June 4th, 2010 
Dana Fisher On Tuesday night I was lucky enough to attend on of the 12 open forums across the country hosted by the Lausanne Movement. If you don’t know about Lausanne you can read more about how it was formed on their about page. These “12 conversations, 12 cities” were set up to generate awareness of the upcoming CapeTown 2010 Congress. This is the third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelicalization.
Headlining the panel included singers Derek Web and Sara Groves, author Os Guinness, and the co-founder of Bloodwater Mission Jenna Lee
Some times you feel disconnected from reality in your desires. Amongst some close friends and in a Bible study I attend there is talk of getting out within our communities, about going through this world “to heavy” and on needing drastic social change. But at least for me there is this overwhelming sense that we’re traveling this road alone. From a distance it certainly appears that other issues are taking precidence such as wars, immigration, and laws. To hear Christian panelists from around the country speak on the very desires our small groups have been talking about was confirmation and a new connection that we aren’t alone.
There were a couple of great points I’d like to mention:
- Materialism and the gifts of God
“America has confused what God’s gifts are.” -Jena Lee Jena went on to say that the people she would speak to in Africa feel pity for us because when it rains, they know it’s from God, and when they harvest crops they know they are from God. Meanwhile, we sit here in America and complain when it rains and take it for granted that we can go to a store and by all the food we want.
The subtler things are doing us in, it’s not the larger issues Os Guinness added. And Sara Groves mentioned how we’ve perfected the comforting of ourselves in America. It’s true that we as Christians really focus on this really big topics but fail to address smaller things that are slowly eating away at our foundation. We’ve become comfortable and complacent in our lives, happy where we are and content to just “go to heaven”.
- The younger generation
Don’t get caught up in generationalism.” -Os Guinness I think this was one of my favorite points of the night. This idea that young people aren’t ready or intelligent enough to lead the way. He went on to say that we aren’t listening to the younger generation on innovative ways to create change and advance the Kingdom. I couldn’t agree more. It’s time to pass the torch and face the fire. Enable this younger people and empower them. Their ideas matter and each of them can change the world but we tend to discourage them by not listening in our ignorance rather than building them up and challenging them to make a difference.
- Community
Grab hold of how others see Jesus so you can grow and understand Him more. -Sara Groves This point struck me in that if you read between the lines, what she is really saying is “embrace each other, you need each other”. I took this away as the main point driven home throughout the night. It was mentioned over and over again. We desperately need to start working together, but also trusting each other, sharing with each other, and confiding in one another. We have no chance of growing individually if we cut ourselves off from everyone.
A great point made by Os Guinness as things wrapped up was this: “In modern society there is nothing harder than genuine community”. I would take it even further and say that Satan has so individualized us and saturated us with ipods, and tv shows and me first mentalities that community is almost impossible to harness. I believe in our hearts we want it but when we get close and things get tough we severe the tie and we have to start all over. We aren’t willing to risk much but want to reward.
All in all I had a great time, and learned a lot from hearing their different view points. If you can get out to one of the other open forums I highly suggest you do. It was well worth it.
Posted in 
Tags: 
