“2010!”  Can you believe it?  This much anticipated year is now upon us.  Cape Town 2010 (CT2010) is just nine and a half months away.  The vision we have been articulating and the plans that we have been developing since June 2005 will soon be a reality.  How we pray that this Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization will be a moment in time when God reveals his glory to his gathered people in a powerful way that has global and historic impact.  How we pray that we will hear God’s voice in such a way that will bring unity, vision and strength to the church which enables us to be agents of hope and reconciliation in our world desperately in need of hope.

Call to Action:  Prayer and Bible Study
As we enter into this final stretch of preparation for CT2010, I would like to issue two challenges to each person in the Lausanne Movement.  First of all, I ask you to intensify your prayers on behalf of the Congress.  We have invested much by way of organization and preparation for this Congress.  We are deeply grateful for the quality of work and the caliber of gifted people who have worked so hard to ensure that CT2010 is meticulously planned.  We are also encouraged by the enthusiasm and momentum that this has created among evangelical leaders all around the world.  Given the great potential of this Congress, we should anticipate and prepare ourselves for more pointed and intense spiritual warfare in these coming months as Satan will certainly attempt to discredit, divide and disrupt the plans and the planners for Cape Town 2010.

Second, I would like to encourage every person to make it a priority to study, to teach and to memorize the book of Ephesians in the course of this year (Learn more).  I believe that as we study the book of Ephesians (the text for the expositions during the Congress) God will give insights to us and through us that will enrich our shared experience at the Congress itself.

Our shared life of prayer and Bible study will produce benefits in at least three areas:

1. Most obviously, it will enrich and deepen our spiritual life
2. Prayer and Bible study are the most effective means of preparing for spiritual warfare
3. Our call to the global church to deep level commitment to Christ and the gospel will be much more credible as we ourselves cultivate this life in our own community

Let us never lose sight of the fact that all of this effort is for one purpose – the glorious work of world evangelization.  We pray that all of our energy in preparing for Cape Town 2010 will result in strengthening our effectiveness in calling the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world.

2010 is now upon us.  May this be a year in which we experience the joy of Christ and the power of the gospel in new and wonderful ways.  May Cape Town 2010 be known for decades to come as a time and place of reformation in the church and transformation in the world.  God bless you.

“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love may grasp how wide
and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:17-18).