WEA Strengthened by Canadian Ties
The World Evangelical Alliance is a network of churches and organizations representing more than 600 million Evangelicals. The EFC is its national alliance partner in Canada.
EFC staff help lead the WEA, including current contributions by Bruce Clemenger, Eileen Stewart-Rhude and others.
Latest News From the WEA
Visit worldea.org/news and worldea.org/video. The WEA includes commissions on mission, religious liberty, theology, women, youth as well as initiatives on human trafficking, refugees, leadership training, nuclear weapons, generosity, creation care, business and more.
Improving Short-Term Mission Trips
The EFC Global Mission Roundtable has updated its Code of Best Practice in Short-Term Mission. The Code seeks to provide a standard or benchmark for short-term mission practice and suggests elements that should be incorporated as a basic minimum. Download the second edition, dated February 2009, for free. A revised guidebook which includes many helpful supplementary materials is available for $10 online or by calling 1-866-302-3362.
Micah Challenge:
The Micah Challenge was developed by the Micah Network and the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) in response to a groundswell among evangelical Christian churches wanting to contribute at all levels to the alleviation of poverty and to greater justice for poor communities.
In Canada, a Micah Challenge initiative was launched by The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada along with other networks and agencies.
Evangelical Christian organizations and local churches have made a major contribution to direct delivery of community development and relief programmes but have largely been invisible as a political force on poverty and justice issues. Notable exceptions are the role played by churches and church organizations worldwide, in the Jubilee 2000 debt campaign, and their growing involvement in the trade justice movement. In the economically poorer countries of the South, a number of church-based organizations have advocated successfully on human rights issues and for constitutional reform. However, these courageous stances taken by local and national churches, have seldom been linked across borders.
This is particularly true of evangelical churches and evangelical parts of the major Christian denominations. The WEA represents approximately 380 million evangelical Christians worldwide, many of whom are in the South. These tend to have very strong local roots and local accountability as a result of their decentralized and less hierarchical structures. However, they have also been less able, as a result, to develop multi-country campaigns on poverty issues.
The Micah Network is made up of hundreds of Christian-based community development agencies, also predominantly from the South. The Micah Network aims to empower this global community to become involved in advocacy for poor communities, from whom they come and with whom they work.
The Micah Challenge organization did much of its advocacy focused on the United Nations millenium development goals set for 2015. Visit www.micahglobal.org for future goals.
Serving the Persecuted
In many parts of the world, the followers of Jesus Christ live under persecution. The World Evangelical Alliance estimates that over 200 million Christians in more than 60 countries are denied their basic human rights because of their faith in Jesus Christ.
In partnership with other evangelical groups around the world, The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada's Religious Liberty Commission monitors the persecution of Christians, and alerts churches in Canada to prayer and advocacy needs. The EFC also seeks to raise the profile of religious persecution as a serious human rights violation with government and in the media.
United Nations Human Rights Council: The former EFC Director of Law and Public Policy Janet Epp Buckingham was privileged to present the World Evangelical Alliance UN Report 2005 at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, and to attend the sixty-second and final Commission in 2006, where plans were finalized for a new Human Rights Council, which has replaced the Commission.