Renewal, transformation, and restoration of God’s creation intimately linked with community resilience, says Filipino indigenous Bishop, Bishop Pasikan

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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04 May 2023

Bishop Hilary Jr. Pasikan from the Episcopal Church in the Philippines delivers the Biblical-Theological reflection on ‘Renewal, Transformation and Restoration of Creation’ at the ACELC

Jakarta, Indonesia: In a Biblical-theological reflection on the third day of the Christian Conference of Asia’s (CCA) Asian Church and Ecumenical Leaders’ Conference (ACELC), Bishop Hilary Jr. Pasikan from the Episcopal Church in the Philippines drew connections between the renewal, transformation, and restoration of God’s creation and the strengthening of community resilience and sustainability. 

“We have conveniently thought of our mandate as being ‘the exercising of dominion over created things’ while forgetting that all created things are God’s blessing and that God placed humans in the Garden of Eden ‘to till and keep it’. This is one of the reasons why indigenous people around the world are outraged and persist in caring for the earth despite being vilified and tagged as terrorists,” said the indigenous Bishop who belongs to the Igorot community that inhabits the Cordillera region in the northern part of the Philippines.

Using the indigenous practice of story-telling, Bishop Pasikan took the participants through the history of the social engagements and community development work of his church, the Episcopal Church in the Philippines (ECP). 

The ECP’s Community-Based Development Programme (CBDP) had received hundreds of thousands of US dollars in annual grants but the transformational activities that were meant to enhance the self-reliance of communities did not make any significant breakthroughs in terms of reducing dependency and mendicancy. Although well-intentioned, such unilateral flows of financial resources made communities helpless and powerless as they realised they could never generate these amounts themselves and therefore it was solely upon the grace of others that they received the same. 

The ECP has since turned the “receivers” into “givers”, and raised the communities from levels of survival or subsistence to self-sufficiency and self-reliance. Bishop Pasikan said that the communities moved from being unproductive ‘Dead Sea’ to productive ‘Sea of Galilee’.

“The Sea of Galilee receives water from the River Jordan, and it then releases the water downstream. The Dead Sea on the other hand contains the water it receives and does not share it. The receivers-to-givers policy has enabled communities which received fund support to eventually give back or give out what they receive so that they can share the blessings of the project with others,” shared Bishop Pasikan. 

Speaking truth to power was also an important theme in Bishop Pasikan’s speech: “The exchange between Jesus and Pilate in John 18, and those of Paul and the rulers of his time in the Book of Acts, and the Lukan account in Luke 4, all point to an understanding of the prophetic task of the church, as was the case with the prophets of the Old Testament. Those prophets meant to point out to the rulers the consequences of their actions because they failed to serve in righteousness and justice.”

The ACELC is being held from 1 to 5 May 2023 in Jakarta, Indonesia, and is hosted by the Protestant Church in the Western Part of Indonesia (GPIB) in collaboration with the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI). 

More photos can be found here.