From generation to generation

The mountaintop is where the faithful find clarity and the weary are renewed. 

For young people in the ecumenical movement, the mountaintop is where they gather to lay bare their laments, chart their dreams, and seek God’s guidance for the valleys below. But the ascent is steep. 

Emma Rahman, a determined ecumenist from the Presbyterian Church of Trinidad and Tobago, describes the ecumenical movement as “the time on the mountaintop before we return to the valley.” The valley, she says, is filled with despair—wars rage, glaciers melt, the social fabric in many places frays beyond repair, and churches are hollowed out by corruption.  

The despair that young Christians face today is compounded by an increasing rarity––worldwide, young people are less likely to be religiously affiliated. In 46 out of 106 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Centre in 2018, young people regard religion as less important than older adults. 

Yet on the mountaintop, Emma finds what she calls “hope as discipline,” a sacred endurance forged in global solidarity, channeled into action that defies despair. She is not alone. From South Africa to South Korea, young people of faith are scaling the peaks of the ecumenical movement, wrestling with what it means to live out their faith in a broken world. They choose vocations that align with their values, working in peace-building, education, and human rights advocacy. They lead grassroots initiatives to heal fractured communities, advocating for systemic change and speaking truth to power.

Many are finding ways to integrate their faith into daily life as “mission,” embodying what it means to be Christian-in-community, even as they distance themselves from traditional institutional affiliations. This generation’s approach to faith is bold, adaptive, and rooted in solidarity: a glimpse of what it means to bring the wisdom of the mountaintop to the valleys below. 

Prophetic voices of young people

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has long recognised the vital role of young people in the ecumenical movement. In 1925, the First Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work in Stockholm issued a message emphasising the ardour, energy, and fresh perspective of young people in building a better social order, “in the service of the kingdom of God and humanity.” 

Nearly a century later, the WCC continues to prioritise youth inclusion—but the struggles remain the same. Engagement is not enough. 

What does it mean to be young, religious, and politically aware in this moment? And what future lies ahead for young people in the ecumenical movement? 

It has been two years since the young people of the WCC stood before the WCC 11th Assembly in Karlsruhe and issued a bold statement of lament. “Sit with our anger,” they said, offering a raw litany of grief: the climate crisis, economic inequality, systemic corruption. Their voices were defiant and the weight of their words was unmistakeable. They were not calling for band-aid solutions; they demanded a reckoning. 

The questions—what now and what next—linger still. The valleys in Trinidad and Tobago are rife with corruption and racism, but for Emma, who works in the national Ministry of Planning and Development, hope feels tenuous. “Hope is discipline,” she says, borrowing a phrase from a fellow young ecumenist. “It’s digging deep, finding joy in resistance, and recognising that the valleys are where we must fight.” 

Between faith and despair

Annika Mathews, a young lay leader from the Church of England, understands this tension between faith and despair all too well. She says, “The othering I have faced in the Church as a young neurodivergent woman has impacted my well-being.” Although she felt called to be a priest, she admits that she is “unable to remain in an environment where power games prevail over Christian values”. 

For Annika, a trainee mental health social worker in the UK, stepping outside the confines of the church has been essential to keeping her faith alive. Her advocacy is informed by the Magnificat’s call to champion the marginalised. “It’s about challenging injustice, gently but firmly, and shining hope into young people’s lives, especially those struggling with their mental health, sexuality, or other difficult circumstances.”

Rev. Stacey Duensing Pearce belongs to the First Reformed Church of the USA. For her, the ecumenical movement inspires action, even in small ways. It “de-centres” her from the priorities of the global north, bursting her bubble and provoking her to confront the weight of responsibility borne by those in the global north for the climate crisis. 

At a recent WCC meeting, she was moved by the prophetic words of Iemaima Vaai, a young leader from the Pacific Conference of Churches, who spoke about the devastation of climate change. “When our church [in the USA] received a financial gift, we used it for solar panels,” Rev. Stacey says. “It’s a tiny step in a huge problem, but I’m grateful for ecumenical spaces that challenge and change me.” 

