Cape Town 2010 Countdown Begins

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Exactly one year from now Cape Town, South Africa will host The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization. Cape Town 2010 (16-25 October) will draw 4,000 evangelical leaders and influencers from 200 nations, servants of Christ in church leadership, mission, academia and the professions.

Interactive GlobaLink sites, hosted by seminaries, universities, churches and missions, will enable thousands more in many countries to take part in this event.

At lausanne.org/conversation a global conversation has been launched in preparation for the Congress. Through print and broadcast media, blogging and other social networking tools, the whole evangelical Church is being invited to participate in thoughtful dialogue. The Congress is centred around the biblical theme: ‘God in Christ, reconciling the world to himself’. The global conversation will each month focus on an aspect of this as it relates to  the life, service and future of the global Church. It will be stimulated by a series of articles in magazines and journals on all continents.

Gideon Para-Mallam from Jos, Nigeria, an International Deputy Director of The Lausanne Movement, said: ‘Inviting Africa to host this Congress is a wonderful recognition, indeed a celebration, of the African Church. Cape Town 2010 will show the world an Africa where God is at work in a redemptive and transforming way.’ Anglican Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda is Chair of the African Host Committee.

‘With the majority of Christians now in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, we must establish a new global equilibrium on the basis of shared vision and shared calling,’ said Doug Birdsall, Executive Chairman. ‘Christ’s gifts are given to us to share, and we become the global body of Christ on earth as we practise that sharing.’

William Carey, the British missionary to India, often referred to as ‘the father of modern mission’, planned for a congress on world evangelization to be held in Cape Town in 1810, which never came to fruition. Cape Town 2010 will fulfil that great aspiration.

For further information or for photographs, contact:

Africa: Val Pauquet [email protected]

Outside Africa: Julia Cameron, Director of External Relations [email protected]

12 October 2009