WCC Assembly - November 5, 2013

The theme of today has been unity and so this morning we attended the Theme Plenary Session on Unity. Some things that stood out to me from this mornings presentations:

• unity is grounded in the communion of love
• unity is about becoming a community where gender, age, sexuality, colour, race, economic status, etc… are being challenged and understood
• unity is about dancing and singing together in the rich diversity of our cultural backgrounds
• our unity is in the living word of God – this is our true hope… this is our only hope… to meet God in the places and people where we don’t expect
• when you can no longer afford dis-unity you start to come together in the unity of Christ

Bishop Mark MacDonald, in his presentation during this plenary session said, “at 50 below zero denominational differences disappear” based on his experience in Alaska. Can you imagine this being the case when it’s not 50 below zero… that we as churches can come together to work on issues of peace and justice, to gather for prayer, to provide opportunities for our young people to gather and share… that we can get to a place where we are not all trying to do the same thing but coming together to put our common passions together. That together we let our differences stand and join hands in the love of Christ to make a difference in our communities and world?

Taize singing - from WCC photos

During this Plenary Session we each wrote on a piece of paper a prayer for unity, these were then collected in a basket and gathered together at the front of the stage. The Plenary Session concluded with the singing of Ubi Caritas led by Brother Richard of the Taize Community. This was probably one of the most powerful moments of the Assembly so far... a small group of people sitting in a semi-circle on the stage facing away from the audience gathering us through song in this prayerful time of reflection. 

The Ecumenical Conversation on the Advocacy for the Rights of Children had their last session and a document is being sent to the Assembly / the new Central Committee (the body that meets between Assemblies). 

Evening Prayer tonight was exactly what I needed... it was prepared by the Catholic Church and led by one of the Nuns from the community. It has moments of silence and the energy was peaceful and calm. We sang, accompanied by a harp and song leaders, we prayed, we read scripture and the Canticle of Mary was shared with soloists singers and Korean body language dancers. This was a wonderful way to end a full day as our time here begins to come to an end. 

The rest of my day for the most part was filled with the final work on the Public Issues documents which soon need to start being reviewed by the Business Plenary Sessions.