Staff across all three offices of the Council for World Mission (CWM) came together to usher in the new year with a communion service held in the Singapore Office on 6 January.
The service opened with a word of prayer by Rev. Daimon Mkandawire, Mission Secretary for Ecology and Economy, after which Rev. Dr Jooseop Keum, CWM General Secretary, offered his first staff sermon for the new year.
Preaching from both Isaiah 42:1-7 and John 17:18-23, Keum reminded the staff to renew their commitment to rise, shine, and serve in their various appointments and capacities in the current period of Epiphany.
We must shine, Keum reflected, because the whole earth remains covered in darkness. “While the sun may lose its light and the moon may become dark, God’s light is eternal and never goes out,” he said. “We are individuals who have become light because God’s glory has come upon us, and we must not only hold onto that light but also share it.”
Keum urged CWM staff, in their many roles across the world, to share the light of God. “Let people see your good, righteous, and faithful deeds and give glory to God in heaven,” he said.
Just as Jesus reflects the love of God to the community around Him, so must CWM exemplify this Christ-like love to the world. “Our mission is to let that love overflow into the world, and we have been sent to fulfill this mission,” declared Keum.
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Singapore Consultation
The New Year Communion Service also also marked an important date in the history of CWM: the 50th anniversary of the Singapore Consultation, a weeklong meeting held from 31 December 1974 to 6 January 1975 that brought together 56 representatives from churches that had been engaged in foreign missions and churches established through those missions.
The Singapore Consultation agreed that CWM’s current structure was unhelpful as it maintained donor-recipient relationships which failed to give space for true collaboration. The fruit of the consultation was a document, “Sharing in One World Mission,” that shared the vision of the ecumenical nature and outlook of a new CWM. That new structure—based on equal partnership and mutuality—came into being in 1977.
“Today, we joyfully celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Singapore Consultation,” said Keum. “We take pride in this achievement because it has been accomplished not through sudden invention, but through a long struggle within the entire CWM family—through the collective commitments and efforts of all participants that have united us as one family in God’s mission.”
Keum reflected that it was faith which guided the Singapore Consultation. “Faith is the assurance of God’s faithfulness to us, even when we live in an uncertain world, navigating paths not marked on any map and moving toward an unknown future,” he said. “Faith serves as a source of courage to be prophetic—enabling us to embody future visions and values in the present, as those gathered here today 50 years ago in Singapore.”
