wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Multinational service celebrates ecumenism

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Note #7771 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Multinational service celebrates ecumenism
GA03082

Multinational service celebrates ecumenism

by Jane Hines and staff

DENVER, May 28 - "This is a meeting place for blending cultures, heritage,
visions and dreams to serve God and the whole creation," said the Rev. Dr.
Carlos E. Ham, the preacher for Wednesday's ecumenical worship service.

	A large crowd of Presbyterians gathered in a ballroom in the Colorado
Convention Center to hear Ham, the coordinator of the Mission and Ecumenical
Formation Team and Programme Executive for Evangelism of the World Council of
Churches. "This is an immense privilege and blessing that I will always
cherish in my ministry and in my life," he said.

	Ham said the ecumenical community has nurtured him for decades. 

	 He spoke of the WCC role in the 1960s after the U.S. imposed an
economic embargo on Cuba, and relations between American and Cuban
Presbyterians were severed. "You might try to imagine what the ecumenical
movement meant for a church that on the one hand became like an orphan child
'losing' her 'mother' in the North, and on the other, being challenged by her
'father,' an atheist state.

	"Thank God, the WCC helped to eventually reestablish our contacts
with the churches in this country, and played a critical role supporting the
mission of the church in Cuba."

	Ham mined stories from newspapers and from the Bible that related to
his theme - also the Assembly theme - "A House of Prayer for All Peoples."

	He provided thought-provoking commentary on the recent war in Iraq,
from the perspective of the ecumenical community beyond the bounds of the
United States. "The President of the U.S.A. needs lots of prayers," he said,
"but in the same spirit of Jesus in the temple, (needs) prayers urging him to
observe and to respect peace, justice, and life in fullness."

	"I do not have any question in my mind that the opposition to this
war  carried out jointly by the churches, through prayers, declarations and
demonstrations, are an expression of the vitality of the ecumenical movement,
beyond any structural or institutional boundaries," Ham said.

	He urged worshippers to keep praying that "A House for All Peoples"
might become a reality.

		Participants in the annual service were from many
denominations and from locations all around the globe, among them India,
Nigeria, Cuba, Guatemala, Japan, the Near East and Korea.  

	After the Affirmation of Faith (the Nicene Creed), intercessory
prayers and the Lord's Prayer,	Byung-Geum Chun, of Korea, invited his
listeners to share his "Vision of Peace," saying: 

	"Together we are carried forward by the vision of one church, of the
people of God on the way, challenging all separations of race, gender, age,
and culture, and striving for justice, peace, and the integrity of creation."

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