Declaring our faith

Coming from a United Methodist background, affirming a creed was something that Christians simply did by rote in the Sunday service just before the Gloria Patri. But on Saturday night at the Lausanne Congress, the act of professing the Nicene Creed came bellowing out of my soul with a gusto I do not ever recall having in such a recitation.

Often times, the Apostles Creed is the statement most often used in most contexts, but one thing I deeply appreciate about the Nicene is that whereas the former is usually stated in the first person singular, the latter is most often translated and affirmed in the first person plural. To place this use of a creed in context, we at the conference had spent sessions learning about persecution: being stirred by sensational stories of many who have suffered simply for what they believe. Just prior to the creed, the 4000 participants humbled themselves by "taking a knee" and engaging in a session of confession of sin, first personally and then collectively on behalf of our own peoples.

So it was with great solidarity that sisters and brothers from places like Eritrea, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Norway, and Colombia, and even this American declared, “We believe…”

May Christians never forget that when we affirm the Ecumenical Creeds, we are joining with servants and disciples of Jesus the world over. It is not a light thing to declare our faith!

The new reality of the church

One thing that has deeply impressed me being here at the Lausanne Congress on Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa is the rich diverse reality of the world church. Though America is still the largest contingency from one single nation, there is no doubt the new center of gravity of the church is represented. With the exception of the Chinese Christians, many who were refused departure from airports in China, the conference is representative of 198 different countries, and is quite possibly the most diverse gathering of Christians in church history.

As one who has been working with missions emanating from Africa, I am delighted to see that the spiritual and theological hegemony of the Western Church beginning to be set aside. As I spoke to a delegate living in the south side of Chicago, he told me that his “world was not the world” and that the he has gained perspective. He told me that his understanding of suffering was too small when we were exposed to the stories of fellow believers such as a wife of a missionary who lost her husband a few weeks ago in a South Asian country or of an Anglican archbishop who shared of how 30-40 people twice stormed into his house to kill him, leaving his wife blind and beaten the first time when they discovered he was not present and had his life spared only the second time after he began to pray and his attackers decided to leave.

The reality of the church is that the day of Southern Christianity (and I am not talking about a region in the US where people say “y’all” and eat pork barbeque) has come.

May the Lord bring fruit from bringing such diverse people together.