On Monday, more than 4,000 delegates representing 198 nations wrapped up Cape Town 2010, the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization held in Cape Town, South Africa. In addition to the leaders present in Cape Town, event organizers say that 100,000 unique visitors came to their website during the conference and 650 “GlobalLink” sites were set up in 91 countries where others could watch the proceedings through technology links.
Cape Town 2010 actually used more Internet bandwidth than the World Cup, which was recently held in South Africa. “This is an unprecedented level of Internet usage for the country of South Africa,” said Amy Donovan, Tech Squad Manager for the Congress.
The conference gave birth to The Cape Town Commitment, a declaration of belief and a call to action. “We would like The Cape Town Commitment to be seen as ‘a gift to the local church from representatives of the global church’,” said the Rev. Doug Birdsall, Chairman of The Lausanne Movement.
“The evangelical church has rightly put an emphasis on bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to every people group, but we have perhaps been a little weaker in our attempts to apply biblical principles to every area of society, and to public policy: to the media, to business, to government. We need to engage deeply with all human endeavor – and with the ideas which shape it,” said Lindsay Brown, Lausanne Movement International Director, in his closing address. The Congress included an executive leadership forum and a think tank for leaders in government, business and academia. “There is a groundswell of conviction,” said Brown, “that greater concerted effort is needed to apply biblical truth in these arenas.”
The Lausanne Movement was founded by evangelist Billy Graham. The Lausanne Covenant was issued during the first Lausanne Congress and has since become widely regarded as one of the most significant documents in recent church history. Organizers believe that The Cape Town Commitment will likewise become a significant document for years to come. The final version of it will be available in December to reflect the discussions generated during the Congress.
We’ll have highlights from Cape Town 2010 in our next post, including the story of 200 invited delegates whose country stopped them from attending.