wfn.org | WCC NEWS: Youth seek meaningful ecumenical engagement

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches - News Release

Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
For immediate release - 02/09/2009 09:56:29

>YOUTH SEEK MEANINGFUL ECUMENICAL ENGAGEMENT

>by Walt Wiltschek (*)

Young people have spent years knocking at the door of the World
Council of Churches, seeking greater involvement in the life of
the organization. In the past few years, that door has opened
further.

The drive for more significant inclusion grew following the 2006
WCC Assembly in Porto Alegre, Brazil, when delegates affirmed the
creation of a new body to communicate with and coordinate the
involvement of youth (defined as those age 30 and under) in the
life of the WCC. More than 700 youth participated in that
assembly.

Out of that came Echos – Commission on youth in the ecumenical
movement, a group of 25 youth drawn from a wide range of churches
and other ecumenical youth organizations. The name of the
commission is drawn from the Greek word for “sound”, signifying
its desire to send the waves of its voices rippling into the
future of ecumenism. 

Echos held its first meeting in May 2007, and it has continued
to build. Four working groups have been developed: collaboration
with the WCC, networking with the wider ecumenical movement,
ecumenical formation and communications.

“When we held our first meeting, we were full of expectations
and ideas, and full also of fears” of the challenges ahead, said
Diana Fernandes dos Santos of Brazil, who serves as moderator of
Echos. “Now we can see some progress in understanding what
ecumenism means and what are the real opportunities where young
people can participate in the WCC and the wider ecumenical
movement.”

The youth are clear that they don’t want those opportunities to
be token roles or involvement at the edges of organizational
life. They want to be involved in significant, meaningful ways at
the heart of the WCC’s work and in the world beyond.

“Establishment of Echos is a very good sign . . . of wanting to
hear the voice of young people,” said Rev. Aaro Rytkönen, a youth
member of the WCC central committee from the Evangelical Lutheran
Church of Finland. “But it is not enough. Youth issues cannot be
outsourced to a small group.” 

Rytkönen noted that youth are gathering ecumenically on their
own and will not wait for the WCC to catch up. He said the WCC
needs to “take bold steps toward new ways of thinking” and
working. Youth want to be engaged in specific issues, he said,
and their unique experiences already give them specific knowledge
and skills to offer.

WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia again affirmed the
need to embrace those gifts in his address to central committee
on 26 August. Kobia said youth have a “crucial role” to play in
the discernment of the WCC’s future. After his address, he
invited Fernandes to read a statement from Echos – one that urged
a forward-looking vision.

“We are spending too much energy lamenting over budget cuts and
for nostalgia of things past,” the statement said. “Instead, let
us put our energy into a new vision for the future of the
ecumenical movement in this changing world.” It challenged the
WCC not simply to train the next generation “to be good central
committee members” but to equip youth – and people of all
generations—to engage the ecumenical movement, especially
locally.

There have been positive steps. Ray Ranker, a student at
Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, USA and a member
of the Echos commission, says that, on the whole, the WCC and its
central committee “have been very receptive to our contributions …
I feel the WCC has taken seriously the assembly’s commitment to
youth.”

For example, youth have been placed on WCC “Living Letters (
http://www.overcomingviolence.org/en/iepc/living-letters-visits.html
)” delegations to areas dealing with violence and are serving as
members of various WCC commissions and committees. Others are
involved in regional ecumenical movements, such as the “New Fire”
young adult events in the US, scheduled to meet again in
Minneapolis in November.

Ranker said he has encountered other youth, especially youth
serving on central committee, who have expressed excitement at
the new directions and greater opportunities to have their voice
heard. The challenge now, Ranker said, is to reach out to those
who aren’t already involved in the life of the WCC.

Echos plans to have a presence at various ecumenical gatherings,
such as the 2010 Edinburgh conference on world mission (
http://www.edinburgh2010.org/ ), he said. It also hopes to
have a website up by early next year and is developing an
internal database that will help to match the gifts of youth
around the world with the needs of the WCC. 

“It’s about moving from the idea of having (a quota of youth
participation) to how can youth be strong contributors,
participating in the full life of the WCC,” Ranker says. “I think
we really want to come to the next assembly (in 2013) and
hopefully show our goals and the work we’ve done.”

In the meantime, Echos and the young people it represents will
continue their quest to move fully into the centre of WCC
activity. Ranker and Fernandes both said they will be reaching
out to general secretary-elect Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, offering
their support and their ideas. And they will continue to reach
out to young people everywhere.

“We want to encourage people to be engaged and to contribute,”
Fernandes said. “It’s not the time to advocate for space any
more, but to solidify that space. Young people are all the time
knocking at the doors. Now they are here. We need the WCC to say
very clearly what we can do to help and how we can contribute and
serve.”

(*) Walt Wiltschekis an ordained minister in the Church of the
Brethren in the United States. He serves as editor of the
denomination’s magazine, Messenger.

High resolution photo of Diana Fernandes dos Santos:
http://www.oikoumene.org/fileadmin/images/wcc-main/events/cc_2009/090827/F090827-007.JPG

>More information on Echos:
>http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=3191

More information on the WCC's programme "Youth in the ecumenical
movement: challenges and hopes":
http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=3069

More information on the Central Committee meeting:
http://www.oikoumene.org/cc2009

Additional information:Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507
6363media@wcc-coe.org

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith,
witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical
fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings
together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches
representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110
countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic
Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from
the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.