Representatives of the World Council of Churches, Bishop Geevarghese Coorilos and Rev Jooseop Keum with staff members of the Mission Commission, Bertil Ekström and William Taylor.
The Global Roundtable of the WEA Mission Commission is a time for leaders of mission networks from across the world to reflect on themes and issues relevant to the Global mission world. The aim is fellowship and reflection, in order to take the encouragement and insights back to their spheres of influence.
The theme for the 2015 conference in Pretoria centres around integrity. The morning devotion time of the first day was based on Psalm 15, a scripture highlighting the importance of personal integrity as a undeniable dimension of worship.
The devotion session was followed by the input of today led by David Ruiz. Here is a link to the article used by David as reference for his presentation: Integrity in Mission
One of the highlights of the day was listening to feedback from representatives of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches. Bishop Geevarghese Coorilos and Rev Jooseop Keum highlighted the encouraging increase in partnership between the WCC and WEA, especially also in the area of missions.
Our afternoon panel theme was Sustainability in Missions. Dean Carlson, Nosayaba Tukura, Wolfgang Busing and Peter Tarental shared insights from their continents and contexts. K. Rajendran highligted how Sustainability in Mission was one of the key issues raised during the Swden 2103 Roundtbale, which resulted in the panel discussion in 2015.
The panel highlighted that, apart from finances, the following pressure points also exists when it comes to ensuring sustainabaility in mission:
Building capacity to handle the mininstry
Leadership and volunteers who allocate time to missions
The relevancy of Christianity to influence society (through training, education and capacity building)
Creativity and innovation, to be a learning organisation
Collaboration (internally and partnerships)
Case studies of ways to sustain missions were discussed, highligting creativity and innovation in support raising. Table discussions were held further exploring the theme.
