His prayer for attendees of the most diverse meeting of Christian leaders globally is that they will see that God is one the move, says Rev Dr Casely Essamuah, secretary of the Global Christian Forum (GCF).
Roman Catholics, Pentecostals, Orthodox, Evangelicals, Mainline Protestants and independent church leaders — are all represented among the the 250 attendees at the GCF in Accra, Ghana, from April 15 to 20.
Essamuah, told Timothy Goropevsek of Christian Daily that the GCF describe itself as “a table”, rather than “an organisation”.
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With more than 45 000 Christian denominations in the world, non-Christians question the authenticity of the Christian message, he laments.
“All of us are claiming that humanity needs to be reconciled to God. All of us are saying God in Jesus Christ has reconciled broken humanity to himself, so please come along. But then we don’t even talk to each other, or we ignore each other, or we are indifferent towards each other, or in some instances, we even persecute each other,” he says.
“Meanwhile, the world is looking on and they say: these people are talking about reconciliation, but they don’t seem to have their act together. They’re eager to have us reconciled with God but not with one another. They’re eager to tell us that we’re all going to spend the same eternity together if we believe in Jesus Christ, but they’re not extending the same grace and the same love to one another as they should.”
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Discovering unity rather than manufacturing unity
Essamuah acknowledges that differences in theology and other areas cannot be overlooked. Instead, the GCF focuses on bringing people together to listen to each other’s stories of faith, to see how much thry have in common as individual followers of Jesus Christ, rather than looking at each other merely as official representatives of different Christian traditions.
“We are not there to manufacture unity. We are not there to organize unity,” Essamuah says. “We are there to open our eyes to the unity we have in Christ. We are there to lean into it. We are there to say, oh my goodness, these are brothers and sisters.”
“We are not an organisation, we are not there to issue a statement, we are not there to work on some doctrinal issues. We start from the standpoint of what unites us. And I always say immediately it is about who unites us. We are at the table because of Jesus Christ. He invites us to be at the table,” Essamuah says.
He says the question that drives these conversations is always the same: “What is God doing in your life as a person?”
He describes it further, saying, “Yes, you are there representing X church in this country. You have this title. But for you as a person, what is God doing in your life? Where did God take you from where you were to where you are now? How is God on the move in your life, in the life of your church, in the life of your country?”
“And as we begin to share those stories, there are bridges that we are able to cross and walls that we are able to tear down just because we realised that there’s a lot of similarity. There’s a lot that we work with as a result of our ethnicities, as a result of our denominations, as a result of our nations. But when you focus on who you are in Christ and what Christ has done for you, all of sudden you look at that person who is wearing a robe that you’re not familiar with and say, oh my goodness, that’s a brother!”
Everyone a guest at the table
Essamuah says, “25 years ago, the World Council of Churches realised it represented only 25% of the global Christian Body and that other groupings wanted to have little or anything to do with them. This prompted a visionary WCC leader, Konrad Reiser, to start a process that resulted in the launch of the GCF as a space where everybody who comes is a guest.
The only requirements for participation are accepting the statement of faith that speaks about the humanity and deity of Jesus Christ, and the salvation found in Jesus Christ alone.
The two things followers of Christ cannot say
Not being organisationally tied together and by avoiding joint statements and doctrinal discussions, the GCF manages to navigate sensitive issues around major theological differences.
Essamuah points to 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul writes about the Body of Christ.
“I always say there are two things that you can’t say if you are a Christian, at least according to 1 Corinthians 12. You can’t say: ‘I do not belong to the Body.’ This is very clear. And you can’t say: ‘I do not need you.’ Those two things, they’re incompatible with being a Christian,” he says.
“That the world may know”
The GCF has been inspired by Jesus’ prayer in John 17:23, where he prays for the unity of His disciples as a witness to the world. Therefore, the theme of this year’s gathering is “That the world may know.“
On his hopes for the forum, Essamuah says, “God is on the move. At any such global gathering, you bring people from so many countries and so many languages together and you see that, my goodness, God is on the move.”
“God’s Church is on the move. It’s thriving in places, it’s in persecution and it’s suffering in places. But God is on the move. Believers are not sitting still. Believers are bearing witness, bearing faithful witness. And I hope that those who come will really be encouraged by it. And I hope that those who come will see that God’s Church is bigger than my church.”
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