The World Council of Churches (WCC) wants to make its Ninth Assembly in Porto Alegre, Brazil, a space where young people are welcome and enabled to speak - and be heard. "We are doing our best for young people to have as much of an impact as possible," says Natalie Maxson, the person responsible for the WCC's youth programme.

They had literally groped in the dark for ages. But for the past three years, more than a thousand upland folk in a remote village in northern Philippines have felt blessed because they are finally seeing the light of fluorescent bulbs.

The theme for the World Council of Churches (WCC) 9th Assembly, to be held in Porto Alegre, Brazil 14-23 February 2006, invites us to return to, and re-appropriate, the resources of prayer.

Given the history of their relationships, interreligious dialogue between Christians and Jews may be seen as a "miracle", but it's also a complex and demanding endeavour.

How to teach religion in multifaith contexts is a growing concern for churches and religious communities everywhere. This interview with a Christian educator from India presents a specific experience emerging from a multireligious context in Asia.

What does it mean to be a religious minority with a different faith to that of the majority of people around you? What is the importance of interreligious dialogue in situations of vulnerability? Is interreligious dialogue an adequate response to a critical moment in the world?

From Baghdad to Bosnia, media images in recent years have reinforced prophecies of a conflict of civilizations emerging along religious faultlines. References to both jihad and crusade have reappeared in public discourse, and in some societies particular faith groups are regarded with suspicion. It can sometimes seem as though Christians and Muslims are condemned to collide.

The tranquillity of Lake Geneva belies the sense of growing urgency within the nearby Ecumenical Centre, headquarters of the World Council of Churches. This urgency is shared by a broad group of religious leaders, academic specialists and grassroots activists from virtually all the major world faith communities. They have come from around the world to reflect on a "critical moment" in interreligious dialogue.

"An ecumenical movement that doesn't involve conversations between people who disagree would not be an ecumenical movement," says Michael Kinnamon in the following interview given at the 9-16 May 2005 Conference on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME).

Dialogue between Pentecostals and others active in the ecumenical movement is still in an early stage of development as the constellation of participants expands.