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The WCC Permanent Committee on Consensus and Collaboration is meeting from 5-10 April at the Patriarchal Monastery of Our Lady of Balamand in Lebanon.

On 18-22 March, the World Council of Churches (WCC) Faith and Order Commission gathered at Faculdade Unida de Vitoria in Brazil for a consultation entitled “Towards a Global Vision of the Church”.

Maryland-based, Ghanaian-born Rev. Dr Casely Essamuah was in February selected as secretary of the Global Christian Forum. Originally ordained in the Methodist Church in Ghana, he began his work officially in July. This week he made a study visit to the WCC and the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva and the WCC was able to converse with him.

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.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Faith and Order Commission’s study group working on ecclesiology met at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena to continue an ongoing dialogue with representatives and experts on “new ways” of being the church.

A document published in Swahili language titled, ‘The Church: Towards a common vision’ was launched at the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Arusha, Tanzania on 12 March. The document is now translated into 15 languages.

For Dame Mary Tanner it was the challenge of the Community Study that dramatically enlarged her understanding of the unity which is God’s gift and our calling. The years of reflection on experience and envisioning the church as a community of women and men offered a chance to change.

After an historic meeting in South Africa in June 2017, study groups within the WCC Faith and Order Commission are using theological reflection as a tool to build unity between churches. The questions Faith and Order considers are not abstract issues but, in many contexts across the world, matters of life and death.

From responding to divisions within churches and communities, to addressing fair representation within the WCC, the Permanent Committee on Consensus and Collaboration of the WCC met from 2-6 October in Rhodes, Greece, hosted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, through the hospitality of H. E. Metropolitan Kyrillos of Rhodes.

A Swedish WCC working group which met in Stockholm on 4 September has called on Swedish churches to use ‘The Gift of Being: Called to be a Church of All and for All’ as a resource for including persons with disabilities in church life.