Word of the day - métier à tisser - the loom of peace could also be the ministry of peace

It's difficult with a rather flaky mobile internet connection on my way through Eastern Germany to do the etymological research I need for some passing thoughts about the word "métier à tisser" which is French for a loom. In German it's a Webstuhl - literally a weaving chair. Given how at the Peace Convocation we have thought a great deal about weaving, weaving stories, weaving history, weaving the future ... it is not surprising that I should begin to think about the French word for loom. The French word métier is used today to mean profession. But looking at these etymological defintions I was surprised to see that the word has its origins in the sense of service or ministry. I suppose for the loom this means that that the métier ministers to the tissage, it "serves" the weaving, making it possible for cloth and textile to be woven.
So this set me thinking about how we have been talking about the Convocation, perhaps one of its roles was to be of service to the weaving together of just peace from many diverse contexts. It was a loom, being that loom was part of the WCC's ministry of peace with justice.

Behind the scenes ... how the #IEPC keeps on track

Most participants I chat with are really enjoying themselves the the Peace Convocation - some are suffering a bit with the heat, humidity and the distances we have to walk; a few might like a bit more variety in the food we get to eat (personally I've got rather addicted to rice n peas), generally there seems to be a great spirit and a wonderful atmosphere, particularly in the evenings at the open air bar at the Rex Nettlesford halls of residence. There are good conversations going on there every night and I admit to having developed quite a taste for the coconut rum on the rocks.
However, the pictures here don't show scenes of conviviality but of the back rooms where staff are busy working to keep data input, computer terminals, communications, documentation, finance, accommodation, Bible studies, workshops, seminars, plenaries and much else besides on track as much as possible. Lots of the work is physical, requires alot of concentration and sometimes also nerves of steel - cabling, data entry, collating documents, chasing down speakers, rebuilding the stage between worship and plenary sessions, building interpretation booths, spending ages with administrations on the phone tracking down shipments, dealing with payments converted between several different currencies, filming, writing, updating the web, finding people to sing or pray in different languages and much more besides ...
Creating an event for 1,000 people requires dedicated and committed staff and coopted staff - and liaison with a brilliant local team here in Jamaica, including many volunteers and students. We are not perfect, but together we're a good team, some of us more exhausted than others. When the IEPC is over we will have a real feeling of achievement, proud to have been part of this significant event in the WCC's history. It would not have been possible without us.

Blessed are those who fill in data and greet us at registration with a smile and get us a room!
Blessed are the finance folk who deal with our reimbursements
Blessed are the html programmers, the writers and filmakers getting the story out there
Blessed are the cleaners, the cooks, the travel agents
Blessed are the planners, the speakers and the inspirers
Blessed are the ones who find us ladders, boards, ramps, sound equipment and bamboo poles
Blessed are those who stock the frig with beer
Blessed are those who translate, convert currency, change air tickets, find doctors
Blessed are the musicians who in the midst of it all allow us to think we could still dance
Blessed is Nan, who coordinates us, with aplomb
Blessed is the IEPC staff, co-opted staff and volunteer team.

Thanks to all of you guys, you've done such a good job, we think we might try and do it again ... maybe in about 10 years time.

The risen Christ calls us to peace not to vengeance - Olav Fykse Tveit preaches at Webster Memorial United Church

Sometimes it's really worth making the effort to get out of bed early on a Sunday morning and yesterday was a good case in point. It was good to begin the 10 days of the IEPC worshiping with local people at their normal Sunday service. The tradition of dressing up to go to church is alive and well in Jamaica. Twenty years in France, where this really isn't the case, had made me almost forget this part of my own tradition of church going.

I was moved by the sermon preached by the WCC's general secretary, Olav Fykse Tveit. He really engaged with the congregation, blending humour about unity in diversity - recognizing the real differences between the Caribbean where tropical fruit juice is drunk and Norway where salt cod tends to the local speciality - with a powerful and heartfelt message about the true Christian values of righteousness, peace and joy.
He began by saying quite meditatively
"We are the church
We are the Kingdom
We are the World Council of Churches ..."
It is a sign of the united church to value righteousness, peace and joy as true fruits of the Spirit

He took Romans 14.11-18 as his text, encouraging the congregation to focus on joy, as this 3rd Sunday after Easter is called Jubilate, Rejoice!
This rejoicing is the gospel of resurrection which comes across locked doors in the person of the risen Christ breathing the words "peace be with you". "This tells us alot about how God calls us to just peace. The theme of just peace is not just something to discuss but it is a sign of the Kingdom of God and that fruit of the Spirit called joy. The risen Christ is present to bring justice and peace to the world as a sign.
Christ's presence brings with it a new reality of joy and peace. Despite the betrayal, humiliation, torture, pain and death that he has endured it is not with revenge that Christ comes back but with a true justice, he returns from death bearing the fruits of the kingdom. This is what he brings to the world through his presence.

