Sixth Asia Lausanne Conference on Evangelism 2006
"A New Heart for the Evangelization of Asia"

I'm back from the 5-day stint in Laguna, Philippines. It was splendid. I don't think I heard any cutting-edge papers being presented in this conference. It was merely a reiteration of the reality of Asia having the vast majority of unreached people groups, and the need for the reign of God to be proclaimed to these friends. And yet it was splendid.

It was splendid to see 150 key leaders of the Church in Asia (bishops, missiologists and Asian theologians, mission agency leaders, etc) representing 20 countries in this congregation. It was splendid to hear them sing and speak in different languages. It was a beautiful experience to watch the way in which deep generosity was expressed in the way we accepted the differences in one another's cultures and spiritual traditional expressions. This was most apparently exhibited when a pentecostal grassroots preacher was invited to speak before the audience which consisted of many theological academicians; the spirit of acceptance and forebearance was deeply moving. This was where the real beauty of the event lay; not so much in the tabling of academic missiological papers, but in the congregating of hearts and lives that find their existence and passion in the heartbeat of God.

The flight from Changi International Airport (Singapore) to Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Manila) took three hours. From the airport in Manila, a fleet of vans was present to transport us to the Caliraya Recreation Center in Lumban, Laguna, which took another three hours of travel. My bishop very kindly extended this invitation for me to participate in ALCOE VI with a flight ticket thrown in from his frequent flyer points. I was also sent to this event with my registration fee and lodging expenses fully paid by friends from my local faith community. I'm deeply grateful for such generosity.

This event, although being focused on evangelism, largely reflected the state of the evangelical tradition in Asia today (since it was a congregation of very prominent Asian church leaders). It has therefore provoked some very crucial reflections for me, which I will be blogging about in my new series called Evangelical Shifts. For obvious reasons, it wasn't appropriate to discuss some crises points of evangelicalism in a conference that was focused on evangelism. But this also means that further thought has to be put into these issues beyond ALCOE VI. There is much I will subsequently have to say in my new series of blog entries about the state of evangelicalism in Asia today. These thoughts were certainly provoked by my observations throughout ALCOE VI, but have no particular reference to and should not be taken to refer specifically to that event itself.

Photographs taken from this trip are posted here.