Cape Town, South Africa

Forty years ago Billy Graham convened a conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, to address the issue of Global Evangelism. Twenty years later a second conference was held for the same reason in Manilla.

Lausanne III took place in Cape Town, South Africa and I was invited as one of the participants. The buget for the eight days was £6 million - half of which was dedicated to providing bursaries so that people in economically challenged parts of the world could attend.

Four thousand people gathered from one hundred and ninety countries and the whole proceeding was translated into 28 languages via the booths of the interpreters and the headphones of the delegates.

Among the most moving moments of the congress was the opening night where we learned that, at the last minute, the Chinese government had refused the Chinese delegation visas while putting them all under house arrest - emphasising the continued persecution of the Church under Communism. Despite the harassment of the government the church continues to explode with many millions of Christians coming to faith in Christ in recent years.

As an act of solidarity with our brothers and sisters in China, all 4000 delegates stepped away from their chairs at a signal from the platform to send out the message, "There is a place for you at this conference even though you have been denied the opportunity to take it."

During the same service a teenage girl from north Korea told how her family had become Christians in one of the most closed and brutal nations in the world. Her father had 'disappeared' but she was going to return to the country to reach people for Christ even though it would mean almost certain martyrdom.

Much of the worship was Pentecostal in style though on the last evening a communion service was led by the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda.

Every possible means of communication imaginable was used during the week including - preaching, drama, mime, dance (traditional and contemporary) music and state-of-the-art computer graphics.

Despite increased persecution around the world, the Church is unstoppable