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World Council of Churches
Press Release
For Immediate Use
10 March 1997

MAC CHARLES JONES

Please find below the text of a tribute paid on Friday 7 March by Dr
Konrad Raiser, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches
(WCC), to Rev. Dr Mac Charles Jones who has died.

Dr Jones, the  Deputy General Secretary for National Ministries of the
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, collapsed en route
to an NCCUSA Racial Justice working group meeting in El Paso and died
a few hours later, apparently of an embolism, on Thursday evening, 6
March. Aged 47, Dr Jones was a member of the  WCC Central
Committee, a commissioner of Unit II: Churches in Mission: Health,
Education, Witness, and moderator of the Urban Rural Mission (URM)
programme.

*The World Council of Churches joins the large circle of friends
who mourn the passing away of the Rev. Dr Mac Charles Jones.
His untimely death leaves a gap which will not be closed for a
long time to come. There are moments when we do not
understand God's ways and can only pray that God will continue
to guide our feet and keep us faithful.

Mac Charles Jones has been in a unique way the interpreter of
the witness of the Historic African-American Churches for the
wider ecumenical movement. As a member of the Central
Committee of the WCC, the Unit II Commission and of the
Advisory Group on Urban Rural Mission, he has left his clear
mark on the life of the WCC, always keeping before the council
and its member churches that the proclamation of the gospel
and the struggle for justice and human dignity cannot be
separated.

As pastor of an inner-city Baptist church in Kansas City, he was
instrumental in convening the *summit* on urban violence in
1993 and in organising the campaign on *Racism as a Violation
of Human Rights* in the USA in 1994/5. It seemed the most
fitting recognition of his unique gifts and his commitment to
justice and reconciliation in American society that he was called
to head up the national ministries division of the National
Council of Churches in the USA (NCCCUSA), a position he had
assumed only days prior to his death.

Mac has completed the race which had been set before him. We
give thanks for his life and ministry among us. We have
received abundantly from him and pray that he will now be
richly blessed and rewarded with peace and joy in the presence
of God.

With the members of his family, his friends and colleagues we
unite together on this World Day of Prayer *to look forward to
the great day when the Lord will wipe away every tear and
death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor
crying, nor pain any more, for God has said *See, I make all
things new!'*

**********
The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 330, in
more than 100 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions.  The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but
works cooperatively with the WCC.  The highest governing body is the
Assembly, which meets approximately every seven years.  The WCC
was formally inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.  Its staff is
headed by general secretary Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church
in Germany.

World Council of Churches
Press and Information Office
Tel:  (41.22) 791.61.52/51
Fax:  (41.22) 798 13 46
E-Mail: jwn@wcc-coe.org

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