World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) and Christian Council of Korea (CCK) join hands.
International Director of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe arrived in Korea on Dec. 9, visited CCK on Dec. 12 at 10 a.m. held an agreement ceremony with the CCK related members including President Yong Gyu Lee and determined to cooperate with world gospelization. The agreement ceremony took place in CCK president's room.
WEA and CCK felt the desperate need of cooperation between evangelicals worldwide and Korean churches about global issues including religious freedom and poverty-reduction when Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe visited Korea twice in May and August. This agreement ceremony is a specific result of the cooperation plan. It seems that from now on Korea Church will be able to deliver stronger message towards the international community.
WEA, which was established in 1846 and incorporated in 1912, is the biggest church alliance in the world which represents 420 millions evangelicals in the whole world. WCC is world alliance of ecumenical, and WEA is world alliance of evangelicals. It is affiliated with National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and Europe Evangelical Alliance (EEA), Evangelical Fellowship of Asia (EFA), etc also made up of 128 national evangelical alliances and 100 associate member organizations. Among them Korean Pastors are, Pastor Sang Bok Kim, chairman of EFA a member of WEA, Pastor Jae Hyung Jang, who accompanied Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe during his stay in Korea, who is a member of the WEA North American Council.
At the agreement ceremony the attendants include not only Dr. Tunnicliffe, CCK President Yong-gyu Lee and CCK Director Hee-bum Choi, but also international committee chairman Gang-pyeong Lee, secretary-general Yeon-taek Jung.
Yong Gyu Lee CCK president said, "Welcome the visit of the WEA representative warmly. World church alliance can be divided into WCC and WEA, I’m very thankful to have an agreement ceremony with WEA today. We wish to be able to fulfill the commission of world mission as the partner."
And said, "I wish that we could exert the power to deal with difficulties such as the Afghanistan hostage crisis and cooperate in the work of leading the whole world to Christ."
Dr. Tunnicliffe quoted this time as a “historic moment”, adding that he is “thankful to God to be able to officially welcome CCK into the WEA family.”
He said, "WEA serves 420 millions evangelical Christians worldwide. Let’s speak the heart of Christ with the world church.”
Dr. Tunnicliffe said “The role of WEA is to create a platform for evangelicals across the globe. The Korea church by itself cannot cope with various crisis situation of the world. We must cope together following the community that is the body of Christ.”
“We speak for the countries where persecutions are still severe. I believe Korea can make their voice heard around the world and by organizations like the UN on these issues as a partner of WEA.”
CCK Director Hee-bum Choi said “We examined the vision and confession of faith of WEA. We also agreed with it so we decided to join WEA through staff meetings, executive committee and decided to hold this agreement ceremony” before the agreement ceremony.
Afterwards international director Dr. Tunnicliffe and CCK president Yong Gyu Lee each signed three agreements. One of them will be donated to Korean Church History Museum.
Furthermore, Dr. Tunnicliffe offered CCK an invitation to the WEA General Assembly, held every six years, scheduled for next year on Oct. 24-30 in Thailand.
“Korea is second most missionary-sending country in the world,” said Dr. Tunnicliffe. “It’s also very important for the mission leaders in the world to witness and confirm the mission movement in Korea. I am very grateful to God for allowing us to have this partnership.” Afterwards the two representatives spoke about problems of North Korea human rights, poverty, famine and environment.”
WEA homepage: worldevangelicals.org
