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The rescue ship Sea-Watch 4, purchased by a crowdfund led by the Evangelical Church in Germany, is ready to start operating in the Mediterranean Sea to help migrants attempting to reach Europe from North Africa.

WCC interim general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca sent a video greeting to the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan’s 65th General Assembly.

In a message on Pentecost, entitled “Waves of despair, tongues of fire,” the regional presidents of the World Council of Churches reflect on the mighty presence of God.

The new issue of International Review of Mission includes a variety of articles, ranging from post-colonialism to public theology, and from mission models to Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation. Two of the articles are specifically concerned with healing, which is a pertinent theme at this current period of the coronavirus. These two articles clearly indicate that the biblical concept of health consists as it does of the welfare, health, and prosperity of the individual person as well as of communities as a whole. Individuals are always part of the communities they belong to.

The World Association for Christian Communication is creating a rapid response fund to help support grassroots community media outlets that provide accurate, trusted coronavirus-related information to vulnerable people who often cannot access mainstream media. Individuals and organisations are encouraged to contribute to the fund.

It’s tough living at home in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic watching those infected with the COVID-19 virus rise in numbers and the death toll climb. But think of the world’s refugees and people on the move.

After more than ten years heading the World Council of Churches (WCC), Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit says this is the time that "we should remind one another that we believe in God as the “Good shepherd” who promised to be with us also in times of crisis,” especially in this time of the global COVID-19 crisis.

Church leaders from Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark signed a statement demanding that we take “human responsibility” for refugees on the border between Turkey and Greece.

As the World Council of Churches prepares for its 11th Assembly in 2021, a special “virtual” issue of the WCC’s journal International Review of Mission is now available online presenting a set of 12 articles published following the WCC’s previous assembly in 2013 in Busan, Republic of Korea.

A German delegation comprised of representatives of municipalities, church leaders and prominent civil society organizations recently visited the Greek island of Lesbos, already hosting tens of thousands of migrants and displaced people, and was on site when the news of the opening of the Turkish border was announced and the first new arrivals were appearing.

An interreligious conference exploring religion and migration was hosted from 27-30 January in Sweden by Religions for Peace co-president and Church of Sweden Archbishop Dr Antje Jackelén.

Highlights of African missiology will be explored during an event to be held in Nairobi, Kenya, on 13 February.

The WCC has welcomed four new programme executives.

The annual meeting of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) was hosted by the WCC at the Ecumenical Centre, Geneva, and at the nearby Chateau de Bossey from 6-7 February.

In a reflection in the Ecumenical Centre Chapel in Geneva on 20 January, WCC programme executive for the Faith and Order Commission Dr Ani Ghazaryan Drissi offered a reflection on how important it is that, in difficult times, churches welcome people who have no place to go.

Christians in Africa have joined in ecumenical celebrations and prayer services to mark the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, observed worldwide from 18-25 January.

Retired Bishop Gunnar Stålsett was convicted by an Oslo court as on 19 December, for having offered work and income to a rejected refugee who couldn’t be sent back to Eritrea. That became illegal in 2011, but Stålsett described himself as a conscientious objector to a law he views as simply wrong. Bishop Stålsett’s case attracted more media coverage in Norway and worldwide, after he was convicted of violating immigration law.

A “Mission from the Margins” group gathered recently to explore how to discern God’s mission in a fractured and unjust world. The working group of the World Council of Churches Commission on World Mission and Evangelism comprised 13 commissioners, as well as members of the Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network (EDAN). The group also reflected deeply on the theme for the upcoming WCC 11th Assembly, “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity.”

The World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Christian Conference of Asia held a regional con-sultation on “Evangelism and Missional Witness in a Multi-religious Asia” from 29 November to 5 December. Convening in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the gathering explored evangelism as an effective means to extend and spread the good news. The WCC and the Christian Conference of Asia have a long his-tory and tradition of being deeply involved in mission and evangelism through different program-matic areas.