The World Council of Churches’ (WCC) Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) recently concluded its Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Arusha, Tanzania. These conferences, which occur about once a decade, are often seen as an important means of ascertaining the state of missiological thinking around the world. This year's conference produced The Arusha Call to Discipleship as a statement of its understanding of the current state of mission, evangelism, and discipleship. It is worth reading.
For more on the Conference, you can read the following resources:
A Global Ministries story about Methodist participation in the conference
Two reflections (one and two) from Global Ministries' Amy Valdez-Barker about the conference
News stories from the WCC about the conference
Dedicated to fostering conversations about the global nature of The United Methodist Church
Wonderful post but I was wanting to know if you could
ReplyDeletewrite a litte more on this subject? I'd be very grateful if you could elaborate a little bit more.
Cheers!
I see several notable aspects of the Arusha Call to Discipleship. The first is the focus on discipleship and thus the connection between mission, evangelism, and discipleship. There is a strong sense that mission and discipleship are not just human activities but dependent on God and the power of the Holy Spirit. The Arusha Call to Discipleship continues the focus on those on the margins that came out of the WCC's document on mission and evangelism, Together Towards Life. The Arusha Call to Discipleship is also quite pointed in its critique of global capitalism and the greed inherent in it, laying many other problems (war, environmental degradation, marginalization) at the feet of our economic system.
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