Tveit then went on to speak about situations of war and peace in the world, mentioning in particular a visit in January to a minority church in Libya which had at that time particularly been praying for the Coptic martyrs of Alexandria
He continued by saying that the church is called to give witness to what is not seen, like a seed hidden in darkness, God's presence is alive. Pointing out that the WCC was not quite as old as Webster Memorial Church, he also made reference to the speech made by the then bishop of Oslo in the run up to the WCC's founding in 1948 "The Enemy divides, God unites". Reflecting on this Tveit then returned to the Romans 14 passage saying "We are created to be united, to be togehter." The text takes us further even than this towards accepting that God has created nothing that is unclean. It is we who make one another unclean.
We are here to be a signs of righteousness, justice and peace. God justifies us so we can bear witness to a unity of diversity, of difference. All of us are called to accept one another.

Getting to be 70 means we are still young enough to change while building on what those who went before. Change is possible. Another world is possible. To illustrate this Tveit told a favourite story of his mother who spoke of peace coming at the end of the German occupation of Norway. How her story of the day the peace came helped him to see pictures he had never actually seen, like the blackout curtains which had separated people and kept the light out burning in teh streets. The burning curtains were a clear sign of peace, not just a rumour. the story of peace also speaks clearly of the joy of something. People around the world carry such stories of peace and part of the practice of peace is to give and share them as signs to one another.
In any home life can be complicated, we can forget that peace also needs righteousness and joy.
"I believe the Holy Spirit calls churches to do everything we can together to witness to the reality of Christ's presence. There is no way of separating Christ from these values of justice, peace and joy."

Going through my (I should add imperfect) notes to type this up I realise that what moved me about yesterday's sermon was the very gentle but convinced weaving together of favourite themes the WCC's general secretary has preached about over the past 18 months. Tveit is keen to assert that justice joy and peace are the core Christian values. In all our talk about unity we must not separate ourselves from that. There were subtle but very clear messages about inclusivity and I think I am beginning to better understand the statement he sometimes makes when he says he doesn't believe in enemies. Here the idea received a bit more context for me and I was very struck by the idea of Christ coming back from the grave with the fruits of the Spirit. Justice, peace and joy are resurrection values with great capacity to unite us.
During the service yesterday there were also beautiful moments when a woman sitting close to me was more or less finishing the preacher's entences before he did and saying amen with real joy.
Worth getting up early on Sunday for.

Walking on water to journey to peace ... the IEPC begins

This stunning piece of textile art in patchwork and quilting is called "Journey to Peace" and is by Deborah Stockdale. It is the central work commissioned for the Stitching Peace exhibtion which will come to Jamaica as part of the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation - the exhibition has itself been on a journey, it was displayed in Geneva for a month earlier in the year. Roberta Bacic who curated the exhibition comes from Chile but lives in Northern Ireland. Many of the pieces are packed in Ireland and waiting to come to Kingston as I write this ...

