WEEK OF PRAYER

At least once a year, Christians are reminded of Jesus’ prayer for his disciples that “they may be one so that the world may believe” (see John 17.21). Hearts are touched and Christians come together to pray for their unity.

Traditionally the week of prayer is celebrated between January 18 and 25, between the feasts of St Peter and St Paul. In the southern hemisphere, where January is a vacation time, churches often find other days to celebrate it, for example around Pentecost, which is also a symbolic date for unity.

In order to prepare for the annual celebration, ecumenical partners in a particular region are invited to produce a basic liturgical text on a biblical theme. Then an international editorial team of World Council of Churches (WCC) and Roman Catholic representatives refines this text to ensure that it can be prayed throughout the world, and to link it with the search for the visible unity of the church.

The text is jointly published by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the WCC, through the WCC’s Commission on Faith and Order, which also accompanies the entire production process of the text. The final material is sent to WCC member churches and Roman Catholic episcopal conferences, and they are invited to translate the text and contextualise or adapt it for their own use.

The materials for the 2020 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity have been prepared by the Christian churches in Malta and Gozo (Christians Together in Malta) on the theme ‘They showed us unusual kindness’ based on Acts 28:2. On February 10 many Christians in Malta celebrate the Feast of the Shipwreck of St Paul, marking and giving thanks for the arrival of Christian faith on these islands. The reading from the Acts of the Apostles used for the feast is the text chosen for this year’s Week of Prayer, and Christians are invited to reflect on those making dangerous journeys today. The materials are available through the WCC website, www.oikoumene.org (WCC)

EVANGELICAL ASSEMBLY

The World Evangelical Alliance’s (WEA) General Assembly (GA) started offwith a colourful opening ceremony that saw 800 participants from 92 countries joined by several thousand Indonesian believers from across the country. The GA brings together WEA’s constituency of regional and national Alliances that represent local churches in their respective countries, and more than one hundred affiliated international ministries and organisations. It is a global network that spans 130 nations and serves some 600 million evangelicals around the world, making it the second largest global Christian body today.

Held at the Sentul International Conference Center south of Jakarta, Indonesia from November 7-12, the GA was the first global gathering of such scale hosted by the WEA in eleven years. The theme “Your Kingdom Come” inspired by Jesus’ prayer in Matthew 6 expresses the hope for the GA to be a critical moment for evangelicals to come together to reflect and strategise how to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission “to disciple all nations” by focusing on intentional, holistic disciple-making.

“Evangelicals are the fastest growing religious movement in the world in the last sixty years. And we want to thank God for what he is doing,” Bp Efraim Tendero, Secretary General of the WEA stated in his opening remarks at the ceremony, and added: “As we gather for the next six days, we have the passion and desire to cry out to God, that as evangelical leaders, we all work together to advance the Kingdom of God in our time.” (WEA)

UNITY STATEMENT

Gathering for its council session in Cambridge in October, the Council of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe issued a statement calling on churches to show unity in the face of political division.

Headed ‘Church Communion in Divided Times’, the statement laments ‘the emergence of an increasingly divided and divisive political culture, and the use of antagonistic language and policies to deliberately stoke division’, calls for ‘truth in public discourse’, and for people ‘to respond with grace to those with whom they disagree’.

It adds: “Our faith is in Jesus Christ as the foundation of our church communion. We celebrate worship together across all national, linguistic, cultural and confessional boundaries. In this worship, we also ask God to grant all governing leaders the wisdom to reach decisions that give priority to peace in Europe and justice for all people.

“Christians live in the hope of God’s kingdom. This hope leads us to advocate unity between different people, histories and beliefs here and now, in our countries, churches and communities. It enables us to accept our existing and lasting differences in the knowledge that we are all children of God.” (CPCE)

For more news follow us at www.lifeandwork.org