Global Christian Forum Meets Next Week

"The Novotel Hotel and Convention Center in Manado, 

on the island of Sulawesi, will host the second 

global gathering of the Global Christian Forum".

It is almost a year since Methodist Ecumenical News drew attention to next week's meeting of the Global Christian Forum.  So, it is time to review the progress of the planning for the meeting.

The event (4 - 7 October 2011) will be held at the Novotel Hotel and Convention Center in Manado, the capital of the Province of North Sulawesi. Manado is situated at the far north-eastern tip of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Gathering around the central theme of Life Together in Jesus Christ, Empowered by the Holy Spirit, some three hundred church leaders and representatives from every continent have been invited to attend.

The makeup of the conference comprises a 50-50 split between what could be conveniently called 'Evangelical' and 'Traditional' churches all chosen using a set of principles to ensure balance in representing the variety and diversity of world Christianity.

Two plenary sessions will work directly under the main theme, and out of it, a third plenary will, intentionally, be Listening to What the Spirit is Saying to the Churches.

As well as discussing changing trends, participants will hear first hand of the experiences of the churches from across the world and will seek discern the further vision for the Global Christian Forum.

The invitations include representation from Christian World Communions, Ecumenical organizations, Evangelical/Pentecostal/Charismatic organizations and churches, Orthodox Patriarchates, the Catholic Church, Regional Councils, Conferences, Alliances or Associations, and Churches, covering all geographic areas and all traditions, mega churches and migrant churches.

Participants will include both women and men, and will cover a range of age groups from young people to more experienced church leaders. The four national church bodies in Indonesia are supportive of the meeting in their country. The Communion of Churches – the Pentecostal Churches Fellowship – the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches and Institutions – and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, have all warmly welcomed the Global Christian Forum to hold its second gathering in their nation and have constituted a joint national organizing committee.

For more information, it is worth looking at the Forum website, where you will find a programme and an explanation of what they hope to achieve and how.  Doubtless more material will appear after the Forum has met.  One document in particular is worth a look, Introduction to Second Global Gathering, which offers a brief recap of the history of the Forum and then goes on to explain the purpose of the gathering, who will be there and how the programme is intended to work.

Inclusion and Membership

Meeting of the Global Christian Forum,  Nairobi 2007

This post is the sixth in a sequence examining some of the issues raised in a new report, 'A Review of Intermediate Ecumenical Life in England' to be published by Churches Together in England in a few weeks time.

Today, I will reflect upon inclusion and membership.  The following concludes Chapter 14:

The laudable desire to make intermediate ecumenical life accessible to all Christian bodies is not without its difficulties in terms of governance ans accountability, orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and acceptability to the existing partners on the ecumenical journey.  Discernment is needed to eradicate prejudice and cross-cultural misunderstanding and to move forwards with an expectation of mutual enrichment.  Relationships at different "levels" of ecumenical life are different and may point towards different decisions about membership being made at each level; but it is important to recognise that what happens at one level affects what happens at the other, albeit autonomous, levels.

 The report lists some of the sources of diversity of churches at the local level and this will bear reproduction here:

• The Caribbean and African based churches have grown stronger and more numerous, often with a propensity to follow the movement of the Spirit which results in fragmentation.
• Churches, new to this country, have arrived with new citizens from many other parts of the world;
• Independent, evangelical / charismatic churches, mainly white-led, have grown in number and influence.
• The increase in the strength of orthodox Churches and the increased confidence of churches of the disaffected.
• Churches which are spin-offs from the historic denominations and claiming to maintain the integrity of the tradition.

It is interesting to look at the authority structures of these churches.  Some, are independent, some form loose alliances with like-minded churches, some have a closer union between several congregations but are small, perhaps regional, some relate to churches which are significant in other parts of the world.  The point is many, whilst significant players locally, have no national presence.  This reinforces the impression  ecumenism is about formal conversations between traditional or inherited churches.

The Global Christian Forum has created a space for evangelical and charismatic churches with a national or international presence, to enter into conversations with members of the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church.  To this extent, it seems international and local ecumenism have something in common.  However, the mix of churches in any locality may well be unique to that locality.

What are the implications?  Inevitably, it means agreements between churches nationally have less impact on the local scene.  Some of the regulations governing property, finance and ministry may seem onerous compared with the experience of freedom some local churches experience.

I suspect national church authorities will need to enter into conversations with their local churches in order to facilitate sharing of information and experiences between local churches.  This is a new era of ecumenical dialogue and local churches will find they are moving closer to the centre of ecumenical work.  One challenge they will encounter will be the need to temper their local focus by being aware of what's happening in other localities, nationally and internationally.

Related articles

• Inclusion and Membership (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• A Review of Intermediate Ecumenical Life in England (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• Supporting Local Ecumenical Life (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• The Sponsoring Body (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• Mission Shaped and Ecumenical (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• Strategic Planning: Mission Together (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• Intermediate Bodies, Past and Present (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)

2nd Global Gathering Takes Shape

Image via Wikipedia

More news about the next meeting of the Global Christian Forum can be found in trhe May edition of CTE News. 

At an important meeting in Istanbul, Turkey the Global Christian Forum (GCF) committee put into place final plans for the Second Global gathering to take place from the 4 – 7 of October, at Manado on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The central theme of the gathering is: Life Together in Jesus Christ, Empowered by the Holy Spirit. Some three hundred church leaders and representatives, comprising a 50-50 split between what could be conveniently called ‘Evangelical’ and ‘Traditional’ churches, have been invited. The makeup of the conference follows a set of principles used to ensure balance in representing the variety of world Christianity.

Two plenary sessions will work directly under the main theme, and out of it, a third plenary will intentionally, be Listening to What the Spirit is Saying to the Churches. As well as discussing changing trends, participants will listen to the experiences of the churches from across the world and will seek discern the further vision for the Global Christian Forum.