I arrived in Jamaica just after midnight local time last night. Members of the local committee were waiting to meet us at the airport - it was wonderful when feeling so tired to be welcomed and taken to our accommodation. What was interesting though was that even in this brief meeting at a midnight hour with all of us tired, we were already getting into the theme of "just peace". One of the people arriving at the same time as me was a young person from Syria. As we waited we exchanged perhaps rather superficial comments about the situation in Syria with her. Her response was interesting, "much of what is said is propaganda". Given the late hour and our need for sleep after 24 hours of travelling there wasn't time to have much follow up conversation. I'll admit to wishing I could be a fly on the wall at the youth programme where I am sure that discussion and many others will continue.
Once I was compos mentis enough for some cogent thought again this morning after a few hours sleep, I thought back to our conversation last night. It struck me that "just peace" is definitely not about easy slogans or one-size fits all solutions. It's about having good quality and nuanced information about situations (both of conflict and of reconciliation), but it is also in some way trying to come to a judgement about those situation. Not a judgement for all time but a judgement in the here and now. Syria could be a good case in point, but so are many other countries and situaitons.
To be for justice and for peace will often mean knowing not to take sides in a simplisitc way but knowing rather how to stand up for the (gospel) values of peace and justice as such. Sometimes though to be for justice and peace will mean taking sides, and being prepared to be vilified for taking that stance. Being for a just peace is not something static or set in stone it is very much about being on a journey and sometimes it will mean daring to put our feet on what is not solid ground. Daring to get it wrong.
In Deborah's Journey to Peace this sense of moving towards something is clear but what you can't see so clearly from this image is that there are people in the ecumenical boat, people also walking in the labyrinth of peace which is the IEPC logo of locked hands. There are however also people who have stepped out of the boat and are walking on the water. They really are daring to believe that the journey to just peace will carry them on. Pilgrims of hope borne forwards by hope and belief in water and the word... a beautiful baptismal image.
Here in Jamaica we are surrounded by water, all of us coming here have to cross it in some way or another. As we arrive and as we leave Kingston will we dare to go on walking on water into the future so as to build a just peace?

Holding hands in a warm grasp whatever the weather

Over the past year I have been on a steep learning curve about Norway, a country I have only visited once - though I did rather like it and celebrated my 40th birthday there under the midnight sun!

In one article I read some months ago about the Tromso outdoor winter film festival I came across the phrase "In Norway there is no such thing as bad weather just bad clothing".

I thought of this today as the World Council of Churches general secretary Olav Fykse Tveit, who is Norwegian, attended his first private audience with Pope Benedict XVI. Tveit and other colleagues at the WCC thought carefully about gifts for the Holy Father, in the end taking an inlaid wooden box from Syria as a reminder of deep concern for and solidarity with the people and Christian communities of the Middle East. Inside the box were some more personal gifts, a book of poetry by Olav H. Hauge which contains in Norwegian and English one of Tveit's favourite poems by Hauge "The Dream we Carry".

Rather more unusually one of the other gifts was a pair of Norwegian woollen gloves. Since coming into office at the WCC Tveit has tried to rehabilitate the meaning of winter, as a time for reflection and preparation. Communicators sometimes find this a bit difficult to deal with as there is also much talk of ecumenical winter. Tveit's clear message with the gloves was that however cold the actual or ecumenical weather there are always ways in which we can reach out to each other, support one another and walk hand in hand to carry forwards the work of unity and being one together.
I like the idea of this ecumenical reaching out to one another whatever the weather, a warm grasp across the divisions, inspired by epigramatic poetry: carrying the dream ... To advance Christian unity perhaps we all need to think not about how bad the weather is but how we can metaphorically clothe ourselves in such a away that we can still reach out in warmth to one another.

The photo is from the Osservatore Romano who have a further piece about the visit here.
And here's a link to the transcript of Vatican radio's interview with Tveit, in German.

At Edinburgh 2010 and still learning more about global Christianity

The Stranzblog took the train from Geneva to Edinburgh - yes all my colleagues thought I was crazy - to attend the Edinburgh 2010 event. The journey was fabulous and easy - and took about 13 hours. Three capital cities - Paris, London, Edinburgh - and four countries - Switzerland, France, England and Scotland - in one day. It was fun, though I was carrying the interpretation equipment which is a bit bulky.
I'm here to interpret into French and until this morning I was not sure whether I would be needed but in the end, despite several participants from Western Africa having their visas refused, I will be needed for the plenary sessions. This morning's session was an interesting one with a keynote address from professor Dana Robert on the need to find an eschatological vision for mission in 2010. Her speech will be online in a few moments. Keep checking the Edinburgh 2010 website.

This afternoon I was in one of the "tracks" which received a very interesting presentation on the Atlas of Global Christianity pictured here.
It was fascinating to see visuals of changes between 1910 and 2010 in how religions and Christianity in particular in spread around the world. I'm off to another meeting now so that will have to do for now.

