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In 2018 we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the World Council of Churches. In order to create a lively firsthand account of the ecumenical fellowship and of our shared journey, member churches have contributed stories of people, events, achievements and even failures, all of which have deepened our collective search for Christian unity. This story was written by Olle Eriksson, a Namibian who worked for 35 years (1968 – 2003) with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia, Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission and Lutheran World Federation.

Last week, young Jewish, Muslim and Christian students learned about communication and peacebuilding during a workshop at the Ecumenical Centre, all with the hope of serving as peacemakers in their own contexts. The session was led by Marianne Ejdersten, director of WCC Communication.

As young people earned an interreligious studies certificate at the World Council of Churches Bossey Institute, they completed their three-week course with unified thoughts on promoting peace. In a communique issued on 13 July, they identified themselves as Jews, Christians and Muslims - children of Abraham - with a unique openness.

Churches are probably the most powerful global civil society group, and they need to live up to this responsibility in the quest for peace, says German bishop, Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm. Bedford-Strohm, chairperson of the council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), was speaking at an event to promote peace in the Ecumenical Centre on 3 November.

“The senseless war in South Sudan must end now,” said the WCC general secretary, following the pastoral visit of a high-level ecumenical delegation to local churches in Juba, South Sudan on 2 May.

The Archives of the WCC in Geneva have provided both research materials and a space for public consideration of “the ecumenical movement and Cold War politics”.

A World Council of Churches (WCC) Living Letters team has appealed to Nigeria's religious leaders to encourage people belonging to different ethnic and faith groups to take initiatives to promote lasting peace and harmony in violence-affected communities.

by Theodore Gill (*)

<span style="font-weight: bold; "» World youth prepares for mission