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Global mission conference in March 2007 to focus on Millennium Development Goals
12 December 2006
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, combat the spread of HIV and AIDS and malaria, empower women and promote equality between men and women, these are some of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which will be the focus of an international conference titled “Towards Effective Anglican Mission” (TEAM) on March 7-14, 2007. The conference, hosted by the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA), will bring together key representatives from the worldwide Anglican Communion, including as keynote speaker the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Reverend Dr. Rowan Williams.
The conference will be held at the Birchwood Conference Centre in Boksburg, Gauteng, South Africa and is a follow up on the first Pan-African Anglican Consultation on HIV and AIDS (Boksburg 1), which was held in August 2001.
A number of high-level speakers are expected to participate in the conference, one of which is Professor Steve de Gruchy. Professor de Gruchy is the Director of Theology and Development in Kwazulu Natal and the editor of the Journal of Theology for Southern Africa. He is also an ordained minister in the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa (UCCSA). Professor de Gruchy has always had a lively academic and practical interest in the interface between the Christian faith and social ethics.
“The call for Christians to be involved in some form of development action is best summarised by the powerful statement from James that “just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead”, said de Gruchy.
The Anglican Communion’s first ever female Presiding Bishop – The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori – will be the keynote speaker during the closing dinner on 14 March 2007. Her task will be to motivate members of the Anglican Provinces to make the resolutions and recommendations taken at the conference become a reality within the Anglican Communion.
The MDGs is an eight-pronged declaration that represents a global partnership responding to the world's main development challenges and to the calls of civil society. The declaration includes the promotion of poverty reduction, education, maternal health, gender equality, and aim at combating child mortality, AIDS and other diseases by the target date of 2015.
The conference has seven objectives and these include the sharing of the African experience with others in the Anglican Communion, critically reviewing the response of the Anglican Communion to the MDGs, and encouraging opportunities for learning and transformation through dialogue.
Joining other Anglican Primates and an estimated 400 delegates at the conference, Williams will deliver the keynote address and celebrate at the opening Eucharist, which will be open to the public.
“Our shared faith requires of us to participate in the Missio Dei, God’s work in the world. We are required to bear witness to the work of God in partnership with others – both within and outside the Christian Church – to make our communities, our society and our world a place that is closer to God’s vision of shalom, ” said Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town, CPSA Primate and TEAM Convenor.
“We have a mandate us to bring healing to the sick – a belief that propels us forward to work in the struggle against AIDS. We each have a responsibility to help feed the hungry and heal the sick of our continent and the world. We each are our brother’s keeper.”
Archbishop Ndungane was entrusted with the responsibility of moving the Anglican Communion forward by addressing the vital social issues of poverty, trade, debt and HIV and AIDS, at a March 2001 meeting of Anglican Primates.
Five Africans die every minute as a result of HIV/AIDS. Three–quarters of the 42 million known people infected by HIV and AIDS live in sub–Saharan Africa. In this region, billions of people still lack access to clean water, millions of children die each year from preventable diseases and, in some countries, HIV/AIDS is wiping out all the gains in life expectancy of the last 40 years. The conference will bring together representatives of the Anglican Communion in the context of prayer and theology to share diverse experiences and views on specific social issues.
“We need to work together to make poverty history, a thing of the past. We need to work together to make disease a memory,” said the Most Rev. Bernard Ntahoturi, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Burundi and Bishop of Mantana, who will attend the conference. “Poverty and disease affect all of us in some way or other. They rob us off the joys of life. This conference is an opportunity for us to formulate models that allow us to make right of this wrong.”
The focus of the eight-day conference will be to review the response of the Anglican Communion to the MDGs and analyse the impact of the goals on women and children; assess Boksburg 1 and share the African experience with the Anglican Communion; encourage opportunities for learning and transformation through dialogue among people with diverse experiences and perspectives; and encourage a prophetic articulation for an Anglican theology which supports witness and action for social justice.
The conference will also include an exposition of the Biblical principles and Gospel imperatives on the mission of the Church in society.
“Eradicating poverty and disease requires multiple solutions and we believe that dialogue and the sharing of experiences are a step in the right direction,” said Delene Mark, chief executive officer of HOPE Africa and coordinator of TEAM. “The conference is a platform for Africans to effectively explore fresh and innovative strategies and avenues towards the eradication of all social ills that have plagued the continent for centuries.”
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For more information on the conference, please contact:
Delene Mark or Jeanette Dick
Tel: +27 (0) 21 461 4640
Fax: +27 (0) 21 462 0387
Email: delene@hopeafrica.org.za
team info@hopeafrica.org.za