The ecumenical boat

"That all mäy be one"

For morning prayer we often follow the readings also used by the Communauté de Grandchamp. On Thursday and Friday last week, the final days of Eastertide and the days directly preceding Pentecost the goepl readings for morning prayer were from John 17.
We often hear the verse "that all may be one" in the chapel of the Ecumenical Centre and use it alot in our work on ecumenism - it is woven in Greek into the tapestry of Christ ascended in glory which covers one wall of our main hall. What was good on Thursday and Friday was listening to the passage in its entirety and realising how the call to be one is repeated throughout.
You can find the order for prayers which my colleague Theodore Gill drew up here. It includes a moving litany for the unity of the church.

Bible study and blogging

On three mornings of the past week we had Bible studies led by John Baxter Brown, currently working as the WCC's consultant on evangelism. The studies were simple but powerful times of listening to the Bible and sharing - about our lives, work and vocations. In the words of the old advert they reached parts that other meetings and discussions simply could not. We ended on Friday by meditating on the story of the miraculous fish catch from John 21 with brilliant repeated readings of the text by various colleagues at different points during our "study". We ended by listening to a version read by colleagues mainly in English but with the words said by Jesus and Peter read in Syriac - a language very close to the Aramaic spoken in biblical time. It was very powerful.
In our table discussions we first focused on words in the text that spoke to each of us. Then we shared something of our own contexts, what the text awoke in us. It's at moments like this that you realise what an extraordinary privilege it is to be part of such a culturually diverse staff community. In one thirty minute session you can hear a story from the shore of an African lake where people would fish at night time, a perspective from a human rights activist, a contribution on struggling with Peter's conversation with Jesus (given in a language the rest of us didn't understand, but interpreted for us) or a further appreciation of the Peter's words ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’
It was good to begin our final day of staff meetings with this wonderful eucharistic text which has all of the sensuality of a barbecue on the beach, water, fish, friendship, love - deep conversation, pain and joy. Reurrection is made of such things, miracles of togetherness and common work too ...
Meanwhile John BB has started a new blog csalled Evangelism is in your comfort zone. Join in the conversation through the comments section.

The day the peace came - a story of resurrection

Our service this morning focused on peace, the promise and hope of peace. The WCC's general secretary, Olav Fykse Tveit opened and closed the service and also preached a very personal and pastoral sermon on what real peace can mean.
His text was from John's gospel 20.19-23 Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." and he told a story his mother had told the family time and again, the day the peace came to Norway, to Oslo.

One story my mother told again and again with a never ceasing joy in her eyes was the story of when the peace came. It was almost as if peace was a person: with a real presence, coming, being, breathing, staying.

Tveit went on to talk about how the rumour of the peace spread and then could be seen by three concrete proofs: people talking freely with one another on the streets, the Norwegian flag being flown even though it had been banned and the burning of the paper blackout curtains on the streets.

The feeling of what the coming of peace means, can only really be experienced by those who have been living with the fear of war, the burden of injustice, the tension of waiting for the day of peace and new life to come.
The more I see the realities of life for many people in this world, in different kinds of conflicts and injustice, the more the story of when the peace came becomes a story of hope and solidarity: listening to the longing for justice and peace; longing that something wonderful will happen, that it must happen …

At the end of the service just before the final blessing we shared the peace, having just sung "la paz del señor" we moved around sharing the peace with one another. It worked well and was quite moving. In an ecumenical setting we cannot share the eucharist but we can share the peace, it's another way of affirming communion and fellowship.
As the service ended I reflected on how it is narratives of meaning, stories of hope that tell us as much about the resurrection as simply retelling the gospel story. The stories of hope, peace and resurrection that we tell can go on being told after we ourselves are dead and no longer here to tell them. The narrative of hope continues, the story does not end. It's particularly true of stories our parents and grandparents tell us.

Vulnerability and celebration

Today has been a day of vulnerabilty and celebration. The new ACT alliance was launched at lunchtime with a simple service focusing on the Magnificat and then a screening of the new ACT video (which is fabulous). At the service Olav Fykse Tveit preached on the Magnificat, you can read the sermon here, here's an extract.

The Magnificat has a strong message to us: In the lowest we find the highest. In the smallest we find the greatest. In the most vulnerable we find the power of God. We are called to magnify, for the benefit of those who need it, for the glory of God.
Some of us have had the experience and some of us can experience the great miracle of magnifying the Creator by carrying the life of another person into life. In these days, nine months before the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we sing the words of Mary with joy and with trembling awe. The vulnerability of life comes so close to us. This was also the reality of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In this vulnerability is the power of life. Here is God the Creator, here is the promise for the future, inside the body of a woman.

