Church leaders sense growing trust

|PIC1|Leaders of the major denominations that make up the global body of Christ have expressed their continued commitment to “a common journey of faith” in a final document released by delegates of the Global Christian Forum on Monday.

Last week’s gathering in New Delhi brought together 50 senior representatives of Anglican, Catholic, Baptist, Reformed, Orthodox, Pentecostal and Evangelical traditions to hash out a strategy for the GCF over the next three years and find common ground on evangelism, proselytism, mission and dialogue, and poverty and social justice.

In the closing statement, the leaders spoke of a growing sense of trust in the relationships between the different streams.

“In sharing our faith journeys, worship, discussion, and throughout our time together, we experienced the joy of recognising one another in Christ, and being called in Christ into new and closer relationships,” they said.

“We celebrated the sense of growing trust and fellowship among us, called together from a wide range of Churches and Christian organisations, as we sought to be faithful stewards into the future of this gift entrusted to us.”

The Global Christian Forum has been held each year since 1998 and is based on the principle of sharing personal stories of faith and relationship with Jesus Christ as the starting point for building closer relations. The leaders agreed to schedule a major global meeting for 2011.

“Though we should not become a problem-solving body ourselves, we rejoice at the gift that the forum process can be for addressing difficult questions, and catalysing relationships elsewhere within the body of Christ, and we pray that the inspiration we have experienced through encounters based on faith-sharing may become widely shared,” the leaders stated.

They added that Christians “should not be afraid to face more deeply the issues that impede our relationships, while remaining aware that increased mutual confidence may open up new possibilities for us”.

The three-year strategy commits members of the Global Christian Forum to pursue unity-building activities under the umbrella of the GCF at the global, regional and national levels and includes plans to establish a ‘Friends of the Forum’ network to help GCM members share vision, values and methodology.

The GCF delegates concluded their statement with an affirmation of prayers for Christians who face attacks from radical Hindus in the state of Orissa.