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Responder Bandeira 0 Gostou Não Gostou GEORGIE_L (0)  
Índia

The Church must follow the example laid out by our Lord in His 3

24.10.2010

Responder Bandeira 0 Gostou Não Gostou Andrescorrales (0)  
Uruguai

Hablamos mucho acerca del tema de la prosperidad y de como necesitariamos mas distribucion de materiales como libros, videos etc.
Para hacer llegar el mensaje biblico y la sana interpretacion de las escrituras en el sentido de como se maneja hoy el tema de la prosperidad, ya que la iglesia esta inundada por este cancer de teologia que exalta las ambiciones personales antes que el plan supremo de Dios.

24.10.2010

Responder Bandeira 0 Gostou Não Gostou Cosmas_C_Ilechukwu (0)  
Nigéria

Femi’s prejudice and bais are too obvious in his schewed presentation. He was clearly unbalanced in his criticism of properity gospel. God in no place in the bible recommends poverty for his children. While I don’t accept manipulating the word of God to extort money from people, there is a clear teaching in the bible that giving and tithing do attract God’s blessing.

24.10.2010

Responder Bandeira 0 Gostou Não Gostou csl211 (1)
Estados Unidos

Yesterday’s multiplex on homosexuality suggests that we are divided along cultural lines, not able to articulate a coherent position on this issue, which is increasingly damaging our witness as a church. It is important that we as a global church affirm our love of the gay community, our abhorrence of homophobia and commitment to fight it, even as we defend the sanctity of marriage and our right to engage in thoughtful civic debates in the public square.