Personal tragedy touched members of staff today and we have wept and prayed and sought to find meaning even as we continued with our work ... it has been hard, we have worked and prayed and cried and hugged and celebrated and supported one another, that has been a celebration of the essential vulnerability which is at the heart of our faith but also somehow part of our work and professionalism. Expressing incompression at life's cruelty and tragedy has to be part of faith. I end the day giving thanks yet with tears still falling, knowing deeply that this is how life is ... joy and sorrow, pride and incomprehension, rage and rejoicing, fear and faith.

Kairos - getting personal

There's a good article by Michael Marten on Ekklesia about making the Kairos document personal. Here's an extract:

Yusuf Daher, one of the people involved in the Kairos Palestine Document, spoke at a meeting in Jerusalem recently about the process of writing it. The Document took over 18 months to write and was, he said, written for two groups. Firstly, it was for Palestinian Christians like himself – Daher is a Melkite Catholic. He noted that all Palestinian Christian communities have adopted it without exception (though whether individual members of congregations are aware of it is, of course, another matter). It is being taken forward and there are plans to develop it into a substantial programme of action.

Secondly, the Kairos Palestine Document was written for the international Christian community, as both "a word of gratitude for the solidarity you have shown toward us in word, deed and presence among us", but also as "a call to repentance; to revisit fundamentalist theological positions that support ... unjust political options." It is, the authors say, "a call to stand alongside the oppressed and preserve the word of God as good news for all rather than to turn it into a weapon with which to slay the oppressed" (6.1).

In the next section, the Document explains how to understand the reality of the Palestinians: "Come and see." If only more churches would do this. Walking with Palestinians, experiencing their pain, seeing their loss – human rights organisations can write reports, UN departments can release endless statistics, and lobbying organisations can pick up on individual issues, but going to see the reality and walking even just for a short time with Palestinians is a different issue altogether.

Since attending the Bern Promised Land consultation in 2008 I've become more convinced that informing and changing hearts and minds in the churches on this issue is an important theological task of our time. In parish ministry month after month we would pray for peace in the land we sometimes call "Holy"- at times of open prayer even in our tiny Reformed congregation, the political and theological divisions would become clear with some praying for the "people of Israel" and others praying for the Palestinians. How can we hold justice and peace together, work for a sustainable future for all people in the area and also challenge our own deeply held and sometimes unacknowledged theological views? The challenge of and need for an ecumenical approach on this question are clearly what is needed within many local churches.
Many of the more conservative evangelical churches have strong mission to countries in Africa, South America and Asia and sometimes export a very one-sided approach on the issue, so it's important to work on mission, education and advocacy together. The Kairos Palestine document is part of that approach.

You can find the full text in English and Arabic of the Kairos Palestine document here. Translations into other languages are available at www.kairospalestine.ps
You can also find out more about the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum here.

Reuters, Protest info and more

Olav Fykse Tveit, who has now been in post at the WCC for six weeks held a press briefing this week prior to his official installation as general secretary on Tuesday evening.
I attended the briefing to interpret which was fun and also a privilege (it was also work of course!). You can listen to what Dr Tveit had to say about his ecumenical vision, about Haiti and debt cancellation, about the Middle East and about Climate change by clicking on the audio links here.
It's been good to see that we had some pick up on Reuters Faith World blog. epd in Germany and some of the Francophone Swiss media have also written pieces following the press briefing.
It's good when interpretation can serve communication, I almost feel useful!
Meanwhile the sermon on the ecumenical movement of the cross preached by Tveit during the installation service is available in English, German, French, Spanish and Russian, though not yet in Tveit's mother tongue Norwegian. Perhaps we'll have to add some new translators to our lists.

Future ecumenical leaders encouraged to read poetry, for blessing the going out and the coming in

Towards the end of the day today two colleagues drove me out to the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey to interpret. Today was graduation day for the more than 30 students who have been living and studying together there for the past semester. It's alway a very moving and joyful event. The students come from an amazing diversity of countries and church backgrounds. There's always lots of good natured cheering and clapping as each student goes forward to get their certificate - though this part is a bit of a nightmare for the interpreter as the clapping oftens drowns out the name of the church and country!

