Countdown to CapeTown 2010

After 24 hours of air travel (thanks Delta for the upgrade!) I’ve finally arrived in one of the most beautiful cities in the world – Cape Town, South Africa.  I’m here working (as a volunteer) on the broadcast media team, creating stories that capture the spirit and experience of this landmark Congress, and releasing them to the world’s media for broadcast.

I called this a landmark Congress, and I didn’t do that lightly.  Consider the following:

• This is the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization (the first was in 1974 in Lausanne, Switzerland and was the brainchild of Billy Graham; the second was in 1989 in Manila, Philippines) and it’s predecessors were all milestones of the missionary movement.
• The Lausanne Covenant, which came out of the first Lausanne Congress, has proven to be one of the most influential documents in modern Evangelical Christianity.
• The Second Lausanne Congress elaborated on the Lausanne Covenant with the Manila Manifesto, a document affirmed by the 4,000 participants.  Some 300 partnerships were formed at Lausanne II to strengthen the efforts of the Church for world evangelization.
• CapeTown 2010 will likely be the most diverse Christian gathering in history.  A full 70% of the 4,000+ participants come from the Majority World; and 25% are Africans.  197 nations will be represented.  (Pray for the Chinese delegation – their government is blocking their departure.)
• This historic event falls on the 100th anniversary of the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland.  The spirit of the Conference was driven by this call: “The Evangelization of the World in This Generation.”
• 200 years ago William Carey, considered the father of modern missions, sailed past Cape Town, and he proposed an international missionary conference to be held there in 1810.  That dream never was realized, but now in God’s timing, CapeTown 2010 is about to begin.

I was privileged to have been selected to be the Director of Communications for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (now known as The Lausanne Movement) for the two years leading up to Lausanne II in Manila, and served as Media Director during the Congress.  Then, I was one of the “younger leaders” being mentored by great men such as Thomas Zimmerman, Leighton Ford, Thomas Wang, Ed Dayton and many others.  Today, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t blend into the crowd in the Younger Leaders’ Lounge, but instead, I find myself looking for the twenty- and thirty-somethings that I can encourage.

You can take part in this historic gathering. Check out the CapeTown 2010 website and participate in The Global Conversation.  If you have a television or radio outlet, contact me by email (jsindorf AT gmail DOT com) and I’ll get you set up for downloading program content direct from the Congress – we can even customize the reports for your station or program.

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here.  God’s going to do something… I can feel it.