It is humbling that GRASSROOTS Luton has been invited to lead a Workshop at the World Council of Churches (WCC) 11th General Assembly 2022 in Karlsruhe, Germany from 31 August – 8 September 2022.
In her email, extending Lenten greetings from the World Council of Churches, Rev. Kay WOO, Assembly Workshops Coordinator said, “Thank you for your workshop offer. We received over 250 applications from all over the world for 100 workshop spaces. We carefully studied each workshop application, taking significant time to review, evaluate and assess all the applications. We thank you again for your patience with us during the selection process. It is my great pleasure to inform you that your workshop application has been selected.
GRASSROOTS Luton Workshop Title is:
Celebrating Difference Staying Faithful – Building Peace & Reconciliation Together with Different Faiths
Working across faiths and cultures is mostly understood as “inter faith dialogue”; that too with learned people of certain age and gender. In our workshop, we hope to be able to share practical examples of inter faith community work. We’ll share stories of how in a super-diverse, multi-faith, multi-cultural town Luton (UK), just north of London, where over 140 languages are spoken, Christians & people of different faiths join together to feed the hungry, to tackle digital and fuel poverty, to plant trees and create peace gardens.
We’ll demonstrate how it is possible to restore justice, peace, and the integrity of God’s creation, by putting our faith into action, by complementing one another and not competing against one another, by acknowledging and celebrating difference and yet staying faithful to our own religious beliefs and cultural identities.
Thanks to globalization we are living in an increasingly inter-connected world. We all must therefore create space for everyone to feel welcomed to partake in and contribute to God’s mission, so that in God’s beautiful world, everyone may have life – life in all its abundance, life in all its fullness.
How do we create such an ecumenical and inter-faith space? How can we confidently move in Christ's love towards reconciliation and unity, but not uniformity? This workshop will focus exactly on that.
Originally planned for 2021, the WCC General Assembly was postponed by one year because of the gravity and uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Being the most diverse Christian gathering of its size in the world, the assembly will be a unique opportunity for the churches to deepen their commitment to visible unity and common witness,” said Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, interim WCC General Secretary.
Bishop Petra Bosse-Huber, from the Evangelical Church in Germany, said that the host churches are delighted that the WCC has accepted a renewed invitation to hold the 11th Assembly in Karlsruhe and encouraged all churches, especially in Germany and the surrounding region, to take advantage of the opportunity to prepare ecumenically, cross-border and with partners in church and society for the historic event.
“The current world situation needs the churches' common witness for unity and against all forms of injustice and racism,” she said. “The assembly has set itself the task of being a bridge builder for a reconciled and united world.”
Visit the WCC 11th Assembly webpage.
https://mailchi.mp/wcc-coe/wcc-11th-assembly-update-issue-234324?
