humanity, it’s oversized. But if they knew the universe’s primary function was not to house humanity but to magnify the creator, they would know it’s just about the right size.”
Louie Giglio: Why We Exist
“This world is messed up to an amazing magnitude. But in the midst of this there is a God, who is great beyond our wildest imagination.
“And he has linked arms with us and given us marching orders if you will, and we are not at our leisure tonight. We are here under the mandate of hte grace of God, which found us, restored us, redeemed us, breathed life back into our dormant lungs, and brought us back from the grave for one purpose:
“That we would become an amplifier for the beauty of Jesus among all the peoples on the planet.”
Live Blogging the DG Conference
Since I’m here anyway, I think I’ll live blog the DG conference.
It’s on missions, and the theme is Finish the Mission.
Louie Giglio is up now.
A List of Resources and Strategies for Finishing the Great Commission
Last April I was part of the Lausanne Orlando 2011 Leadership Consultation, a follow-up to the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization last fall.
The leaders of the consultation have recently compiled and synthesized the notes from the discussions and made them available in a pdf.
The document is divided into four sections:
- Best available resources
- Resources needed
- Best practices and strategies
- What is not working
This seems like a helpful, basic outline of resources and strategies to take a look at if you are engaged in the work of global missions — either as a goer or a sender.
And, one thing we need more of are people giving thought to strategy and leadership in the cause. This document might be a helpful catalyst.
Short Documentary of Cape Town 2010
Below is a short documentary of the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization that was held in Cape Town, South Africa, last October.
Here’s the intro from the website:
Cape Town 2010 has been called the most representative gathering of Christian leaders in the 2000 year history of the Christian movement (Christianity Today). Four-thousand Christian leaders representing 198 countries attended the Congress in Cape Town, South Africa. The Congress was brought together by a globalized leadership team from Africa, Egypt, Malaysia, India, North America and elsewhere. Several thousand more leaders participated in the Congress through the Cape Town GlobaLink, Cape Town Virtual Congress and Lausanne Global Conversation. Learn more about this gathering by watching this short documentary.
How Lack of Theological Training in the Developing World Weakens World Missions
Here are two examples from JP Moreland’s excellent book Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul
I once attended a meeting of missionaries from around the world, at which a national Christian leader from Central America stood up and passionately exhorted North American mission agencies to stop sending evangelists to his country because their efforts were producing Marxists bent on overthrowing the government.
You could have heard a pin drop in that meeting, and confusion was written on everyone’s face. This leader went on to explain that the leading “Christian” thinkers in his country held to liberation theology, a form of Marxism draped in religious garb. Evangelical missionaries would lead people to Christ, but the liberals were attracting the thinking leaders among the converts and training them in Marxist ideology, which these liberals identified as the true center of biblical theology.
The leader pleaded with North Americans to send more theologians and Bible teachers and to help set up more seminaries and training centers in his country because the need for intellectual leadership was so great.
Here’s the second example:
Recently, I met a man from Fiji who was won to Christ by an evangelical missionary and who, subsequent to conversion, wanted to come to the United States for seminary training.
Unfortunately, there was no money for this sort of “intellectual” development in the evangelical missions strategy there, but theological liberals gave him a scholarship to study at a liberal seminary in Texas.
By the time I met him, he had given up his faith and was going back to Fiji with an extremely secular view of Christianity. His mission: to pastor a church!
Moreland concludes:
If evangelicals placed more value on the mind, we would give more to developing intellectual leadership around the world. Happily, some good things are now being done in this area, but we need to intensify our efforts in this regard, and this will happen only if we evangelicals come to value more fully Christ’s admonitions to be good stewards of the intellectual life
Frontline Missions
Andy Naselli posts about 4 DVDs from Frontline Missions that have deeply impacted and challenged he and his wife. I’m looking forward to watching them myself at his recommendation.
Here are two endorsements of the videos:
Are you afraid to open your eyes and see death and destruction in the world? Dispatches from the Front will open your eyes to the great needs of the lost, enflame your heart to go to the nations, and give you the courage to carry on the ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the glory of God. This is a bold call to action.
–Burk Parsons, pastor, author, editor of Tabletalk magazineDispatches offers a potent reminder that in the darkest places, the gospel shines brightest. It should come with a warning label. Danger: Graphic scenes of mission reality that will disrupt your comfort and ignite your heart for God’s work on the frontlines. Pray, watch and act!
