Theology of Companionship - Context: Companionship in Lived Practices
3 March 2027, 15:00 (CET)
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This webinar will ask how companionship takes shape in the everyday life of churches, communities, and movements that are seeking justice, reconciliation, and unity.
The theology of companionship becomes meaningful when it is embodied in practices: listening to difficult memories, standing with communities in struggle, receiving the wisdom of local churches, sharing prayer and lament, and discerning together what faithful action may require. This session will explore how companionship is lived differently across contexts, and how local realities can deepen the churches’ understanding of pilgrimage.
Rather than presenting companionship as a fixed model, the session will invite participants to consider how it is shaped by place, history, culture, and relationship. The session, led by Rev. Karin Van Denbroeke, member of the WCC central and executive committees, will also reflect on how churches can learn from communities that already practice forms of accompaniment, hospitality, resistance, healing, and reconciliation.
Participants will be encouraged to connect the theology of companionship with their own ecclesial and community contexts. The session will help show how companionship is not only a concept for ecumenical reflection, but a lived practice through which churches may become more attentive, accountable, and open to transformation.
The five-part series aims to show how the Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity appears —through a lens of companionship— as a theological orientation and an ecclesial practice.
Participants will be invited to explore companionship as a deep yet understandable journey from theological foundations to practical implementation. The series will move through five themes: foundations, method, ethics, context, and implementation.
WCC launches webinar series on Theology of Companionship (WCC news release, 13 August 2026)
Next session of the series:
12 May 2027, 15:00 (CET): Implementation
Register for the webinar