WCC NEWS: Youth and the ecumenical movement

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World Council of Churches - Feature

YOUTH AND THE ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT:  “THERE IS A DELICATE DANCE GOING ON
IN OUR CHURCHES”

For immediate release: 21 February 2011

The Rev. Jennifer Leath is a member the World Council of Churches Joint
Consultative Group with the Pentecostals and ECHOS, the WCC commission of
youth. She is a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the
USA and identifies herself as “a Black American who lives in solidarity
with those in the African Diaspora and all those who experience
oppression, these are they who capture my heart.” Leath was one of the
speakers at the 2011 WCC Central Committee plenary on “Ecclesiological
Landscape”, where she shared a strong testimony on the issue of youth
and ecumenical movement.  She was interviewed by Marcelo Schneider.

What are your thoughts about the fact that most of the older members of the
Central Committee joined the ecumenical movement through youth movements
and organizations?

Well, all people in the plenary were once young and got involved in the
ecumenical movement in the formative stages of it. Many of them came out
of organizations that were designed specifically for youth earlier on, but
today the landscape has changed. Such organizations don’t have the same
impact they once did. This means that youth don’t have the same form of
formation possibilities. However, I also think this is really a systemic
issue. It is not about the WCC, but it is how we work in today’s
society. It’s about power.

But is not the WCC in many ways a reflection of what is happening in the
churches?

The issue is that all of the institutions with which we work – all of
these structures have aged, and as they aged they did not set in place
systems to make sure that their constituencies would be rejuvenated.

So is there a generation gap in the ecumenical movement?

I think that there definitely is, but I think that there is a delicate
dance that is going on, because, on the one hand, it is very important for
a fellowship of churches such as the WCC to have as much authority in its
voice as possible – and the authority that is recognized in our
institutional churches and in our regions and in our countries is that of
the leaders of our denominations, and that leadership is often an older
leadership.

And also in respect to the governments of our countries, they’re not
paying attention to the voice of the youth in the same way that they pay
attention to the voice of the leaders of these institutions. […] So
there is this delicate dance between being powerful in the perception of
the structures of society in which we participate and also maintaining a
prophetic and youthful voice. Not that the prophetic and youthful voice
are always the same, but sometimes they are.

What is the best way today for the youth to contribute for a change in the
WCC?

Well, I think that we have to insist on being both a part of the living
fellowship and a part of the governance structures, and that means that we
need to be trained and know how the WCC governs itself. And the correction
that we should make that our predecessors didn’t is that we should
design in our structure a way to make sure that as we age others behind us
can come up because we don’t want this problem again.

What is the role of the church of Jesus Christ in the world?

I dream of the church, the ekklesia, the calling together, of all people
who are cherished and honoured because of the particularities that we
bring and are able to realize these particularities as the Church
Universal. We become universal only through our particularities and
through the integrity of our particularities.

That is my theoretical answer. But actually the theoretical answer is
insufficient because the church that I dream of is the church where none
are free until all are free, it is the church where we do justice, love,
kindness and walk humbly with our God. That means we do not rest, we do
not sleep, we do not stop, we keep fighting.

Our mission is that everyone will be able to live with the benefits of this
world that God has given us in an equal way, to share equally. We cannot
fall prey to false ideas of meritocracy and we cannot act like we have
already arrived. We have to acknowledge in a self-reflective way that we
are not yet there and that until the eschaton we won’t be. God’s reign
on earth is when we find ways to empower one another even when it means
that we need to “disempower” ourselves or share power with others.

More information on the Central Committee meeting (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=5198d951b11adc7a05cb )

Photos of the meeting (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=5a97a9460ab23c3a96b7 )


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 Olav Fykse Tveit, 
from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.



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