Third Lausanne Congress
Monday, November 8, 2010
:: Putting my fingers on the pulse of Global Christianity ::
It was a tremendous privilege for me to participate in the Third Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa, between 16-25, October. Over 4,200 Christian leaders from 197 representing over 5 million local churches, 12 million Christian workers gathered to discuss the new challenges of the Body of Christ in our globalized world. (You can learn more about the history of how Dr. Billy Graham, John Stott, Francis Shaffer and others launched the Lausanne movement by watching this short film here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZcQGYIWhR8 )
Along with dozens of things I’ve learned, I came home with the following 3 important lessons:
:: A new challenge the Church never faced before ::
Globalization is the greatest challenge and the greatest opportunity for the gospel in the history of the church. Globalization is a huge difference from anything that ever happened before. Globalization makes evangelism easier, but discipleship harder. Globalization takes us from an integrated faith to a fragmented faith. It shifts faith from authority to preferences; from supernatural to sensation. Global and short term is popular, but local and long term is effective. 50% of the population now lives in cities.
:: An old task we need to pursue with renewed passion ::
“The Whole Church taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World” - is the motto of Lausanne Movement. This world is full of incredible sufferings and monumental changes. 100 years ago 80% of Christians lived in Europe and North-America. Now 65% of Christians live in the global South (Asia, Africa and Latin-America). A new history of the Church is written right now. But still 3,700 people groups have never heard the gospel, never met a follower of Christ, and not one missionary is working among them. Still, 2000 years after the birth of Christ, on 2,252 languages there is not one line of the Scripture translated. This is absolutely WRONG! What are we gonna do about it?
Our ministry in Hungary will adopt an unreached people group and will try to pursue sending a missionary there!
:: A high price that we all need to be willing to pay ::
“Salvation and persecution are the basic teachings for a new Christian” - said a pastor from Algeria as he was presented that each year 200,000 Christians are killed for their faith. We’ve listened amazing testimonies of young and old sharing how they had been persecuted for their faith and how their family members, friends had been killed.
I highly recommend for you to watch just one person’s short testimony about the unbelievable persecution he had to suffer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmud1e_tFUA
No wonder that Christianity grows so fast in the South if they are willing to pay such price!
:: YTL Student Fall Retreat - 5-7 November ::
In 1985 (during communism) while sharing my faith at the beach of Siofok, two policeman came and arrested me. 25 years later at the same beach this week-end we’ve hosted 150 students at our YTL Student Fall Retreat to praise God together and learn about His faithfulness. We were listening missionaries who had been serving the Lord for 40 years in the mission field. It was very uplifting to all of us, but especially to these young students as they saw - as most of them just started their walk with God - how God will carry them through the storms of life if they are willing to remain faithful!
:: Prayer-needs ::
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1.We need Americans to come to our summer camp, called SpeakOut! www.speakout.hu/staff
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2.I keep traveling a lot to the country with the “Contrast exhibition” which is our partnership program with the Police and the Presbyterian Church. In the past 2 months we gave YTL talks to over 10,000 students and educators! I’ll have a planning meeting with the Bishop of the Presbyterian Church on November 16th about the future of this program.
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3.There are several students who are considering joining staff with us in the next year or the year after. Pray for them: Flora, Dafcsi, Nori, Csaba, Kata, Dusi, Kiso, Zsofi, Sanyi, Luke, Caitlin. Pray for God’s will in their life.
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4.Health for our family.
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5.Finances for the ministry.
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6.Legal stability - the government would not change our registration.
We are giving thanks to God for you DAILY! Your faithful partnership is key to our ministry!
Advancing the Kingdom of God together,
Gabor for Edina and the kids
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