Search results

In view of the changing global landscape of mission and evangelism, participants in a meeting organized by the WCC and the Council for World Mission explored the concept of evangelism and its life-affirming aspects in the city of Sydney, where the event was held from 5 to 13 September.

Representatives from the WCC offered significant input at a Global Conference on Religion and Sustainable Development held in Washington, D.C.

Meeting from 17 to 24 June, the newly reconstituted Commission on Faith and Order of the WCC has begun to define its principal trajectories for ecumenical study and common activity from 2015 until the next WCC Assembly in 2020.

How do the many contemporary issues and challenges about gender relate to the newest conceptions of mission? Does mission as currently conceived help women, for example, or speak adequately to such widespread phenomena as gender-related violence? Is there a “gender imperative” for mission?

Swedish communication specialist Marianne Ejdersten has recently been appointed as director for Communication at the WCC.

At the Central Committee meeting of the WCC, leadership of the Council’s consultative bodies was announced. These bodies will steer through the work of the WCC in accomplishing the call from its 10th Assembly to engage in a “pilgrimage of justice and peace”. The WCC assembly was held in the Republic of Korea in 2013.

A wealth of substantive engagements with and responses to contemporary trends in the theology and practice of mission and evangelism are featured in the newest issue of International Review of Mission.

The WCC Executive Committee, currently meeting in Switzerland, is working to translate the mandate of the WCC 10th Assembly into strategic plans and visible actions, focusing on the churches’ efforts toward a “pilgrimage for justice and peace”.

The WCC 10th Assembly in Busan, Republic of Korea, concluded on 8 November, acting to inspire churches to renew their commitments to justice and peace. Through varied encounters and dialogue within the fellowship of churches, the Assembly has made concrete decisions and recommendations setting priorities for the future work of the WCC.

Today the WCC10th Assembly featured a mission plenary. The plenary session presented an action-oriented reflection based on the new WCC mission statement: Together Towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes. The plenary sought to highlight the common challenges and opportunities for mission in the current global context.

A long time academic and professor of missiology at the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey, Dr Paul J. Isaak has been appointed as director of elections by President Hifikepunye Pohamba in Namibia. Isaak commenced his new position at the Electoral Commission of Namibia in September.

The WCC general secretary has expressed “great sadness” over the death of Rev. Dr Prakai Nontawasee, former member of the WCC Central Committee and the Commission on Faith and Order in the 1970s and 1980s.

In a recent solidarity visit to Bangladesh, an ecumenical delegation was updated about the on-going persecution and attacks against religious minorities occurring in the country since early March of this year.

“The urgency of life today” drives Christian engagement in mission, say ten contributors to a new issue of the International Review of Mission, which links the new paradigm of mission to the theme of the upcoming WCC assembly.

International Review of Mission (IRM), the journal of the World Council of Churches (WCC) which celebrated its centenary this past year, focuses on one of the most recent ecumenical affirmations of Christian mission in its November 2012 edition. The title of the issue is “New Milestone in Mission.”

In a world where understanding of Christian mission is changing rapidly, Bishop Geevarghese Mor Coorilos, moderator of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) explains what new visions the WCC mission statement will bring to the churches.

In a public hearing at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, church activists from the Philippines criticized the Aquino government for not being able to improve the situation regarding human rights violations, citing an increased number of victims of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, as well as evictions in the country. Â

The new issue of International Review of Mission (IRM) presents the latest draft of a new WCC mission statement and invites wider participation in the process of developing it further for presentation to the WCC 10th Assembly in Busan in 2013.

“Christians are to acknowledge that changing one’s religion is a decisive step that must be accompanied by sufficient time for reflection and preparation, through a process ensuring full personal freedom.” This assertion is one of the guiding principles for Christian mission in India suggested in early March by a consultation convened under the leadership of the Board of Theological Education of the Senate of Serampore University (BTESSC).

The International Review of Mission marked a century of work in mission studies with a public celebration, held 9 December at the Philip Potter Library of the World Council of Churches (WCC) , centred on its centenary issue, just released.