Olav Fykse Tveit, the new WCC general secretary attended the graduation for the first time this evening and gave a humorous and heartfelt "sending out" to the students after they had received their diplomas. "You are ecumenical leaders" Tveit said to the students and mentioned that he felt he had very similar advice to share with them as he had just a week before with a very different group of leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos. There he took part in a panel discussion on what leaders read. This evening Tveit spoke passionately not only about reading but about re-reading - encouraging all of us to recognise what a huge resource we continue to have in reading and re-reading the Bible, not just reading it as individuals but reading and re-reading it with people in contexts very different from our own, listening to and being challenged by their readings and re-readings. As well as this multiple reading and re-reading of the Bible, he also mentioned reading biography and particularly emphasised the reading of poetry. there is something compelling in the brevity of poetry, it leaves you wanting more, formulating your own thoughts.
He closed by sharing two poems, the first one extremely short went something like this "Remember the enormous possibilities that lie within just a single second". The second poem was better known to his audience, fortunately the interpreter (me!) despite having come to the booth without a Bible also knew it well. The Psalms are indeed perfect poetry and Psalm 121 particularly good words with which to wish ecumenical leaders well on their homewards journeys.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and for evermore.

Later in the evening we celebrated the endowment of two new scholarships for Bossey and a Swiss pastor from Interlaken paying homage to Elisabeth Oerlemans quoted the French hymn "A toi la gloire" in various languages including Norwegian. Hymns of course are a good example of poetry in translation.

A new general secretary for the WCC

Late this afternoon the central committee of the WCC elected a new general secretary. Olav Fykse Tveit will take up office on January 1st 2010 when Samuel Kobia retires.
I am very happy at this news and was moved listening to the general secretary elect speaking while watching from the interpretation booths. you can read the moving and motivating presentation he made in the closed session of the central committee.

What does it mean to be one? To be one is to stand up for one another; to step out of our own interests - for the other, for a higher cause of unity; to stand together in the whole mission of God. We are so much stronger together. The agenda for justice and peace demands that we are one; the agenda for unity theologically.

Sometimes even for me life (also known as work!) takes over from blogging

Apologies for the very infrequent posting here in recent days. The WCC's central committee meeting starts tomorrow and the scramble to get the official documents translated has been underway at rather more than full tilt in recent days, including the weekend. It looks as if we will just about make it - at least in time for the interpreters to have copies of the translations before the speakers present their papers. Phew ... We have all been working long hours.
Today also saw the arrival of the stewards - the wonderful young people who come to global events like this to discover more about ecumenism and work very hard.
The language service has two great stewards working with us who have an impressive range of languages between them - German, French, Spanish, Armenian. It always lifts us to work with young people who bring new insights and fresh enthusiasm to the work. I hope they are going to blog a bit while they are at central committee. We'll see.
Meanwhile, with another colleague I have also begun painting a 4 metre square peace labyrinth for the international day of prayer for peace - it's a bit crazy, but it's good relaxation from translating, editing, timetabling and coordinating. More about that soon.

The brand new WCC website

The World Council of Churches has launched a new look website. It's still in four languages and gives you access to news, events and background documents about the WCC's work but it now focuses the way in to the work through the key words of Mission, Unity and Service. I think it looks really attractive and I know how hard my colleagues have been working to get it ready, so why not have a look around.

New film on the way from Naveen Qayyum

There's a report here from the Netherlands about Naveen Qayyum's new film project following on from the success of Talking Faith which I've mentioned several times before. The new project which has received funding from the WCC and the Council of Churches in the Netherlands is called Building Bridges and looks at relations between young people from different religous backgrounds. More about the new project soon when I know a bit more, Naveen's work is very much worth supporting.

Your hand for ecumenism - WCC youth interns blog

The five WCC current youth interns helped run the stand in the market of possibilities at the Kirchentag. They brought creativity and vitality to the stand and we had young people queueing up to draw around their hands and put up their hands for ecumenism.
Emma, Katarina, Packiaraj, James and Mark have also started a blog which I hope they manage to keep up. I'm looking forwards to reading it and hearing more about their impressions of Kirchentag.

International Year of Reconciliation

Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your sister or brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.First go and be reconciled to your sister or brother; then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23-24

While I was in Bremen the WCC organised a public hearing to mark the UN's Year of Reconciliation.
You can read more and also download and listen to podcasts here.