A global conference on Christian mission has been proposed for late 2011 by the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches (WCC). The commission, newly elected and reconstituted following the WCC's February 2006 assembly in Porto Alegre, Brazil, includes delegates from member churches of the Council as well as from the Roman Catholic Church and several other Christian bodies not in full membership of the WCC. The recommendation for a 2011 conference was made on 26 April at the close of a commission meeting in Geneva, and it will go to the WCC central committee for action.
A Wealth of Activities
The next world conference on mission and evangelism will continue a series of representative gatherings that began with the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910, leading to the WCC's most recent world mission conference near Athens in 2005. Many historians of Christianity consider the decision at Edinburgh to form a Continuation Committee (which eventually led to the formation of the International Missionary Council) as the starting-point of the modern ecumenical movement.
Discussions concerning the date for a conference acknowledged a spate of upcoming events, some of which will celebrate the centenary of "Edinburgh 1910". Leaders and staff of the WCC's Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) are engaged with many other Christian bodies and churches in study and planning for festivities, educational opportunities, work and worship that will mark the 100th anniversary in Edinburgh, Scotland, 12-15 June 2010.
According to Nayiri Baljian, an Armenian Orthodox representative of CWME in the "Towards Edinburgh 2010" General Council, a mission conference in late 2011 would avoid diverting energy and attention from the celebrations and also allow time "so that we can digest what we learn in 2010 and apply it to the ecumenical agenda going forward."
Rose Dowsett, a CWME member representing the World Evangelical Alliance, suggests that participants could report back on activities scheduled in 2010 by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelisation, the Boston Theological Institute, Pentecostal partners in mission and other contributors to the commemoration.
