Challenges and Issues for Indochina Mission Work

Programme Review and Programme Direction

Two key deliberative sessions during the 15th CCA General Assembly are the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions.

The Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions will both be conducted in three groups relating to the CCA’s programme areas, namely, (i) General Secretariat (GS), (ii) Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF); and (iii) Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia (PD).

Assembly participants will have the option to join one of three groups for both the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions. For the sake of coherence, the assigned group will remain the same for both sessions.

General Secretariat

The General Secretariat oversees the coordination of programmatic, administrative, and financial activities of the organization. The GS comprises various departments such as church and ecumenical relations, relations with ecumenical partners, finance, administration, and communications, which provide crucial support and services for the implementation of programs and contribute to the overall functioning of the CCA.

Programmes: Relations with member churches and councils, ecumenical partners; advocacy at the United Nations; ecumenical responses to emerging issues in solidarity; income development and finance; and communications.

Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF)

Under the MU programme area, the CCA accompanies Asian churches to strengthen their mission and witness in multi-religious contexts, revitalise and nurture church unity and the Asian ecumenical movement, and develop contextual theological foundations.

Programmes: Asian Movement for Christian Unity (AMCU); Congress of Asian Theologians (CATS); Asian women doing theology in the context of wider ecumenism; contextualisation of theology in Asia and ecumenical theological education.

The EF programme area focuses on nurturing and developing ecumenical leaders in Asia. The programme aims to enhance spiritual formation and theological understanding, enabling people to actively engage in ecumenical dialogue and collaboration.

Programmes: Ecumenical Enablers’ Training in Asia (EETA); Asian Ecumenical Institute (AEI); Youth and Women Leadership Development; Ecumenical Spirituality and Nurturing of Contextual Liturgical Traditions; Asia Sunday

Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia and Advocacy (PD)

The BP programme area is dedicated to promoting peace, justice, and reconciliation in Asia’s diverse contexts. Through training, advocacy, and dialogue, the programme addresses the root causes of conflicts, empowers communities, and fosters sustainable peacebuilding initiatives.

Programmes: Pastoral Solidarity Visits; Churches in Action for Moving Beyond Conflict and Resolution; Young Ambassadors of Peace in Asia (YAPA); Ecumenical Women’s Action Against Violence (EWAAV); Eco-Justice for Sustainable Peace in the Oikos.

The PD programme area focuses on promoting justice, human rights, and social transformation in Asia. Through advocacy, capacity-building, and raising awareness, the programme addresses systemic injustice, empowers marginalised communities, and advocates for prophetic actions and meaningful change.

Programmes: Human Rights advocacy; Migration, Statelessness, and Trafficking in Persons; Asian Ecumenical Disability Advocacy Network; Asian Advocacy Network on the Dignity and Rights of Children (AANDRoC); Ecumenical Solidarity Accompaniment and Diakonia in Asia (ESADA); Health and Healing; Good Governance; Action Together to Combat HIV and AIDS in Asia (ATCHAA).

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15 August 2006
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Part of the concern of CCA-FMU is the growing mission expansion in Asia that is carried out not only by Western mission organizations but also by various Asian mission bodies. In order to situate mission work in the overall ecumenical movement in Asia, CCA-FMU staff has tried to make linkages with CCA member churches that are now among the "mission-sending bodies" in Asia and elsewhere.

In response to this, the Presbyterian Church of the Republic of Korea (PROK), through the office of Rev. Shin Seung Mi who is in charge of ecumenical relations of the PROK General Assembly, invited the CCA-FMU staff to provide a keynote presentation at a retreat of the PROK mission co-workers in Indochina in Pattaya, Thailand, on August 1, 2006. Rev. Jeong Jin-Woo from the PROK headquarters was also there to give the opening message. Rev. Kim Hyung Ki, an ecumenical church pastor now based in Phnom Penh, served as coordinator of the meeting.

The title of the keynote presentation made by Hope Antone was "Challenges and Issues for Indo-china Mission Works in the Wider Asian Context." She began by recalling the rich legacy of the PROK in its involvements as a church in human rights advocacy, minjung theology, care for migrants, and empowerment of women, among other things. She then reminded the group of the perennial challenges and issues in mission in Asia which are the context of Asian plurality and the context of Asian suffering and struggle for life.

With these, Asian churches and their mission agencies face ecumenical challenges. Borrowing the shifts in mission thinking from Wesley Ariarajah, these are ecumenical challenges are: (a) from an exclusive to an inclusive understanding of God's mission; (b) from conversion to healing as our objective of mission; (c) from desiring to be majority to contentment with being minority in the community; and (d) from mere doctrinal issues to deep spiritual concerns.

Hope went on to share four more shifts needed for Asian churches to be in tune with Asian plurality: a) shift from competition to cooperation among denominations; (b) from condemnation to dialogue with other religions; (c) from isolation to collaboration (working with) with civil society or ideology-based groups; and (d) from disintegration to integrity of creation.

She challenged the PROK missioners that "the type of mission we do in Asia should not simply repeat the mission orientation that we inherited from the past. Our context in Asia has its own peculiar issues and challenges and we need to address them accordingly as people and churches of Asia. We need to guard against the conquest approach and to be open to the possibility of the dialogical approach."