Assembly Logo Unveiled

by Cheon Young Cheol


CWM is pleased to present the 2016 Assembly logo which was unveiled following a service of prayer and worship attended by CWM staff led by the General Secretary in Singapore.  The next four-yearly gathering of the 31 member churches of CWM will take place in Jeju Island, South Korea from 19 to 23 June this year.

In a world where creation groans because of the life-denying forces and unjust dealings – leading to untold suffering, disappointment, death and destruction – Council for World Mission has identified as the theme for its 2016 Assembly “Healing: Hope in Action”.

The theme is a yearning of the heart for the God of healing grace to stir the hearts of all God’s people to actions of hope that will result in the healing of God’s creation.  Such actions include truth-telling, caring confrontation, repentance and forgiveness, all aimed at the experience of community in which life is affirmed as God’s endowment and to which God remains perpetually committed.  The logo, designed by Korean artist, Bum Lee, reflects the heartbeat of the theme and calls for all God’s people to participate in hopeful actions towards healing, peace and, ultimately, reconciliation.

The Earth depicted here symbolises the blatant and bare-faced life-denying forces that are desecrating and destroying God’s creation, causing groaning of irreconcilable proportions. We admit that we are on a journey of death, caused largely by humans’ doing in which the very things we desire are those that destroy us.  The Earth is in lamentation because the insatiable appetite of humans for personal advancement, at any cost, placed us at odds with other human beings and with the rest of God’s creation.

The open hands represent an invitation for action, to repair the breach of this broken world, restore the beauty of God’s creation and build life-affirming communities. It is an invitation to join in the movement of Healing angels, praying and acting for the healing of relationships with one another, with all of creation and with God. This invitation of transformation is rooted in the local communities where member churches are committed to developing missional congregations and becoming life-affirming agents of God’s healing and hope.

The roots affirm that we are grounded in hope, in God’s everlasting presence, amid the turmoil being experienced among the local communities. It is an expression of identification creation’s groaning and with human sufferings and pains.

In the spring, Jeju is covered with canola blossoms. The bright yellow flowers grow everywhere on the island and are an important part of Jeju’s ecology and economy, being used to draw tourism and produce a variety of products including honey and oil. The canola blossoms in the logo is a reminder of the interconnectedness of all of creation, where the gift of partnership between humans and nature bespeak the benefits  and blessings of fostering such relationship in pursuit of harmony and healing rather than exploitation and injury of the other.

You may also like

Leave a Comment