Mission with a difference

"No particular church has a private supply of truth or wisdom or missionary skills," said the Council for World Mission (CWM) in its founding statement in 1975. "All of us are still searchers."

The Council for World Mission is a community of 31 Protestant churches - most of them WARC members - committed to sharing their resources of money, people, skills and insights globally to carry out God's mission locally. It was established in its present form in 1977.

The principal governing body of CWM is its council. This is made up of representatives from all 31 member churches and meets every two years. It appoints an executive committee which meets every six months to oversee CWM's work.

At each council meeting, CWM's churches discuss the major issues they confront. Often, these debates include stories of poverty, marginalization and despair, and how Christians are trying to make a difference. This year's meeting in Taiwan in June was no exception.

A world in need

Violence and drugs in the Caribbean, diseases in Africa, global warming destroying the Pacific, declining congregations in Europe, poverty in South Asia, political tension in East Asia: across the globe, societies and cultures are under strain. As representatives from each region spoke about their concerns, it seemed that the same issues were coming up everywhere. And each time, CWM's churches were trying hard to find solutions.

Aids is the top concern in Africa, with thousands dying each day from the virus. And people with Aids are often rejected by society. Ian Booth, the president of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa - a CWM and WARC member church - once told Preman Niles, general secretary of CWM, how a member of his community openly admitted to having Aids and was killed that very night.

"Many churches just dodge the issue of Aids," said Niles. "They say Aids is a disease of dirty people and therefore has nothing to do with them."

It is to prevent such crimes and stir the Christian community to action that CWM's African churches set up an Aids project in January to promote Aids prevention, better acceptance of Aids sufferers and effective pastoral care.

Another initiative is the Africa Reconstruction Project, run by CWM with the World Council of Churches, which seeks to "promote a culture of peace, address globalization, trade, finance and debt issues, and promote conflict resolution and reconciliation".

CWM's Pacific churches called on the world church to do more to counter global warming as rising sea levels and climate change threaten their existence. "We need the solidarity of this assembly to make global warming a real issue," said Winnie Tsitsi, the secretary of the Women's Group of the Nauru Congregational Church. "We, the Pacific people, count!"

In South Asia, CWM's Indian churches are fighting for the poor and the oppressed through programmes for India's Dalits (untouchables) and reconstruction work following the earthquake in Gujarat earlier this year. The Church of Bangladesh is strengthening its women's and pastoral ministries, with a special emphasis on the minority tribal people of the nation.

Partnership in mission

In each area of work, CWM's ethos of partnership in mission was evident. Personnel exchanges through CWM are no longer just from Europe to the rest of the world. Bangladeshi and Samoan missionaries are currently in Zambia, Indians in Wales and Taiwan, and New Zealanders in Madagascar.

The regional empowerment programme is encouraging each of the six regions to tackle common mission issues, such as peace and reconciliation in East Asia - between North and South Korea, for example. Regional communication networks are being set up to increase sharing of news.

CWM was created as an experiment: a new kind of missionary organisation. No longer were mission and the resources for it to come just from Europe.

Instead, CWM was set up as a worldwide community of Christian denominations working together as equals with a common commitment to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It grew out of the London Missionary Society (1795), the Commonwealth (Colonial) Missionary Society (1832) and the (English) Presbyterian Board of Missions (1847). Most member churches have backgrounds in the Reformed tradition.

CWM is all about sharing. As its founding document says, "We believe that as we commit ourselves to him, so the Holy Spirit enables us to share in the demonstration of his love, a healing love which is unsentimental enough, wide enough, patient enough, to change the world."

Nick Sireau, CWM information officer