Last summer the Council of Deacons approved my attendance at Singapore ’87 from June 1-10. It seemed strategic to piggy back a trip to our BGC mission fields in the Philippines on the way to Singapore.

So on May 12 Noël and I will fly to Manila. I am scheduled to teach a two-week course at the Metro Manila Bible Community “College of the Shepherds” on the book Desiring God. The course is only taught Mondays through Wednesdays, so there will be time to visit three other locations where our missionaries are working.

On May 31 Noël will return alone to Minneapolis and I will fly on to Singapore for the ten-day conference called Singapore ’87.

What is Singapore ’87?

In 1974, 2,700 participants (including my mother and father) attended the International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland. Shortly after the Congress a continuing Committee was appointed, now called the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. Its task is to mobilize Christians and churches everywhere for world evangelization.

The chairman of the Lausanne Committee is Leighton Ford. Several years ago Mr. Ford, like our own Rollin Erickson, lost his 21-year-old son, Sandy, during a heart operation. This loss jolted him again into thinking about the next generation of evangelical leaders. Who are they? Do they know each other? Are they being challenged to pick up the reins from the graying post-World War II generation of leaders?

This concern to nurture and mobilize a new generation of evangelical leaders in world evangelization caused Leighton Ford to propose a Young Leaders Committee “to challenge the world-wide evangelical Protestant church to encourage younger/emerging leaders.” This Committee has now been renamed the “Singapore ’87 Committee,” and the conference this June 1-10 is the first effort to gather younger evangelical leaders together.

About 350 participants (some 40 from North America) will gather in Singapore. Their task: “To build a network of fruitful friendships that will enhance cooperation in world evangelization for decades to come.”

I will be leading a workshop in team with Ajith Fernando of Sri Lanka on “Christ: The Only Way to Salvation.” But mainly I hope to be a learner, and to be refreshed and inspired for the task of reaching not only the thousands of unreached peoples of the world, but also our lost tribe in the Twin Cities.

I need your prayers now as I prepare for the course in Manila and the workshop in Singapore. I am deeply grateful to you and the Deacons for supporting me in this venture and to the staff for picking up the burden in my absence. Pray for them, too!

Depending on your prayers and the Spirit of Jesus,

Pastor John