Swing back, push forward

In South Africa, freshly ordained at the age of 24, Rev. Jacques Heymans likens the ecumenical movement to a swing. “We go back to history to understand where we’ve been,” he explains, “and then we push forward, carrying what we have learned.” 

For the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, the swing’s backward arc means facing its complicity in apartheid—a history that can neither be erased nor ignored. Yet Rev. Jacques insists that reconciliation has become a new muscle for his generation. 

At the heart of his theology is the table which must be lengthened and expanded, where more seats must be added, but also the Eucharistic table which becomes a spiritual bridge. “Who do you invite to your table?” he asks, his voice urgent. “If Jesus brought [to the table] those who were excluded, why shouldn’t we?” 

Recently, Rev. Jacques was one of 60 young people at the 600-strong South Africa Council of Churches’ conference, where they discussed pressing issues plaguing the country and explored practical interfaith solidarity. 

“We grew up talking across divides,” he says, describing friendships across racial lines with Muslims, Hindus, and practitioners of African traditional religions. “When we come together, it’s not about erasing differences. It’s about identifying common problems and solving them together.” 

South Africa’s youth unemployment rate is a staggering 45%, and systemic corruption corrodes trust at every level. “We’re a country of young people,” he says, “but the old structures aren’t ready to let us lead.” 

Reimagining the ecumenical movement 

This tension between inclusion and gatekeeping is not unique to South Africa. Across Latin America, young people are leaving institutional churches in droves, drawn instead to grassroots movements and nontraditional spiritual practices. “Their faith hasn’t disappeared,” says Lani Anaya Jimenez, an ecumenist and peace practitioner from Mexico. “But they’re not feeding into old models anymore.” 

Lani sees this shift as both a challenge and an opportunity. Young people are organising themselves into what she terms “new constellations,” tackling social justice issues without the baggage of denominational affiliations. “The question,” she says, “is how do we build intergenerational dialogue with them? How do we invite them into ecumenical spaces without forcing them into structures they no longer trust?” 

The answer may lie in reimagining the ecumenical movement itself—not as a fixed institution but as a fluid, evolving network. Hanbeet Rhee, a civil society organizer and member of WUMTDA, a feminist ecumenical group of ordained and lay women, works to advance gender equality in a culture resistant to change. 

The national ecumenical movement in Korea is not immune to gender discrimination. “Many male Korean pastors treated me as 'less than’,”Hanbeet recalls. “As a young woman working for gender justice, I wasn’t seen as an equal, even though my work was just as valuable. They don’t really consider young people as equals.” For Hanbeet, WUMTDA is more than an advocacy group—“It’s a safe space,” she says, her voice carrying both gratitude and weariness. 

Championing youth inclusion 

The WCC has pioneered youth inclusion, setting a 25% quota for youth representation and pushing its 352 member churches, representing over half a billion people around the world, to follow suit. But as policies shift, practice lags. Emma observes, “There’s a difference between wanting youth presence and wanting youth voice.”

The WCC Youth Commission met in November 2024 in Manila, for the first time after the WCC 11th Assembly. The commission aims “to ensure that the prophetic voices of young people are present and heard within the WCC.”  

After the Youth Commission meeting, the stakes feel higher than ever. The world these young leaders inherit is not the one their elders dreamed of: it is hotter, harsher, and more divided. But they bring with them a radical faith—not in institutions, but in one another.

For these young ecumenists, the climb to the mountaintop is fuelled by a vision, a hope for an ecumenical movement that is truly global, inclusive, and justice-oriented. Like Moses and Elijah, they ascend the mountain not for their own sake but for the valleys below. They seek not just to hear God’s voice but amplify it, to carry its echoes into the streets, the boardrooms, the halls of power, and the churches that need it most. 

From generation to generation, the ecumenical movement endures; not because it has arrived but because it is always arriving. The climb is steep, the air thin, but the table is set, and the valleys call.