Expanded Ecumenical Tables

When the assembly of the National Council of Churches/Church World Service meets on November 11-13 in Denver, Colorado, it will need a cadre of young adult stewards to offer support in the areas of hospitality, the assembly office, the newsroom, the assembly platform, and technology. The stewards will start work on November 9 and conclude on November 14. NCC stewards, under the leadership of Garland Pierce (pictured), have participated in excellent programs that help young adults grow in understanding of ecumenism. Applications

for this year's group are now being received. Deadline is September 12. All expenses, except personal items, are covered.

Christian Churches Together (CCT) will use five stewards at its January 13-16, 2009 meeting. Letters of application must be postmarked by October 1, 2008.

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Youth and young adult participation

A youth body in the WCC structure, new since its last Assembly, is made up of 25 young adults (35 years old and under) who will work to strengthen leadership skills, network with the wider ecumenical movement, and establish consultation with the council. An American in the group, Jennifer Leath of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) (pictured), is co-moderator of the Pentecostal-WCC joint consultative group. The WCC's U.S. office acquired a young adult ecumenical formation coordinator, David Fraccaro. A small group of young adult leaders in the U.S. gathered in December 2007. The next meeting is planned for December 2008 when the U.S. Conference gathers. The office sought out young adults for two summer opportunities intended to focus on social concern and ecumenical formation, both during August 17-23: participants for the National Council of Churches' ecumenical work week in New Orleans and volunteers for No More Deaths' justice program for migrants on the Arizona-Mexico border.

Young adult "ambassadors for ecumenism" are to scrutinize the work of the Netherlands' council of churches for a period of one year, beginning in September 2008, it has been announced. They will also examine the readiness of their own denominations to work with other churches. Yet there has also been discussion about the changed forms of communication needed to reach out to young adults -- more projects and fewer structures, more images and impressions rather than dogmas and abstractions, more informal networks with fewer long meetings.

The National Council of Churches (NCC) has issued an invitation for young women interested in ecumenical Young Women's Leadership Experiences to apply for future events. A recent experience involved seven women (21-28 years old) in intensive orientation about the NCC, ecumenical women at the UN, non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) at the UN, and the history of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Among members of that group was Presbyterian Megan Acedo (pictured).

Reconfiguring ecumenism

What is reconfiguration?

A diverse group of people – theologians, church leaders, social scientists, ecumenists and others – gathered in Antelias, Lebanon in 2003 at the invitation of the World Council of Churches (WCC) to reflect on the reconfiguration of the ecumenical movement. See what they wrote. Read as well the final statement of a WCC consultation held a year later in Chavannes-de-Bogis, Switzerland on Ecumenism in the 21st Century. The participants at that event were representatives of churches, agencies/specialized ministries, regional and national councils of churches, Christian world communions, and international ecumenical organizations. The consultation noted, "There are important new ecumenical actors who are not formally included in the existing structures and there are some in the ecumenical family who do not feel valued by others. Many new ecumenical organizations have been created, giving rise to fears that all of these ecumenical bodies cannot be sustained." It made specific recommendations and proposed a continuation group. That group, first meeting in November 2007, heard input from the PC(USA)'s Robina Winbush and had staff participation from Douglas Chial, a PC(USA) member. Among the issues raised: willingness to change, balance between deepening and widening fellowship, who sets the agenda, ensuring spirituality and the ability to constantly change. The next meeting will be in January 2009.

See "Mapping the Oikoumene: A Study of Current Ecumenical Structures and Relationships," a working document by Jill Hawkey, 2005.

A Continuing Committee on Ecumenism in the 21st Century, a group established with World Council of Churches (WCC) backing and support, has looked at a "polycentric" understanding of ecumenism. With this comes thinking about an extended gathering of many Christian organizations at the time of the WCC's 10th Assembly in 2013.

Conciliar ecumenism includes evangelicals and, beyond this, works with other evangelicals with increasingly regularity. With whom are they working? A group of evangelicals attempted to clarify their identity and rethink their place in public life by issuing an Evangelical Manifesto on May 7, 2008. They took a stand against faith that is privatized, politicized, or ideological and expressed a concern for the common good that argues for rights for all, including "all the believers in all the faiths." See a blogger's summary of the document, the full text,

and a study guide.

Available also are comments by Alan Jacobs (Wall Street Journal, May 9), Martin Marty, and a Guardian commentator. Presbyterians John Huffman (pictured) and Richard Mouw are listed on the effort's steering committee. Charter signatories include Presbyterians Roberta Hestenes, Sam Moffett, Vic Pentz, and Leighton Ford. Huffman has been a member of the PC(USA) delegation in the National Council of Churches.

Lutherans examine their beliefs / practices in relation to neo-Pentecostalism

The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) convened 30 theologians from different parts of Africa and beyond in July 2008 to examine “Critical Lutheran Beliefs and Practices in Relation to Neo-Pentecostalism.” They noted the emphasis of neo-Pentecostalism on a theology of prosperity and upward mobility and saw its offering of new life through "democratization of charisma" to churches perceived as overly cerebral. See an article that briefly summarizes key points of contributors, including positive recommendations and cautions. LWF will publish the presentations and discussion later.

The theological commission of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) issued a statement written by participants in a mini-consultation on faith, providence, and political involvement held at the end of July 2007 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They say that "a purely privatized faith . . . [that] has no wider implications for society must be rejected." The Micah Challenge, working on the Millennium Goals, is an initiative of the World Evangelical Alliance together with the Micah Network of more than 300 Christian relief and development organizations. In the U.S., the challenge has been endorsed by a broad grouping including Bread for the World, the National Association of Evangelicals, and World Vision. The Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC) has asked the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) to explore possible links between the Micah Project and the Accra Confession growing out of WARC's work.

Two very different church leaders were featured among the 100 most influential people in the world selected by Time magazine for 2008. Both were selected for their impact upon environmental concerns, something that has brought a common issue to ecumenical cooperation. One of the selectees is the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I, who has done much more than simply bring the dignity of office to his position. The second is Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals, who has held to his convictions about the environment even when some evangelicals have felt that attention to this issue was diluting more traditional evangelical foci.

In preparation for the beginning of the Orthodox ecclesiastical year, September 1, Bartholomew called on his people to pray for creation, carrying out a practice begun by his predecessor. Bartholomew pressed his concern beyond his own people, however, by writing, "[T]his spiritual and moral dimension of the environmental problem constitutes today, perhaps more so than ever before, the common conscience of all people, and especially young people, who are well aware of the fact that all of humanity has a common destiny."

Because the 1910 Edinburgh conference has been viewed as the starting point from which the modern emphasis on both unity and mission are inherited, the connections between the two today become an important theme. When he was the keynote speaker at a 2010 preparatory meeting,

Samuel Kobia, the World Council of Churches' general secretary, called attention to the debate between "Christians of the evangelical mission family and Christians of the conciliar or ecumenical mission family" and offered important insights.

The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE) and the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) will partner to conduct the next International Congress on World Evangelization, which will be known as Lausanne III. The event will be in Cape Town, South Africa on October 16-25, 2010, intentionally within the centenary year of the Edinburgh conference.

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Ecumenical & Interfaith Network - PCUSA

Youth and young adult participation

Ecumenical & Interfaith
Network - PCUSA