wfn.org | WCC Will Continue Commitment to Mission and Evangelism

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12-December-1996 
 
 
96489 WCC Will Continue Commitment to Mission and Evangelism 
 
                         by Stephen Brown 
                  Ecumenical News International 
 
SALVADOR, Brazil--Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of 
Churches (WCC) has denied that radical changes being planned in the WCC's 
structure will mean that the WCC's commitment to mission and evangelism 
will be downgraded. 
 
     The WCC is currently undertaking a radical review of its purposes and 
structures, in a process known as developing a "Common Understanding and 
Vision." 
 
     Addressing the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) here 
on Nov. 25, Raiser referred to concern that has been expressed "that the 
present efforts at a fresh articulation of the common understanding of the 
WCC" might reflect a weakening of the commitment of the WCC to mission and 
evangelism. 
 
     The work of CWME has been integrated within the WCC since 1961 when 
the International Missionary Council merged with the WCC.  The missionary 
council traced its history back to the Edinburgh World Mission Conference 
of 1910, which was intended to plan "in each non-Christian nation one 
undivided church of Christ" and promote cooperation between mission 
agencies in spreading the Christian gospel. 
 
     In his address, Raiser acknowledged that "our understanding of mission 
as well as of ecumenism is undergoing transformations which will continue 
as we enter the 21st century."  But he stressed that it was "the missionary 
vocation which places the ecumenical movement in the midst of the world, 
loved by God in the plurality of cultures and religions, and challenges it 
to go beyond all established boundaries. 
 
     "This must continue to find its visible expression in the place given 
to common witness and to the work of mission and evangelism in the 
structured life of the World Council of Churches," Raiser continued.  "The 
ecumenical calling embraces the call to unity, to mission and to service as 
an inseparable whole." 

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