–Dave Harvey, Sovereign Grace Ministries – Church Planting & Missiology
Here’s a summary of what Frontline Missions does:
For nearly 20 years Frontline Missions International has worked among people in areas of war, persecution, and poverty, primarily in restricted-access countries, seeking to strengthen the Church, give voice to persecuted Christians, and preach and publish the Good News.
And here’s a preview of one of the videos:
The Cape Town Committment on the Need for Developing Godly Leaders
As you know, I was in Cape Town for the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization last fall. The statement working group from the congress has recently released the Cape Town Commitment: A Confession of Faith and a Call to Action. Here’s the section on leadership, especially as it pertains to the church in the developing world:
The rapid growth of the Church in so many places remains shallow and vulnerable, partly because of the lack of discipled leaders, and partly because so many use their positions for worldly power, arrogant status or personal enrichment. As a result, God’s people suffer, Christ is dishonoured, and gospel mission is undermined. ‘Leadership training’ is the commonly-proposed priority solution. Indeed, leadership training programmes of all kinds have multiplied, but the problem remains, for two probable reasons.
First, training leaders to be godly and Christlike is the wrong way round. Biblically, only those whose lives already display basic qualities of mature discipleship should be appointed to leadership in the first place.[80] If, today, we are faced with many people in leadership who have scarcely been discipled, then there is no option but to include such basic discipling in their leadership development. Arguably the scale of un-Christlike and worldly leadership in the global Church today is glaring evidence of generations of reductionist evangelism, neglected discipling and shallow growth. The answer to leadership failure is not just more leadership training but better discipleship training. Leaders must first be disciples of Christ himself.
Second, some leadership training programmes focus on packaged knowledge, techniques and skills to the neglect of godly character. By contrast, authentic Christian leaders must be like Christ in having a servant heart, humility, integrity, purity, lack of greed, prayerfulness, dependence on God’s Spirit, and a deep love for people. Furthermore, some leadership training programmes lack specific training in the one key skill that Paul includes in his list of qualifications – ability to teach God’s Word to God’s people. Yet Bible teaching is the paramount means of disciple-making and the most serious deficiency in contemporary Church leaders.
A) We long to see greatly intensified efforts in disciple-making, through the long-term work of teaching and nurturing new believers, so that those whom God calls and gives to the Church as leaders are qualified according to biblical criteria of maturity and servanthood.
B) We renew our commitment to pray for our leaders. We long that God would multiply, protect and encourage leaders who are biblically faithful and obedient. We pray that God would rebuke, remove, or bring to repentance leaders who dishonour his name and discredit the gospel. And we pray that God would raise up a new generation of discipled servant-leaders whose passion is above all else to know Christ and be like him.
C) Those of us who are in Christian leadership need to recognize our vulnerability and accept the gift of accountability within the body of Christ. We commend the practice of submitting to an accountability group.
D) We strongly encourage seminaries, and all those who deliver leadership training programmes, to focus more on spiritual and character formation, not only on imparting knowledge or grading performance, and we heartily rejoice in those that already do so as part of comprehensive ‘whole person’ leadership development.
Lausanne Wrap-Ups
The Lausanne blog highlights some of the most helpful wrap-ups of Cape Town 2010.
Cape Town Messages
All of the sessions of the Congress will be put online shortly after they are completed. You can visit the Cape Town 2010 website to listen to or download them.
The Gospel and Globalization
Justin Taylor points out where you can read the advance papers for Lausanne and highlights a couple that might be of interest.
Justin highlights these two:
- Os Guinness and David Wells, “Global Gospel, Global Era: Christian Discipleship and Mission in the Age of Globalization”
- Tim Keller, “What Is God’s Global Urban Mission?
I agree — they are very helpful. Here are a few others worth pointing out:
- World Evangelization in the 21st Century: Prioritizing the Essential Elements of the Great Commission
- Missing Peoples: The Unserved “One-Fourth” World
- People at Work: Preparing to be the Whole Church
- Local Leaders in the Global Church
- An African Perspective on the Cross and the Gospel of Prosperity
And here’s one that I disagree a lot with: Poverty and Wealth.
About Matt Perman
Follower of Christ. Husband of one, father of three. Former director of strategy at Desiring God. This blog exists to help equip Christians in good works, because that's what productivity is really about.
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