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The worsening global food crisis is the focus of a World Council of Churches (WCC) executive committee statement that urges churches and the international community to act now before more lives are lost.

Encouraging the WCC fellowship in its ongoing call to discipleship together, the WCC central committee commended to WCC member churches the document “Called to Transformation—Ecumenical Diakonia and Addendums.”

Following the decision of the Executive Committee during its meeting of November 2021, the World Council of Churches (WCC) is posting the opening of three staff leadership positions. The openings include programme director for Unity and Mission, programme director for Public Witness and Diakonia, and director of the WCC Commission on Faith and Order.

When the World Council of Churches (WCC) launched the Programme to Combat Racism after years of in-depth theological reflections and prayer in 1971, South Africa's insidious racist apartheid policies were in full throw. The programme brought the WCC into the world's spotlight. Yet racism did not start 50 years ago. And it did not end with the casting out of apartheid at the end of the 20th century. During that era, figures such as Nobel Peace Prize laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela fought racism in society and the church.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) executive committee closed its meeting after convening from 12-17 November, leaving with a sense of hope, even while publicly expressing grave concern over many global injustices facing the world today.

During a special service concluding the Church of Sweden’s General Synod on 24 November, Archbishop Antje Jackelén made an official apology from the Church of Sweden to the Sámi for historical abuse.

As the World Council of Churches (WCC) executive committee convened on 12 November—face-to-face for the first time in two years—the governing body began its deliberations with a sense of reimagining the future by tracing some positive trends and opportunities born out of the grief-filled COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting is taking place in a hybrid fashion at the Bossey Ecumenical Institute and on video conference.

Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee, shared a message with the Conference of the World Council of Religious Leaders on Faith and Diplomacy: Generations in Dialogue, being held 4-7 October in Lindau, Germany.

"If youth in Africa are united and reconcile with our past, we will be able to confront the stumbling blocks of the continent. If we are patriotic, if we have a passion for Africa, we can transform the continent to be a home and a future for all," said Collins Shava, youth executive secretary for the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), as he reflected on the Africa: My Home. My Future. campaign being undertaken by AACC to inspire young people to be patriotic to their countries and Africa at large by utilizing their talents towards building a thriving continent.

A diverse selection of 26 young people designated as stewards for the World Council of Churches (WCC) gathered online from 14-16 June 2021 to take part in an orientation of stewardship and ecumenical formation, designed to build awareness, develop leadership, and strengthen global solidarity, as well as an orientation on their participation in upcoming major WCC meetings. 

The World Council of Churches (WCC) executive committee will meet 15 July by videoconference to monitor plans for the 11th WCC Assembly in Karlsruhe, Germany in 2022 in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Young people have been challenged to envisage a future for the region and work together towards building a dynamic Pacific in preparation for the upcoming WCC 11th Assembly.

 



 

How will the churches use the wide range of new opportunities in the post-pandemic context? How will they call to faith and trust as we move beyond the global health crisis to a time of renewal? These were the core questions that representatives of the European region addressed during a discussion that took place at the World Council of Churches central committee meeting, 23-29 June.

In a special message to World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee received on 27 June, H.B. John X, patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and all the East, affirmed “closeness in prayer, and in accompanying the work of the meeting through the communication with the devoted delegates of the Holy and Apostolic Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East.”