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Michael Milton is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America. He is the Chancellor/CEO Elect of Reformed Theological Seminary, USA.
He is attending the 2010 Lausanne Third Conference on World Evangelism being held in Cape Town.
Milton’s perceptions of the event would be similar to many Australian Presbyterian pastors. In the absence of one of our own reporting from Cape Town I’m posting links to six posts by Milton on his impressions of the conference. There’s a some excerpts which will hopefully whet your appetites to read more.
The subject matter of the fourth post was widely commented on by many who attended, and if you were only going to read one post, please read that.

Lessons from Lausanne –
Number One: Don’t Assume in the Kingdom of God

This is what surprised me: I had imagined that I would learn, my goal in this experience, from those third world Christians, but never from Europeans. They are in nothing more than dead churches, right? They are spiritually worse off than Britain and America and Canada, right? My first lesson: Don’t assume in the Kingdom of God. The Lord is bigger than our petty assumptions made on human ways of looking at things. In fact, just as God would prosper the Jews in Babylon, God is doing that with the European Christians who are wrestling, praying, strategizing and planning to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth and to reclaim old Christendom.
Read the whole post.

Lesson Two: I am Not Indispensible to the Kingdom of God!

…I do not know if Moses had a premonition of his situation, that he nor his generation would not enter the Promised Land, that it would be the next generation, but he prayed that the Lord would show His work, that is, His intended work for them to do to carry forth His divine purposes in the world, not only to them but to “their children.” It would be the children, having seen God’s “glorious power” at work in the lives of their parents, that would carry the dream forward and who would bear the purposes of God across the Jordan.
I am discovering that here at Lausanne in many ways. Let me mention two.
Firstly: After twenty-five hours of travel and two hours of sleep, I was given an epiphany: I am not twenty years old any more. My back hurts, I underestimated my need of sleep, I am thus clinging to coffee, Tylenol and Imodium and wondering if there is a tomorrow. I think there will be if the Lord tarries, but right now it doesn’t feel like it. I say this because I see a new generation of Christians arising to take up the mantle of youthful leadership in the Kingdom…
Secondly: I am amazed at the amazing work of Jesus Christ in our generation among young Christian leaders in places and in denominational groups that would have otherwise escaped me…
Read the whole post.

Lesson Number Three: There is One Faith

“One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4.5).
The Third Congress on International Evangelism began tonight with an opening greeting and Scriptural word from the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, The Rt. Rev. Henry Luke Orombi:
“Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5.20), which is a uniting theme for us all here. From there we were shown one of the most moving films about Christian history that I have ever seen. Written by Jerry Newcomb (of Coral Ridge Ministries and an assistant pastor at New Presbyterian Church in South Florida) and narrated by an African pastor, the film was a sweeping overview (really quite epic in tone as it was shown with rich orchestration and dramatic imagery) of major turning points (the title of the film) in Christian history from Pentecost to Cape Town 2010.
Read the whole post.

Lesson from Lausanne # 4: Great Things are Done in Hidden Places

The closing testimony last night, about the amazing growth of the Church in Asia, featured a young lady I will never forget all of the days of my life. She will remain anonymous here, just as she must. She is a Ruth. She is a Hannah. She is a Nehemiah. She is God’s great girl though hidden from the world. Standing before us, dressed in what appeared to be her boarding school uniform, she carefully read her testimony. The salient features of that testimony include the death of her pregnant mother. She told of how she and her father, who worked for Kim Jung II, sought to live after that. Her father was converted to Christ during this time. They fled to China. There they lived with Christians. Her father returned to North Korea, out of a love for his people, to preach Jesus Christ. For this he was imprisoned. The girl lived, then, with a pastor and his wife. After three years her father was released and they were reunited “for a short period.” Why? Because her father went back in to Korea to preach again. He has not been heard from since.
“They have probably shot him as they do the others who preach Christ.”
She was adopted by the pastoral family. Now at 18 years of age, she is in a school in South Korea. She told us, as she continued her careful reading, looking up only once and that for just a glance at the massive crowds of over 4,000, that she wanted to go to university. There, she continued, she wanted to study political science. She wanted to be involved in diplomacy in order to get back into North Korea and to “do what my father did: to share the love of Jesus with my people.”
Then, her voice began to crack just a bit. A lump appeared in my throat. She paused and continued, “Please pray for my people. Please pray for North Korea that they will hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ…” and her words finally gave way to sobs. The audience intuitively stood and applauded.
Read the whole post.

Lausanne Lesson # 5: Peace is Possible

The lesson that hit me the hardest was the one that revealed a lack of faith in my heart. You see when I hear that we are about to go on another peace negotiation for Palestinians (a derivative of Philistines), I think to myself, “There will be no peace until Jesus returns. Any attempts otherwise can only be a band-aid.” Maybe you have thought that too. I don’t deny that this is likely true in the political and diplomatic realm. But yesterday I saw a beautiful young Palestinian Christian woman, a professional woman reared in Nazareth, who was very articulate, tell how Jesus Christ removed the hatred in her heart for the Israelis (under whose harsh treatment, her family had suffered). Christ not only healed her with His love, but He did so to such an extent that she now leads a ministry of reconciliation aimed at peace between Palestinians and Israelis: a reconciliation grounded totally in Jesus of Nazareth. Standing right next to her was an Israeli. This distinguished-looking young man who spoke with an almost Midwestern-broadcast-ready American accent (he lived for a while in the States when his father was transferred there), told us that his father would be mortified to know that he was addressing 4,000 evangelical Christians! But he would not even be able to possibly conceive, in his wildest imagination, how his son could be doing even that and also standing next to a Palestinian woman! Yet he told of how Jesus, “Yeshua,” came into his life, changed him, gave him faith out of a secularized Judaism, which he said was the norm in his country, and replaced it with true faith. He believed that Jesus was God. That Jesus also brought love: a love for others, a love for Palestinians. Therefore, standing before me was a rebuffing of my cynicism.
Read the whole post.

Lesson # 6-Things are not Always that Simple

…an Assembly of God evangelist, a very poised and confident middle-aged woman, told us of how she was converted to Christ and how her husband and whole family came to the Lord out of Islam. “Why would Jesus do this? She asked. “Because God so love the world…” and that “world includes Muslims.” She told of how she lived next to a mosque but could never enter the place of prayer reserved for men, yet she has told her story of Christ to more pulpits than she could count. She told of how in her Middle Eastern country thousands are coming to Christ. The applause and enthusiasm were at such a pitch that we felt the Kingdom would surely overtake Islam within days!
After that, immediately after that, a young man came to the podium. He began by saying that what he had to say would not be as exciting. In fact, he said “I have had no visions or dreams. I came to Christ when I was invited by a friend to come to an Anglican congregation while in college. I heard the Gospel, repented and believed in Jesus.” Since then, he told us with quiet honesty, a meekness and a humility that could not be feigned, “Out of ten prayers, one is thanksgiving, the other nine are crying out, sometimes in anger, and sometimes in frustration.” He told of how hard his work was. Yet he asked for our prayers for the Church in Islamic Fundamentalist strongholds. He told us that it was the love of Jesus Christ that will ultimately turn many of his people to the Lord.
Read the whole post.