Away for a month – exploring Tokyo, WEA General Assembly in Seoul

I’ve completed this week’s Church for Vancouver update at the Vancouver Airport and am sending it out from Japan. I’ll be away from October 22 until November 19.

My wife Margaret and I are sharing a house in Tokyo (where she grew up as a missionary kid) with our daughter and her family. We plan to get to know the city and environs better and will catch up with some old friends.

During our time away, I will also fly to Seoul, Korea (October 26 – November 1) to attend the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) General Assembly. Delegates from all over the world will gather at the giant Sarang Church.

The WEA represents some 600 million Christians, rooted in nine regional and 143 national alliances, along with more than 100 affiliate members and a number of commissions and networks. There are three international offices (New York, USA; Geneva, Switzerland; Bonn, Germany) and one is being developed in Doha, Qatar.

I’m looking forward to the gathering. Earlier ecumenical meetings I’ve participated in (World Council of Churches General Assembly, Vancouver, 1983; WEA General Assembly, Abbotsford, 1997; Lausanne Forum for World Evangelization, Pattaya, Thailand, 2004; Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, Cape Town, 2010; WEA General Assembly, Jakarta, 2019; Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, Seoul-Incheon, Korea, 2024) have all been very encouraging.

Janet Epp Buckingham, Director of the WEA Office in Geneva (and retired Trinity Western University professor), told me recently that one should look for interesting developments related to the Middle East.

Not only will Botrus Mansour (a native of Nazareth who identifies himself as an “evangelical, Christian, Arab, Palestinian and Israeli”) be sworn in as the new Secretary General of WEA, but the Middle Eastern and Northern Africa Evangelical Alliance (MENA) will be well represented.

The theme for the WEA General Assembly is ‘The Gospel for Everyone by 2033.’

The last General Assembly was held in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2019. As I wrote following the event:

Several messages contended for top spot at the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) General Assembly (November 7 – 12 in Jakarta, Indonesia), but the one that stood out for me was the urgent need to engage seriously with the people and problems of the world.

That is, to treat the theme of the gathering – Thy Kingdom Come – as a present imperative, not something to be expected at some point in the future.

The WEA launched ‘A New Decade of Holistic Disciple Making, 2020 – 2030,’ and the overall theme was reflected in most of the workshops, which were primarily related to holistic disciple making, developing inter-generational leadership and reaching out to young people much more intentionally, both in church and in the surrounding culture.

Thy Kingdom Come

The man asked to address the theme head-on during four plenary sessions was Indian Bible teacher / justice advocate C.B. Samuel.

He got our attention the during his first talk when he stated that “the church of Jesus Christ and the evangelical community are a disgrace” in many parts of the world, more interested in entertainment than in being faithful.

“I wish the kingdom would come by singing about it,” he said, “but it won’t.” He added that we need to rely on the word of God as we engage with issues in the world and model the kingdom.

During another talk he urged the gathered leaders to learn from Gandhi. He recalled visiting his home and having an old man point to a nearby hut. There, the man said, Gandhi would daily clean the wounds of the leper who lived inside. Samuel said that those who would be leaders in the church must first be servants

I will be looking for signs at the general assembly that those themes are still important. There is considerable evidence of that concern for the world since 2019.

Here are some examples of WEA work:

• The Peace & Reconciliation Network (PRN) states its vision and mission: “Becoming God’s reconciling presence in a fractured world. Enable churches, communities and societies to live in God’s peace, reconciliation and justice. Everyday. Reconciliation.” The PRN (and WEA) are partner organizations with Geneva Peace Week – “a leading annual forum in the international peace-building calendar through which organizations in Geneva and their international partners come together to share knowledge and practice on a diverse range of topics related to peace across contexts and disciplines” – which took place earlier this month. PRN Global Director Phil Wagler was at one time a pastor in Surrey and now lives in Kelowna. Several recent articles on the PRN site relate to the Middle East and the Israel/Gaza conflict. One author, Salim Munayer, PRN Coordinator for MENA, spoke at several local churches earlier this year.
• The WEA Sustainability Center, based in Bonn, has as its mission “to (a) inspire and empower followers of Christ to exercise leadership on all levels of sustainability efforts and (b) equip churches and congregations around the world to implement Creation Care on a daily basis and thus become a strong, legitimate and unified voice in global debates on sustainability.” The Lausanne/WEA Creation Care Network has been active at recent COP  events (UN Climate Change Conferences). For example, the network and the WEA on its own are partners in the Christian Climate Observers Program (CCOP) which will take part in COP 30 in Belém, Brazil November 10 – 21. WEA was part of the core team for the Faith Pavilion at COP 28 in Dubai, UAE. Samuel Chiu, who lives in Vancouver, works with A Rocha Canada and A Rocha International, and has been active with CCOP, wrote about his participation in COP 15 and COP 27 here.
• The WEA has also been very active at the United Nations. Actions this fall, for example, include:
  • Gaetan Roy, Permanent Representative of the WEA to the UN in Geneva, representing the WEA at the 8th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, in Astana, Kazakhstan;
  • the WEA, Open Doors International (ODI) and the Evangelical Association of Mozambique (AEM) submitting a joint report to the Human Rights Council ahead of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Mozambique, scheduled for April 2026;
  • making a joint oral statement (with Christian Solidarity International at the UN’s Human Rights Council 60th session addressing the alarming escalation of violence in Nigeria and calling the Nigerian Government to take immediate and concrete measures to safeguard vulnerable communities  Janet Epp Buckingham recently wrote ‘A compelling rationale for why Christians should engage at the United Nations.’

So, I will be busy, both exploring Tokyo with my family and learning from Christians from around the world in Seoul. Weekly updates from Church for Vancouver will likely be on hold, though I may send out a couple of less extensive updates. Time will tell. I’ll be back toward the end of November.