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In an ecumenical declaration to be presented at the final session of the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, Christian organizations and individuals stress the positive role that religions and spirituality can play for a more harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature.

Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), and Rev. Dr Geoff Tunnicliffe, international director of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) met on 3 March, at the Ecumenical Center in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss common concerns around Christian unity.

Christians around the world celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity this year are remembering the 1910 World Missionary Conference in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh as a key initiative that led to the ecumenical movement.

During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2010, Christians throughout the world will be listening together to the promise and commission that are part of Christ's final words before his ascension: "You are witnesses of these things."

The WCC general secretary, the Rev. Samuel Kobia, wrote a letter to Uganda's President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, saying that the WCC was "saddened and distressed to receive the news from Uganda regarding a proposed law against homosexual individuals [...], which also proposes the death penalty to be meted to homosexual individuals who are HIV positive".

As a wave of ringing bells embraced the globe, churches sent a strong message to world leaders gathered at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen: There is only one world and in order to preserve it, bold action needs to be taken now.

Resettlement of people displaced by the consequences of climate change was highlighted as a major concern for churches at a gathering of ecumenical representatives from Asia and the Pacific region.

Church representatives from around the world will gather in New York City 15-20 November to press three issues within the agenda of the United Nations: peoples being displaced by climate change, indigenous people's rights and Colombia's protracted internal conflict.

“Nature is our home,” said Dr. Maria Sumire Conde from the Quecha community of Peru. She says some of those who have come there, however, have not been good guests.

The more radical social and political changes are, the more likely they are to bring out tension amongst social actors. It is in a context such as this - a Living Letters delegation visiting Bolivia in mid July heard - that Bolivian churches struggle to overcome violence in society.

The Assembly of the Council for World Mission has appointed Rev. Dr Moiseraele Prince Dibeela as moderator to lead CWM's Trustee Body for the next three years.

"We believe that this is a moment where we are invited by God to commit ourselves to be instruments of change in the church and the wider society," participants in an international conference on "Churches against Racism" have said, 17 June. The message was read in the presence of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands during a closing worship service.

The recent incidents of violence in Bagua, Peru are "but one instance of a series of government actions to abrogate the rights of the Indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon over land and resources", stated the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia in a 9 June letter to President Alan García Pérez.

As social networks become more and more popular, churches still struggle to find the best ways of using these new features to communicate with their members and spread the gospel.

The Dutch queen will be the guest of honour at a conference seeking to take on the legacy of the World Council of Churches' (WCC) historic anti-racism efforts.

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As the centennial of a landmark mission event approaches in 2010, a global study process is mobilizing churches, theological institutions and mission bodies around the world.

"Being indigenous peoples is not about wearing colourful garments but about being engaged in the political struggle towards an alternative to the current, crisis-laden model of civilization", says María Chávez Quispe, an indigenous person from Bolivia who is a consultant for indigenous issues at the World Council of Churches (WCC).

By Dr Manoj Kurian (*)

By Peter Kenny (*)