Leaders of a Christian movement focused on world evangelization marked the one-year count down to their third major gathering in over three decades Friday.

“It's hard to believe we're one year out,” wrote Lausanne Movement spokesperson Naomi Frizzell to supporters on Friday. “It's both encouraging and scary!”

In less than a year now, around 4,000 Christian leaders from more than 200 countries will gather in Cape Town, South Africa, to confront the critical issues of today as they relate to the future of the Church and world evangelization. Thousands more, meanwhile, will participate in Cape Town 2010 online and through other media.

Cape Town 2010 will be the third international Lausanne Congress held since a committee headed by world renowned evangelist Billy Graham called for the first gathering in 1974, which drew more than 2,700 evangelical leaders from 150 countries and produced the Lausanne Covenant, an evangelical manifesto considered to be one of the most influential documents in Christendom.

The upcoming ten-day event will also be the first organized by the Lausanne Movement in partnership with the World Evangelical Alliance, which represents around 420 million Christians worldwide.

Together, leaders from the two networks will use the gathering to examine the world and today’s culture to discern where the Church should invest its efforts and energies to most effectively respond to Christ’s call to take the gospel into all the world and make disciples of all nations.

"Cape Town 2010 is not just a one-time meeting, but God willing, will be a catalytic event in the life of the church – drawing leaders together in purposeful prayer, humble repentance, strategic dialogue and decisive action," organizers say.

Cape Town 2010 will be held Oct. 16-25, 2010, at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

Lausanne leaders describe their movement as one of "like-minded missional Christians who pray, plan and work together on global evangelization."