Interview
He will collaboratively advance a 140‑year legacy of compassion by strengthening philanthropic partnerships, expanding revenue streams, and supporting innovative health and social service initiatives across the life of the church, with interfaith partners, and with civic society.
It seems you are advancing a 140-year legacy of compassion while, at the same time, creating innovative initiatives. How do you balance the legacy of the past with the need for change?
Rev. Wilson: I don’t view legacy and change as inextricably competing forces. For me, the actual tension is between faithfulness and fear.
I’ll explain. Fear, in my view, often leads us to want to hold onto past ways of doing things; faithfulness, on the other hand, leads us to embrace and sometimes even invite adaptation and innovation – when doing so enables our work, words, and witness to make a positive difference in this world God so loves.
When I apply that to my new position, the 140-year legacy of the National Benevolent Association (https://www.nbacares.org) isn’t primarily about its programs or structures; rather, it’s about an ongoing posture of compassion, moral courage, and accompaniment. And so the association’s renewed and strengthened commitments to leadership care, justice, and adaptive impact are acts of fidelity rather than departure.
One of my favorite and frequently used lines is this: Change is difficult, but stagnation is fatal. That used to be on my blog and I used it often in congregational settings as a pastor and consultant. It’s true for multiple aspects of life.
For me personally, I honor the past when I listen to and consider carefully what earlier generations were responding to—the human suffering, the injustices they named, the hope they carried—rather than simply preserving the forms they used. Change, then, isn’t about novelty for its own sake; it’s about asking what faithfulness requires now. My work is shaped by a conviction that the same Spirit who moved people to respond boldly in their time is still at work today, inviting us to imagine, adapt, and act with courage for a future we may never fully see.
What do you bring from your experience at the World Council of Churches that most influences your day-to-day work and your heart?
Rev. Wilson: I cannot reply to this question only with reference to the years I most recently served on the WCC staff. I must start with the great fortune I had to attend Lexington Theological Seminary (https://lextheo.edu) and be formed by the dean, Michael Kinnamon, and an absolutely stellar faculty with deep spirit, intellect, and love for the church and world.
Lexington Theological Seminary (LTS) shaped my classmates and me by challenging us with bigger pictures of the church, with the integration of what we say and what we do, with the tensions of justice and unity on the one hand, and peace and reconciliation on the other. So that when I took a 3-week January term course that was in Geneva and then learned about the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey and the WCC, I was hooked. This connected with the faith my parents modeled and gave content to what the excellent preachers of my home Disciples congregation, Nicholasville Christian Church in Kentucky, espoused.
Part way through my studies at LTS, I completed a degree at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey. In our cohort we had 52 students from over 30 countries and traditions; it was a life-changing time. My spouse, Janice, was an intern at the WCC in international affairs. She later edited a helpful manual about HIV and congregational life.
After I finished at Bossey, I was hired on contract to edit papers for an ecclesiology and ethics study process between Faith and Order and JPIC (Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation) – which is still, in my view, one of the more engaging studies from Faith and Order – and compile an index of The Ecumenical Review. The index, unfortunately, was never published due to the very surprising and sad death of the director of communications. After we returned to the US, I was called to be executive director of the West Virginia Council of Churches, making me the youngest person ever to be named to such a position.
All that influences my day-to-day, as you asked, and was background to this employment at the WCC.
The most recent foray certainly shaped my practice of listening, especially listening across difference, power, and pain. Being in global ecumenical spaces teaches you that no single church, culture, or context holds the whole truth. Wisdom emerges when we slow down, attend to lived experience, honor the other in dialogue, and remain open to being changed by what we hear.
It also strengthened my conviction that the most helpful current expression of ecumenism’s goal is a time when the concerns and celebrations of one are the concerns and celebrations of all! Within the church we can understand this as a full expression of koinonia – a oneness (even deeper than fellowship, says the Orthodox John Zizioulas) rooted in our common faith thanks to the gift of God’s actions in Jesus Christ. Outside the church, this definition allows space for our work in humanitarian, human and social services, peacebuilding, hunger eradication, and more. It is multi-faith and even transcends religion. It seems to me the kind of thing a God of unbridled love, known by many names and in many ways, would want.
Finally, working at the WCC influenced both my daily work and my heart by grounding me in the belief that justice is not abstract; rather, it is embodied, contextual, and relational. At a well-known annual meeting of the WCC, I said, “let’s make justice visible” as a shorthand way of expressing this granular, even visceral connection with justice and proper relationships.
Justice is an explicit value of the National Benevolent Association, and we’re striving to find ways to challenge not just the consequences of injustice, but also the causes.
What can your ecumenical family pray for you as you embark on this latest professional role?
Rev. Wilson: Well, that is a very kind and considerate question. Thank you for it. I wish more often we asked each other that question in ecumenical spaces. Rather than rush to reports, what if we explored first how we have and could be praying for one another? Do we name, in communal worship and with specificity, the concerns and celebrations of others? It’s one of the beauties of the ecumenical prayer cycle, which is still so popular: we pray, by name, for different churches and countries each week.
On a very personal level, I would welcome prayers for focus. I’m grateful for opportunities to lead, to write, to imagine, to create. My challenge sometimes is to stay grounded and attentive rather than driven being driven by urgency or expectation.
I think we all should join in praying for courage for each other. This world God so loves is hurting, hungry, weary of war, and fatigued by fragmentation. We need courage to stand for wholeness, to lean into faithfulness, to live as people of faith and not fear. Courage to tell the truth with love, to name limits honestly, and to trust that progress matters more than perfection.
I think we need to pray for vision. In my opinion, the ecumenical movement lacks vision and focus right now. With the dramatic shifts in geopolitical values and priorities, never has ecumenism, and interfaith work as well, been more needed. Unfortunately, many significant multilateral ecumenical institutions are spending much time and energy focused on what they don’t have. They are looking inward. I’m speaking to myself. Kindly pray that I would be a person who looks outward more than inward – to be one of courageous compassion, unrelenting hospitality, and a reflection of God’s unbridled love.
Finally, I return to koinonia, and I’ll add to it the Greek word philoxenia – or hospitality to strangers. Let’s pray that we can find ways to deeply love (philia) those we find strange (xenia). Make sense? It’s one thing, in the church or elsewhere, to love those with whom you share language or loyalties. It’s yet another to love, truly love, those with whom you do not. But surely that’s the divine call.
Above all, I hope to remain anchored in gratitude for others and for the work God continues to unfold in ways often larger than any one role or project.