The invitations include representation from Christian World Communions, Ecumenical organizations, Evangelical/Pentecostal/Charismatic organizations, Orthodox Patriarchates, the Catholic Church, Regional Councils, Conferences, Alliances or Associations, and Churches, covering all geographic areas and all traditions, mega churches and migrant churches. Participants will include both women and men, both young people and more experienced leaders.

Related articles

• Experiencing Unity Globally (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)

China Christian Council visits WCC

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It is easy to assume Chinese Christians are cut off from the rest of the world.  For example, it is true they were unable to visit the Global Christian Forum in 2007.  However, they have firm links with the World Council of Churches (WCC) and have been members since 1991.

On Monday, a seven member delegation from the China Christian Council (CCC) visited the WCC.  This was the fourth such meeting since the CCC was founded in 1980.  Details of the meeting can be found on the WCC website.  Here is a brief summary of the topics covered.

While analyzing religious policies and church-state relations, the delegation expressed the common opinion that "this is a golden era for the development of religions in China". The church in China is engaged in various means of promoting a "harmonious society" in China.  The Rev. Kan Baoping explained that religious communities in general and the Protestant church in particular have experienced rapid growth in China over the last 30 years. He said that having moved beyond denominational divisions was one reason for the church's vitality, partly because Chinese culture puts more emphasis on commonalities than on differences.


Rev. Zhang Shuilian, vice-chairperson of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant church, said that Christians generally had a good image in today's China. This is due to their response to societal needs, for example by collecting donations for the victims of the 2008 earthquake in China's Sichuan province, she added.  Zhang said that urban churches often had special programmes to welcome migrant workers, while in rural areas church life was important to fill the gap experienced by the elderly and children who were left behind as other family members went to seek employment in the cities.  Encouraging stability in family life, she continued, is one way in which Christianity and other religions cooperate in the government’s policy aimed at maintaining a "harmonious society". Robust interfaith relations also support this goal.

Related articles

• The Way to the Global Christian Forum (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• WCC General Secretary meets the Pope (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)

The Way to the Global Christian Forum

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One of the realities many ecumenists encounter, locally through to international, is the separation of Pentecostal and Evangelical churches from the mainstream ecumenical movement.  This has been addressed internationally through the Global Christian Forum in recent years. 

I've found a blog post, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Global Christian Forum, which summarises the origins of this split and the story of how the Global Christian Forum was founded.

Here's a an excerpt from the account of how the split was formed:

One con­cern Evan­gel­i­cals and Pen­te­costals have often had is the loss of the mis­sion­ary spirit among ecumenically-minded Christians—a ter­ri­ble irony, con­sid­er­ing that ecu­menism was born at the Edin­burgh Mis­sion­ary Con­fer­ence in 1910. The Inter­na­tional Mis­sion­ary Coun­cil that was formed as a result of the Edin­burgh con­fer­ence even­tu­ally joined the World Coun­cil of Churches in 1961; many Evan­gel­i­cals left in protest. 1974 saw the for­ma­tion of the Lau­sanne Com­mit­tee for World Evan­ge­liza­tion, fol­low­ing a Con­gress in the same place and year, at the ini­tia­tive of the Amer­i­can evan­ge­list Billy Gra­ham. There 2500 Evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers from 150 coun­tries recom­mit­ted them­selves to world evan­ge­liza­tion in sign­ing the Lau­sanne Covenant. Clearly enough, they weren’t impressed by the WCC’s abil­ity to keep up the mis­sion­ary task of the church.

The post goes on to describe how the Global Christian Forum was founded and designed to compensate 'for their “under­rep­re­sen­ta­tion” else­where, as well as to demon­strate the will­ing­ness of “ecu­meni­cal vet­er­ans” to be in the minority'.

Related articles

• Global Christian Forum (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• Faith and Order Centenary (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• Evangelical Congress takes Reconciliation as Key to its Mission (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)

Global Christian Forum

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News of the next Global Christian Forum, from the latest edition of CTE News, October 2010.  The last meeting took place in Nairobi in November 2007.

The second Global Christian Forum Gathering will take place on 4 – 7 October 2011 at Hotel Seruni in Cisarua, near Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. The gathering will bring together some three hundred participants from the widest possible range of Christian traditions and from all parts of the world. It will focus on stories reflecting what the Spirit is saying to the churches, on the rapidly changing and multiple faces of world Christianity today and what these mean for Christian unity and common witness. The gathering will also be asked to provide guidance for the GCF beyond 2011. In deciding to go to Indonesia the GCF Committee wants to recognize once again the shifting of the centre of Christianity to the global South (the first Global Forum Gathering was in Limuru, Kenya, in November 2007). Four national church bodies in Indonesia: the PGI (Ecumenical), the PGPI (Pentecostal), the PGLII (Evangelical) and the KWI (Catholic) will join forces to receive the second Global Forum Gathering and to take care of all the local arrangements.

The GCF Committee has approved the setting up of two Foundations to further the process of the Global Christian Forum in the areas of fundraising and administration. Since its inception some twelve years ago the Global Christian Forum has been a movement, or a process, and the committee has affirmed on several occasions its resolve not to institutionalize it as an established international organization. With the growing response to the initiatives of the GCF and the expectation that it will continue for some time into the future certain constraints regarding its financial sustainability and operational capacity have surfaced. In order to respond to these needs the committee has decided that two Foundations will be created, in Switzerland and in the USA. As legal entities these Foundations will be entitled to raise, receive and manage funds on behalf of the Global Christian Forum and to provide other legal support as may be required. The authority to guide and direct the GCF will remain with the committee.

Related articles

• Pentecostals and WCC Need Each Other (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• WCC Stewards' Programme (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)