News
Rev. James Bhagwan, general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, presented resources that guided those gathered in tracing the history of ecumenical life in the Pacific, calling particular attention to times when fresh forms of cooperation and an integrated agenda surfaced.
Bhagwan noted that, by 2025, Pacific churches collectively sharpened their focus, and discernment spoke more directly about liberation, safety, hospitality, dignity, and the emerging wounds—including disability exclusion, lack of access in church buildings and evacuation plans, youth vulnerability, and a regional drugs crisis—entering Pacific life.
At that time, young people became not only the future of the church but its present.
“We must revisit the church as mediator and intercessor,” reflected the plenary. “We must revisit a whole-of-life theology in which land, ocean, body, gender, disability, health, youth, and justice all belong within the church’s concern.”
The plenary also spoke of revisiting self-determination as a God-given right. “The foundations we must revisit, then, are not only ancient. They are living foundations that call us to voyage faithfully in the troubled waters of the present.”
Bhagwan reflected that the mapping of the last 20 years of the Pacific Conference of Churches, particularly the Pacific Church Leaders’ Meeting, was meant to give current church leader a clear understanding of where they have come, the issues that continue to raise themselves, or the issues that continue to be of importance for the region, and the emerging issues. “But also to help them understand the transition that we have gone through from seeing ourselves from a more institutional framework to a more relational framework, what that means, and how we have grown as the household of God,” he said. “And as we gather with church leaders this year, recognizing both the strengths of the household and also what are the key stress factors and the cracks we see in the household. Because the household is not just church leaders. It’s not just the church institutions. It’s the people, the land, and the sea.”
Re-grounding the household: returning to our story in Christ (WCC blog, 14 April 2026)
WCC general secretary meets state minister from Tuvalu (WCC news release, 11 April 2026)
