WCC Assembly - November 4, 2013

Today is the start of my last week here in Busan. We have four more days after today together as the WCC Assembly and I think we have a fair amount of work still to go. I never thought I'd say this... But things are going by so quickly! 

Friends back home: you have just had that beautiful night where you get an extra hour of sleep as the time falls back. Well, daylight savings time does not exist here in Korea, this means that I've totally been robbed of my extra hour of sleep for this year. This also means that there is now a 17-hour time difference between here and home. Sleep calls my name. 

During Morning Prayer today we sang Peace like a River, a song that has been part of my children and youth ministry life since it started. We sang the second verse in Korean with English being sung on both sides of the middle verse. There were no actions but the energy was still there. Check it out!

I was not in Bible Study or the first set of Madang workshops this afternoon due to the continued work of the Public Issues Committee. Alongside deep editing of statements we have moments of debate over what in reflection are somewhat small things… but this is the work of the committee: to get the document as close to perfect as possible so that there is a higher chance of it being approved by the Assembly Business Plenary session. We are so close to being done, tomorrow we start reviewing the last document and after that they will start being looked at by the wider WCC Assembly group in Business Pleanary, I imagine there will be some slight edits and changes after it goes through that part of the process.

I attended the Ecumenical Conversation on Churches’ Advocacy for Children’s Rights where using the world café model we explore some questions on:

•        Empowerment and Participation of children as agendas for justice and peace
•        The protection of Children’s Rights
•        Prophetic witness and advocacy
•        Theology and Spirituality

There were three questions at each station often around affirmations, challenges and actions. I’m sure I’ll have lots to share after our last session together tomorrow if today’s wonderful conversations say anything.

Our Business Plenary session this evening was a closed session meaning that only delegates (read: no advisors, participants, guests, etc…) were part of session. The session received and reviewed the third report of the Nominations Committee. Our eight presidents were elected by acclamation including Bishop Mark MacDonald, the National Indigenous Bishop for the Anglican Church of Canada, for North America!  We also were presented with the first draft of the slate for the Central Committee. The Nominations Committee had to get 220 nominations for the Central Committee and had to get that down to 150. After almost the whole session being spent hearing members concerns about the slate it was not approved by sent back to the Nominating Committee so we’ll come back to this work in another session.

Evening Prayer tonight was far from anything I’ve ever experienced… for me Evening Prayer is rather quiet, soft and reflective… tonight’s service was let by a Korean Pentecostal mega-church. They brought in a massive choir and for the most part things were rather loud. There was energy and much music, but for the most part things were a bit too loud and fast for my evening prayer likings!