24.10.2010

Responder Bandeira 0 Gostou Não Gostou Matt_H (0)  
Austrália

In my response today I want to ask the question, “is there anything of historical significance happening at Lausanne III?” And of course the heart of this question is another, “Is God saying anything to us that is fresh or in a new light?” I believe the answer is yes He is, and today’s focus on Partnerships may be the catalyst for it if we are listening.
Certainly the practise of using table groups as Lausanne III has done will be a historical step. It is quite possible, as Doug Birdsall has said, that Christian conferences, and even the practises and methods of Christian teachers, may be changed from the example of this Congress. That would be great, however, I hope we are known for more.
Two days ago I put the sense of what I believe is part of what God is saying to us into a historical perspective by examining the Lausanne Covenant and Manila Manifesto. I believe they are pointers to what God is saying that is fresh: namely, to quote the Lausanne Covenant, a commitment to a “deeper unity” between us.
And I sense, and conversations with other Congress participants from around the world back the heart of this, that this “deeper unity”, rests in a deliberate and intentionally expressed centrality of the Lord Jesus above all other identities. Calisto Odede exposition of Ephesians 4-6 confirmed this today as the heart of the passage was the love of Christ in Ephesians 5:1-2. The behaviours in the rest of the chapters, emanate from this central place of the Lord Jesus. Chris Wright confirmed this by calling us to be HIS people at the end of his presentation on Humility, Integrity and Simplicity. Today had a greater focus on the centrality of the Lord Jesus than the previous day did.
However, I must raise some concerns about the Congress, that illustrate that we are not hearing, or if we are, not expressing in public, our awareness of God’s call about this issue. I will put my concerns under the three headings that are the clarion call of the Lausanne Movement.
The whole church
It has been wonderful to hear of how “God is on the move” around the world, and particularly the Global South. It has been right and good for this Congress, hosted in Africa, to be led and have public faces predominantly from the Global South. However, in so doing, it has not reflected the whole church. It is not just an ethnic issue – I could outline the nations, even continents that have been obvious in their absence on the platform, but we must recognise that there is no way that all nations and cultures could be adequately represented publicly in one week - it is also a theological issue. In the end, this Congress has not represented even the whole evangelical church. Yes it is a call to the whole church, but the whole church has not been represented here.
The whole gospel
And this theological issue relates to the whole gospel. Because of the theological history of Lausanne, of which I am a part and celebrate its influence on me and the world, we have not really reflected the whole gospel. It has been great to open God’s word, I would not have done without it, but we have had a heavily “cross-centred” gospel here. Now this is right as the cross, our calling card as the church, is a great corrective to many things in the world and the church for world evangelisation. However, even after quoting 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 as the simplest biblical outline of the gospel, one part of that passage has been decidedly absent: the resurrection. As I said, this reflects the warmly reformed Anglo-American history of Lausanne, but could Lausanne III be an opportunity for the evangelical church to broaden its public expression of the gospel a little? Could we not have reflected what the resurrection has to say about the issue of world evangelisation? We hovered around it on day one and two with the focus on the Cosmic Christ, but it has waned a little. It is the present ministry of the risen and ascended Lord Jesus by His Holy Spirit that empowers world evangelism. We have had little reflection on this.
The whole world
Like the whole church, we have nearly touched the whole world, but not quite. There has been little reflection on what God is doing in the South Pacific, and although Eurasia got a plug last night, to put “the western church” in one group minimizes much of what God is doing uniquely in different western areas. It may sound a little harsh, but Lausanne III really has been about “the Global South” rather than the whole world. Once again it has been an appropriate corrective perhaps, but the triumphalism that has permeated certain presentations has lifted numerous human identities above others.
Which brings me to the fresh or new light call God is bring to us: a fresh commitment to a centrality on the Lord Jesus Christ – not just theologically, but strategically and practically. This is why today’s sessions on partnership will be so important. If Jesus is lifted high as the ground and centrality of our partnership across all identities, then we have heard. If not, we need to listen up! As I said yesterday, my reading of the papers prepared for these sessions does not give me much hope. What God is calling us to do is expressly submit our identities to the Lord Jesus Christ
I ask that the Congress Leadership rigorously examine this issue and see if it is what God is saying to us that is fresh and in a new light. Much of what we have heard has, quite rightly, gone over old ground. However, there is something fresh! Please make sure it is reflected in the Cape Town Commitment, a renewed thoroughness in ensuring the Lord Jesus Christ is expressly at the centre of our working together and response to Him. We cannot presume or assume he is, we must, in the words again of Proverbs 3:6, “acknowledge him in all our ways” and the promise is He will “make straight our paths”.
Of course it is not merely words. We need to expressly acknowledge the Lord Jesus in our words, documents and partnerships, however, expressing Him in that place is also about our behaviour, and by that I mean our mutual submission to Him. I will write more on this later, however this takes us back to the where I sensed this at the start of the week: we need to submit our identities to Him. And, in the last few days, we have missed this as what has been presented to us has come not through the Lord Jesus first, but through theological, ministry passion and ethnic identities first. God is calling us to submit these, if not our words will condemn us, our unity and partnerships will only go so far, and world evangelisation, although effective in part, will fall short of our hopes. Whether it is the Lord’s hopes we will find out when He returns. All we can do is humbly, together, seek his way and seek to put it into practise. I hope we do.
To this end I repeat the paragraphs I penned yesterday (slightly amended to correct spelling mistakes!) that I hope will be reflected in the Cape Town Commitment, perhaps in different words, to sum up this fresh word from the Lord, putting these matters in a new light for the evangelical church at Lausanne III,
We celebrate the wonder and grandeur of the biblical Lord Jesus Christ in all his fullness as the one through whom all things and all people will be brought together as one. We admit that there are many times in which we as His people have approached the sharing of the whole gospel with the whole world in a way that has ignored His Lordship over our hearts, practises, relationships and intentions. We admit that perhaps more often than we realise we have approached world evangelisation and our relationships one with another as His people in ways that reflect the priority of our own identities (such as ethnic identities, denominational identities, theological identities, ministry passion identities, giftedness identities, and ministry and mission identities) above Him as the one who holds us as one body. We state with clarity and conviction our commitment to hold more loosely to these identities than we have in the past and commit afresh to His Lordship in all our evangelistic relationships and practises.
We embrace this commitment and relish the opportunities to build relationships one with another that are characterised by self-sacrificial love, gentleness, humility, patience and a desire and practise to enlarge the ministry of others. And we state categorically that these behaviours come first from our mutual submission to the Jesus Christ as our common Lord in fullness of His Spirit. We will reflect this renewed heart and commitment by deliberately and regularly expressing our cooperation and unity under His Lordship and emanating from His central position in word, heart, prayer and verbal encouragement to one another.

23.10.2010

Responder Bandeira 0 Gostou Não Gostou intlmanofministry (0)  
Suíça

This morning’s session was the best yet at the Lausanne conference. It was challenging and convicting. I believe it is only by getting closer to Christ in this way that we will succeed in our goal of world evangelization.

23.10.2010

Responder Bandeira 0 Gostou Não Gostou intlmanofministry (0)  
Suíça

The drama this morning was fantastic. It was real, too real maybe. Many of us in Christian ministry have been there, where the ministry becomes more important than the gospel message, when there is a real disconnect between what we teach and what we do.
Bravo!

23.10.2010

Responder Bandeira 0 Gostou Não Gostou RagamuffinRese (3)  
Estados Unidos

My heart was torn with repentance this morning. Everything from the exposition and the messages to the dance and drama and the special song Inexplicably, God pointed out places within that needed to be broken. Yet He also graciously used those same elements to mend the tearing and brokenness with the hope of being God’s daughter, called and loved by Him - to the praise of His glory!

23.10.2010

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