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A large-scale gathering of religious scholars, publishers, and librarians in the United States has yielded promising new ideas for the publications programme of the World Council of Churches (WCC) over the next few years.

As a result of a consultation on 9-10 November in Washington, D.C., Pan African Women of Faith have released a Call to Action toward a vision of sustainable communities and an end to hunger and poverty.

“Mission is not an action or activity we can choose. It is an expression of daily life. It belongs to the whole church and is not the function of just a few or of an agency,” says Father Ioan Sauca, deputy general secretary of the World Council of Churches.

“Beyond Boundaries,” the newsletter of the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, has published its November issue.

Rev. Dr Ofelia Ortega Suárez may be 82 years old, but after the students at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey heard her speak about the World Council of Churches (WCC) at 70: Achievements and Hopes, they said she has the lively spirit and enthusiasm of a 20-year-old.

A delegation from the Evangelical Church in Germany is visiting the WCC on 26-27 October for an ecumenical learning experience that includes prayers with students from the Bossey Ecumenical Institute, an introduction and overview of the work of the WCC, a meeting with the Lutheran World Federation, and a guided tour of the Ecumenical Centre.

As churches worldwide focus on the “Action Week for Food” in October, increasing numbers of people going hungry due to violent conflicts, failed harvests and rising food costs are compelling faith-based organizations to offer urgent intervention.

A publication entitled “When Food Becomes Immaterial: Confronting the Digital Age” is now available to help people explore the impact of technologies on what and how we eat, as well as on how food is produced.

The World Council of Churches invites a Churches’ Week of Action on Food, from 15-22 October 2018. An annual week-long global campaign initiated by the WCC-EAA, the Churches’ Week of Action on Food invites the global ecumenical movement and organisations, community-based organisations and faith-based organisations to act collectively for food-justice.

Each year students from all over the world arrive at Bossey near Geneva for a three-month language training course to pave their way for ecumenical studies that follow on straight after. “The title captures the goal of the course,” says Father Lawrence Iwuamadi, the Nigerian priest who studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is academic dean of the Ecumenical Institute.

Christian, Jewish and Muslim students who attended the World Council of Churches (WCC) 2018 Interreligious Summer School at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey said that learning to break down prejudices about the other was a lasting impression from the six-week course.

As students gathered at the WCC Ecumenical Institute at Bossey for an interreligious summer school, they reflected on what brought them to the institute, and what knowledge and insights they will take home.

This week the World Council of Churches Bossey Ecumenical Institute in Switzerland is ringing with scriptural sharing, research, and dialogue drawing together perspectives from Judaism, Christianity and Islam as students work to complete a Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Interreligious Studies.

Whether as individual believers or as a community, it is our collective task to advocate for Christian unity, says Melanio L. Aoanan from the Philippines. A clear vision for religious and ecumenical theological education is needed that is relevant in the 21st century.

Relations between Catholics and Protestants at the local level in East Indonesia are not as complex as talking about dogma at higher church levels, says a pastor from the Protestant Church in Maluku.

The Ecumenical Institute Bossey, which Pope Francis visits on Thursday, 21 June, as part of his pilgrimage to the World Council of Churches in Geneva, is a workshop of ideas, where the future path toward Christian unity is being mapped out.

“The invitation to a Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace has presented a new opportunity for reorienting our understanding of diakonia, and to join together ecumenically in our diaconal work,” said Rev. Dr Kjell Nordstokke, speaking to the World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee on 16 June.

Gathered in prayer in the Bossey chapel on 14 June, the WCC Ecumenical Institute saw eight new students graduate with a Master of Advanced Studies in Ecumenical Studies.

The Global Day of Prayer to End Famine has found relevance in Africa, where communities bear the brunt of severe food shortages associated with the challenge. On 10 June, the WCC, All Africa Conference of Churches and World Evangelical Alliance called on churches to pray for millions of people at risk and those who face severe hunger.

The World Council of Churches, World Evangelical Alliance and All Africa Conference of Churches, along with church-related humanitarian organizations and a coalition of church-related networks and organizations and partners, are promoting 10 June as the second annual Global Day of Prayer to End Famine to be observed in faith congregations worldwide.