Beyond_US.pdf

Unprecedented! It’s beyond US (the United States), and beyond us (members of Bethlehem). Just like our God—doing far beyond all that we could ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20).

“It” is the gathering of global church and missions leaders from across the globe for the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism to be held in Cape Town, South Africa, October 16–25. Why unprecedented?

• The vast majority of the 4,000 delegates will be from the non-Western world.
• All plenary messages will be available on the Internet within a few hours of their delivery.
• The Lausanne Web site and GlobaLink sites around the Twin Cities, the US, and the world will allow more of the Church to participate in the discussions than either of the previous two Congresses.

It is around this “it” that we are building Bethlehem’s Global Focus 2010, appropriately entitled “Beyond US.”

Os Guinness and David Wells write the following in their advanced paper for Lausanne III: “Never has the vision of ‘the whole Gospel for the whole world through the whole church’ been closer yet more contested.” In this article they describe how the work of gospel proclamation is beyond US in the following ways:

1. Beyond our comprehension. “By its very nature, globalization means that we who are finite now have to deal with the whole world—in other words, a world that is always far beyond our full comprehension. … [a] world [that] may have changed even before we have finished describing it. … If the world is ‘universalizing’ in new ways, it is also ‘localizing’ in new ways (which has helped coin the odd term ‘glocal,’ used to describe the impact of the global on the local and the local on the global).”
2. Beyond “Westernization/Americanization. “The old adage that ‘globalization equals Westernization equals Americanization’ is not only wrong but a dangerous conceit. Different cultures, with their own history and their own values, are able to adapt to the modern world in their own way and may always attempt to say ‘No’ to what is considered ‘progress.’”
3. Beyond US in the global nature of God, the Bible, and the global advance of the gospel. “The Christian faith is the world’s first truly global religion. Christians are the most numerous of religious believers in the world. The Christian church is the most diverse community on earth. The Bible is the most translated book in history. And in many parts of the world, the Christian faith is the world’s fastest growing faith, especially when growth is through conversion rather than birth rate… The Church, if it is true to its calling, will think globally because otherwise it will be more parochial than its non-Christian neighbors and, worse, untrue to its Gospel calling.”
4. Beyond US through unprecedented opportunities for mission and evangelism in previously resistant places. “With the destruction of traditions, the collapse of traditional certainties, and the melting down of traditional roles and allegiances, there is greater political liberty, greater social fluidity, greater religious diversity, and greater psychological vulnerability than ever before in history. … We therefore face the prospect of spreading the Gospel in a manner that is ‘freer, faster, and farther’ than ever before in the church’s history, a prospect that must be seized with faith and courage.”
5. Beyond US in the battle against the secularization of our faith. “Secularization means that in the advanced modern world … it is possible for [modern Christians] to live as ‘functional atheists,’ and in more and more of life to have ‘no need of God,’ so that mission is driven by statistics, demographics, and the ‘roll out’ of the Gospel to the ‘unreached,’ rather than by the traditional passion for Christ and for ‘the lost.’”
6. Beyond US in the pursuit of unity with the Global Church of Christ. “Above all, we must face both the opportunities and the challenges of globalization as the united people of God. … In many parts of the world, the current temptation is to fall for the confusion introduced by post-colonialism, but this would divide the church along such lines as ‘the West’ versus ‘the Rest,’ the ‘global North’ against the ‘global South,’ or the churches of the ‘more developed’ world against the churches of the ‘less developed’ world. Such ‘accidental’ and extra-biblical definitions and boundaries were the very mistake that Edinburgh [1910] made in light of the artificial and territorial notion of ‘Christendom.’”

As the faith of gospel recipients from Western/American gospel preachers increases, Western missionaries can no longer assume leadership for the advance of the gospel in all places. It is a collaborative work of the global body of Christ.

Do you want to be a part of this exciting work? Be sure to save these dates: Wednesday evenings October 20 & 27, and Saturday, October 23. Lausanne’s GlobaLink will come to Bethlehem (and 600-some other venues around the world) so that you can actively participate in the Congress—and the finishing of a task that is Beyond US!

All for Christ,

Erik Hyatt, Pastor for Global Outreach