A New Ecumenical Movement Meets

Joel Boot, interim executive director of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, recently came away from what is being called a "watershed" ecumenical meeting in Indonesia convinced that Christianity of all types and denominations is flourishing outside North America and Europe.

Boot represented the CRCNA earlier in October at the Global Christian Forum, which drew an estimated 300 Christian leaders from 80 countries to the meeting that was held on the island of Sulawesi.

"It was a glimpse of heaven, with people from every race and tribe and tongue and nation joined together in a week-long act of worship," said Boot.

"What I came away with is that the church of Christ is alive and well and is re-locating. It didn't die. It moved."

Recent studies underscore what Boot has observed. Christianity in the United States is for the most part not growing, having become static in many areas and in some places makes up a small and ever-dwindling portion of the landscape.

Members of the faith are aging and not being replaced by younger members. Denominations are hurting financially and have deep concerns about the future, according to a recent survey conducted by the Hartford Institute of Religion Research.

But especially in Africa, Christianity is exploding and being embraced by nearly 380 million people, and that number is growing. It has gotten to the point where Africa is sending its own missionaries overseas, instead of receiving missionaries from North America and Europe.

According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon Conwell Seminary, about 66 percent of the world's Christians lived in Europe 1910. Today, that number has dropped to 26 percent.

"What impressed me was the wide range of Christians who attended," said Boot, adding that the meeting drew Catholics, Coptic and Orthodox Christians, Pentecostal Christians, Seventh Day Adventists and a broad representation of other denominational and non-denominational evangelical and mainline Protestant groups.

Boot was also impressed by the number of young adults who attended as representatives of their churches.

Although the group at the meeting was so diverse, they experienced a powerful sense of unity by "working and worshipping and celebrating what is at the heart of the Gospel -- the message of love and reconciliation of Christ," said Boot.

The Global Christian Forum is a relatively new group whose focus is not necessarily on writing papers and making statements, although there were some papers on such topics as "Witness and Unity in 21st Century Christianity."

Rather, said Boot, the Global Christian Forum "is not an institution but more an organism. Not a structure but a gathering. It does not present a program but promotes relationships."

Boot said he sat in on a session and listened to stories of the church at work in the hearts of people across the globe. Faith in Christ brought everyone together and it was that faith that they shared with one another. The theme of the meeting was "Life Together in Jesus Christ: Empowered by the Holy Spirit."

Founded a few years ago during the World Council of Churches' eighth assembly in Zimbabwe, the Global Christian Forum is starting just now to take on an international profile that focuses on a much broader range of Christian groups than does the WCC.

A message sent out after the forum said that one of the most poignant moments of the meeting came when a panel of Christians from around the world talked about how they had experienced "healing and reconciliation in Christ."

There were descriptions of the resurrection of the Orthodox church in Albania; the incredible growth and drawing power of the Taize Community in France; the reconciliation of Lutherans and Mennonites at the international and local levels, and "the extraordinary stories of the churches in China and the churches in the Middle East and northern Africa."

The Global Christian Forum also recognized "the upsurge in Pentecostal and charismatic movements which celebrate the person and work of the Holy Spirit," says the message from the forum, which was held Oct. 4-7. There are nearly 500 million members of pentecostal and charismatic groups worldwide.

Boot said that the forum may represent a new movement in the area of ecumenical relations, given its scope and reach and central focus on learning to talk and to recognize "that Christianity is the gift of God to the world."