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As its 12th General Assembly in Kanaky (New Caledonia) concluded, the Pacific Conference of Churches, in an outcome statement, expressed a vision for leading change through transformation. 

Churches from the Pacific Islands and across the world continued to voice their prayers of support and care as Tonga copes with the aftermath of the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano on 14 January, which triggered 15-metre tsunami waves that hit the archipelago.

Taking into consideration the growing global concerns and implications of the current spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus), the World Council of Churches (WCC) will postpone its annual Ecumenical Continuing Formation on Youth seminar in the Pacific to the end of the year 2020, with a date to be announced. The event was scheduled for June 2020 in Tonga.
The WCC is taking steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including cancelling or postponing certain meetings and limiting travels.

Applications are open to young people for participation in a June 2020 World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Continuing Formation seminar. To be held in Tonga, the seminar will focus on transformative masculinity and femininity.

The deadline for applications is 20 March.

The life of Rev. Dr Rena Joyce Weller Karefa-Smart is being remembered and commended this week by the WCC fellowship after her passing last week. Karefa-Smart was the first Pan African woman to graduate in 1945 from Yale Divinity School. She was a champion for global ecumenism over the course of a long and distinguished career. An attendee of the first WCC Assembly, she was also a procession leader and author of the liturgies at the second WCC Assembly in Evanston, Illinois (USA).

In a letter to Sen. Maynard Alfred, chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs & Trade of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the World Council of Churches (WCC) urged the nation to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

The Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), at its meeting in Trondheim, Norway, 27 June 2016, has elected a new executive committee with 11 new members.

A plenary discussion on support by religious communities for the rights of children, and a first draft of the statement of “principles for child-friendly churches,” captured the imagination of the Central Committee of the WCC on 27 June. The document will now undergo further revision and be resubmitted at the next WCC executive committee meeting.

Two major crises have marked the months since the WCC called Katalina Tahaafe-Williams to work in Geneva on its migration, indigenous, and multicultural ministry programmes. When she took up the job in October, the European refugee crisis was in full flow. Then in November, terrorists attacked Paris.

United Nations leaders and the WCC have agreed that the international community and faith leaders need to cooperate more on working to fight the scourge of the deadly Ebola virus.

Indigenous peoples have a role to play in the struggle against climate change, indigenous faith leaders said during a panel at the Interfaith Summit on Climate Change held at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York City.

Los pueblos indígenas tienen un papel que desempeñar en la lucha contra el cambio climático, dijeron los líderes religiosos indígenas durante un panel en la Cumbre Interreligiosa sobre el Cambio Climático celebrada en el Centro de la Iglesia para las Naciones Unidas en la ciudad de Nueva York.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity has been globally celebrated this year with prayers, reflections, ecumenical services and events focusing on Paul’s question in Corinthians 1 “Has Christ been divided?” a theme for this year’s prayer materials, prepared by the Canadian churches.

The 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches elected eight new presidents today during a closed session at its proceedings in Busan, Republic of Korea.

In Tahiti, an ecumenical delegation was told about the need for re-inscription of French Polynesia (Maohi Nui) on the United Nations list of countries to be decolonized.

How does the church interact with a rapidly changing society? On 31 August, members of the World Council of Churches Central Committee spent much of the morning discussing this question in a pair of plenary sessions in Geneva.