Neil
Lausanne, Sunday 24th: a realised eschatology
… After this I looked, and there before me was a great crowd that no one could count… I’m not sitting right at the back, but I guess that most people at the congress are in front of me. And I know that I certainly couldn’t count them all, though maybe if they all stopped [...]
Lausanne, Sunday 24th: Spaniards see red
The Spanish delegation are a bit upset, and I wouldn’t be surprised if others in Europe share their feelings. It’s not that they haven’t enjoyed the congress — it has been a great experience for most, with excellent information being shared and demostrating a wide understanding of the work of God in the world. But [...]
Lausanne, Saturday 23rd: are we HIS?
Chris Wright’s new book “The Mission of the People of God” has been published just in time for the congress. Probably worth a read, like the rest of his stuff. His intervention this morning came in the context of a call for the strong pursuit of godly character on the part of the church as [...]
Lausanne, Saturday 23rd: Porcupines
Each morning there is study on a passage from Ephesians. Individual study and discussion in groups is followed by exposition and then a return to the groups for discussion and prayer. Videos of the input is available on the website — which, incidentally, was subject to various cyber-attacks at the beginning of the conference, with [...]
Lausanne, Friday 22nd: “Aafrikaa”
“Hope is hearing the melody of the future. Faith is dancing to it now.” (Rubem Alves). The twentieth century was a Western century, both politically and in terms of the world church. I won’t predict what might happen on a global political scene, though certainly the emergence of Pacific Rim economies and the overall shift [...]
Lausanne, Friday 22nd: orality
One of the more exciting initiatives — for me — to be reported here is progress is oral storytelling as a means of bringing the gospel to completely unreached and unengaged peoples. It seems that some segments of the mission community really are getting to grips with what it means to communicate to oral learners, [...]
Lausanne, Friday 22nd: how many peoples are still unreached?
Did you know that you (or your pastor — depends on who you are who is reading this) is one of about twelve million Christian workers across the world. That’s roughly like 3-400 London marathons worth. And if you go to a church, that church is one of around five million local churches across the [...]
Lausanne, Friday 22nd: where are the women?
They have done really well to make this as representational of the body of Christ as possible — quite a task considering the different facets of the church that are taken into account. A third of participants are women, we are told. Not exactly an accurate picture of the church, but well on the way [...]
Lausanne, Thursday 21st: “rain stops play”
Cape Town is set in the most beautiful surroundings, just fabulous. But after four beautiful days of sunshine (during which we were inside the conference centre), today — the conference day off — was cold, wet and cloudy. Trips to Robben Island — the infamous island prison where Nelson Mandela was jailed — were called [...]
Lausanne, Wednesday 20th: the suffering servant
Whether you agree with everything he says or not, John Piper always has something interesting to say, and usually with evident passion. His exposition of Ephesians 3 was no exception. Whereas my own study of the passage had led me to see the inclusion of non-Jews in the people of God as central, he highlighted [...]