 Christians gather in Athens for mission and evangelism conference
May 11, 2005 A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom* As the sun rose over the Aegean Sea, some 700 Christians gathered to discern the healing presence of the Holy Spirit. That
beginning of the 2005 Conference on World Mission and Evangelism,
meeting May 9-16 in Athens, showed “the need for healing throughout the
world,” according to the Rev. Larry Pickens, chief executive of the
United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious
Concerns. Convened
by the World Council of Churches, the conference brings together
representatives from its member churches as well as participants from
Roman Catholic, Pentecostal and Evangelical churches and bodies. Of the
12 previous ecumenical mission conferences held since 1910, this is the
first to take place in a predominantly Orthodox context. A
large wooden cross, made by a Jerusalem craftsman, arrived by boat as
participants and local guests gathered on the beach at the start of the
conference. According to the WCC, the cross was intended as a symbol of
reconciliation and healing as well as a gesture of solidarity with
Christians in the Middle East. Pickens
noted that His Beatitude Christodoulos, the Orthodox archbishop of
Athens and all of Greece, cited the brokenness of the Christian family
during the conference’s opening session, “but in doing so he also
affirmed the hope of our dialogue as an avenue for understanding and
cooperation.” The
Rev. Samuel Kobia, a Methodist from Kenya and the WCC’s chief
executive, welcomed participants and pointed out that the apostle Paul
passed along the same Aegean coastline where they had gathered. “The
sails of the ship that bore him were filled with breezes like those we
now feel, blowing over this same sea,” he said. “May that knowledge
inspire us as we continue the Christian journey and may the ecumenical
ship be propelled by winds of the Spirit.” Kobia
suggested that Christians need to experience a “three-fold conversion
in our thinking and attitudes.” The first part of the conversion is to
acknowledge the steady shift of the demographic center of Christianity
from the North to the South. The second part of conversion is “to
recognize that this change in global dynamics is not merely
geographical, but carries with it implications that are spiritual,
moral, theological, missiological,” he said. “Forms of expressing our
faith that grew out of European culture are no longer normative; for
example, Pentecostal and charismatic spirituality is now flourishing in
both South and North.”
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The Rev. Samuel Kobia |
The third part of
conversion is to create a new sense of unity joining East and West even
while overcoming tensions between North and South. “The World Council of
Churches has begun to deepen its fellowship through a dialogue
concerning the meaning of Orthodox participation in the WCC and we hope
to continue this process of healing and reconciliation as we examine
questions of mission in light of the renewal of our ecclesial
relationships,” Kobia added. Among
the other Methodists participating in the conference is the Rev. R.
Randy Day, chief executive of the United Methodist Board of Global
Ministries. Daily
plenary sessions focus on the central elements of the theme and
subtheme: reconciliation, healing, the Holy Spirit and the Christian
community. To mark the mid-point of the WCC’s Decade to Overcome
Violence, one plenary session will explore the relationship between
mission and violence. For the first time, all conference plenaries will be broadcast live via the Internet. The schedule can be found at www.mission2005.org, the conference Web site. *Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York. News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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