WEA Meeting Concludes with Commitment to Greater Outreach

|TOP|The meeting of top representatives of the World Evangelical Alliance held last week in San Francisco has ended with renewed commitment to greater outreach through civic engagement, leadership training and improving the communications framework.

A number of new initiatives were launched at the 3-day regional secretaries conference aimed at strengthening the voice and extending the reach of the international body.

Geoff Tunnicliffe, International Director of the WEA, affirmed several new projects, along with the General Secretaries of the Evangelical Alliances of Europe, Asia, Caribbean, Africa, and South America.

One of the key new projects will begin a global process to support national alliances in the development of a new document on Evangelical political and civic engagement.

|AD|“These strategic meetings were significant in helping WEA develop a road map for some new major initiatives,” said Tunnicliffe.

Dr Ron Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action, has been appointed as head of the new initiative. The co-author of “A Framework for Evangelical Civil Engagement” – a public policy statement developed for the National Association of Evangelicals (NEA) last year – will work together with the participating national alliances as they explore key themes in developing their own framework for Evangelical civic engagement.

Particular areas requiring further consideration include the theological, political, geographic and gender issues of the respective countries.

Other key outcomes of the conference included the decision to launch Information Technology support centres within each regional alliance in order to help increase the communication capacity of each region. These support centres are designed to facilitate a globally interconnected intranet and resource-clearing house for the WEA.

The regional secretaries also outlined plans to enlist national, regional, and global experts that can best represent the international body on specific issues of concern. The move comes with the launch of a new Leadership Development task force that will set to work on a strategy to assist national alliances in further developing their leadership and governance capacities.

Mr Tunnicliffe told delegates gathered at the conference: “It is essential that in a globalised world we connect across all the regions of the world. We have much to learn from one another.”