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In his report, moderator of the commission Rev. Michael Blair spoke of the themes that will continue to shape the imagination of the commission. “We welcome any learnings from our membership as to how to continually build our experience of meeting,” he said. “As we move forward with the work, we are committed to work in partnership and collaboration with member churches, mission agencies, and theological schools.”
He reflected on the importance of grounding the work of the commission in the life and reality of member churches. “This is an essential aspect of co-creating in partnership with God in God’s yearning to mend and heal the world,” he said. “Working in partnership means that we will not need to do everything or initiate everything on our agenda, but we can connect, convene, and curate.”
One example, he continued, is the work on reparation. “A number of member churches and mission organizations are working on this theme,” he said. “We have been able to convene some of these folks and connect them to each other.”
Commission director Rev. Dr Peter Cruchley, in his report, reflected on the importance of speaking truth to power. “Christ’s disciples are also recipients of transformation; we are drawn into the mission of God as agents with others, but we are also its subjects,” he said. “So, the feet of those who trespassed (and trespass still) need to take particular directions now if they are to be guided into the path of peace.”
Evangelism, he noted, is an act of advocacy. “Evangelism from the margins begins with looking to marginalised communities with hope as the locations in which Jesus speaks,” Cruchley said. “In the company of such evangelists, it becomes clear that the counter-creation has begun and it is all around us and longs for the subversion, conversion, and inclusion of empire’s many centres.”
The vision of a new creation offers us a means for decolonising the present and the future, continued Cruchley. “The impact of climate catastrophe, the sweep of xenophobic nationalisms, the ever-increasing wealth inequities, the inability to see a dawn of God’s tender love all are rooted in global and local powers, histories, systems, and interests which God calls out to repent,” he said.
Hosted by the All African Conference of Churches, the commission will be drawing on the ideas and spirit of the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Arusha, Tanzania in 2018, and be inspired again by the witness of African churches and Christians.
Read the full report of the CWME moderator
