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CCA-WSCF
Joint Consultation
3 – 4 December 2003
Day 1 – 3rd December 2003
The Joint Consultation started off with an opening
worship facilitated by Cora Tabing, CCA’s Executive Secretary of Ecumenical
Formation, Gender Justice and Youth Empowerment, that affirmed the
participants’ commitment to ecumenism partnership and development amongst the
students and youth. An opening address was given by Dr, Ahn Jae-woong, General
Secretary of CCA. He emphasized the needs and importance of student ministry in
order to enhance the vitality and richness of the ecumenical movement.
Following the opening worship and address, Ms. Sharon
Rose Joy Ruiz Duremdez, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches
in the
1. The
educational system remains to be elitist, commercialised and colonial. Thus
education has become a privilege and no longer a right
2. Higher
Education is simply producing individuals to become part of the globalised
workforce and not students who are critical and analytical
3. The academic
community institutionalises rugged individualism at the expense of community
and solidarity.
To this, the following challenges are posed:
·
The
need for a dismantling-supplanting ministry. A ministry that consistently poses
a critique to the elitist,
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repressive, commercialised and colonial aspects of the educational
system and at the same time, uplift the liberating and liberative dimension of
the system
·
A
student ministry that is of and by the students and not a ministry for
students. Hence, it is the task of both the church and the Student Christian
Movement to provide students and youth with tools to organise the youth
·
An
ecumenical student ministry that is an integral part of the struggle for the
liberation of the oppressed
·
That
the student ministry programmes of the churches and the Student Christian
Movements should be clarified well on their particular roles and contributions
towards organising the students, to avoid pitting up against fundamentalist
Christian students
·
The
ecumenical student ministry should not concern itself with student affairs
alone but should include faculty and non-teaching staff of the academic
community.
The following are the main points of the three
comments on the keynote presentation:
·
The
church fails to recognise the importance of student ministry in the local
church
·
The
church has lost its track of the distinctiveness of the academe
·
When
the church responds to the students, it must be accepting of those who are
different (in terms of thinking, mindset, life styles etc.), provocative or
unsettling. Is the church prepared to learn from “disturbance” among the
students?
·
The
church has to do its best to its own integrity, teaching, preaching and worship
because students are often alienated by any form of superficiality
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·
Is
the church able to guard against the seductiveness of the number game?
·
The
church has to offer encouragement to the students to accept them even though
they make mistakes or think beyond the frontiers
·
Are
the students prepared to love an unloveable church?
·
Will
the church and students help each other to face the challenges and questions?
B) SCM’s Role in the Society – by
Mr. Wong Kaishing
·
It
is not necessary to separate students and social activism; the social or
people’s movement is people’s transformation. Thus education is not separated
from the social environment
·
Education
as of now is a form to control people, can we think beyond what the present
education is offering?
·
In
a people’s movement, what is meant by ‘people’? The ‘people’ built a movement
of an environment that each person can participate and build up their potential
·
Students
need to be more independent from the different interest groups that carry a
hidden agenda, the students need to be a bridge for the people’s movement
·
The
people’s movement is not an external thing but is within us
C) SCM’s Relations with the Faculties and Chaplains in Higher Education
– by Dr. Betty C. Abregana
·
Students
are not always being controlled by the forces of the academe nor do they always
have a sense of helplessness in the academia environment
·
The
academia has a structure but students can be empowered to do something within
the structures
·
The
community need to have a focus on higher education on whether does it want its
students to contribute to the community or to be competitive in the market
because what we believe in could influence how we behave
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·
There
is a need to establish human relations and interaction so that the students can
engage in critical thinking
·
There
must be a sense of accountability and provision to monitor/evaluate outcomes of
activities that students have with the academia so that improvements could be
made
The following points are the main points from the
discussion from the floor on the keynote presentation and the three comments:
It is believed that the universities have created a
sense of competitiveness amongst the students, and that it is very much part of
the real world. There is a fear that the competitiveness has replaced the
vision to change the society, thus this is the challenge for the Church and the
SCM to bring this vision back to the ministry.
It is important to bring back the vision to the
students and youth, the support from the church is needed. This support could
come from the encouragement and support of resources to the student ministry as
it creates venues for critical thinking. There is a need to encourage
continuous and constructive dialogues between the church and the SCM at
different levels.
While affirming the uniqueness of the SCM, the challenge
is how do the SCMs articulate its analysis, create spaces for change and
explore different approaches in working with the church and church youth.
Rev. Shin Seung Min, Regional Secretary of WSCF-AP,
gave a brief report on the previous consultations done together by CCA and
WSCF-AP. He also highlighted on the
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evaluations of these consultations made by the NCCs and
SCMs.
Please see appendix 2, 3, 4 and 6.
Thereafter, the participants went into 3 group discussions to further
discuss on the topics of:
Common Agenda
1) Evaluation on joint programs,
particularly from 1997-2002
2) Reflection on the partnership
between CCA/WSCF-AP in terms of structure, program and resource
sharing
3) Articulation on a vision of
CCA/WSCF-AP cooperation in the ecumenical student ministry.
Specific Agenda
Group 1 – SCM relationship with faculty and chaplain
Group 2 – SCM relationship with churches
Group 3 – SCM’s role in the society
Day 2 – 4th December 2004
The second day of the joint consultation started with
a morning devotion led by Mr. Samuel Jayakumar, General Secretary of SCM India.
Samuel emphasized on the ecumenical student and youth ministry and requested
the participants to re-affirm and re-commit themselves to develop and support
the student and youth ministry.
The morning devotion was followed by the plenary of
the group discussions held on the previous day.
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The group started with an evaluation on the joint
programmes particularly from 1997-2002, and commented on the following:
Common agenda:
The joint efforts of CCA and WSCF AP are good ones
but it is noted that there is an importance for these programmes to have a
continuity because in some countries such as
§
There
is a need to develop some monitoring mechanisms to follow up on the result of
the consultations especially at the local level in order to know if there is
some progress work that is being done;
§
There
should be more specific recommendations and goals in future national
consultation so as there will be more “do-able” recommendations.
Reflection on the partnership:
§
There
is a need to look beyond our ideological differences and a need to bridge the
ideological gap (different perspective and ways of looking at social justice
and social concerns) between the church, the church youth and the SCM
especially at the local and national levels. In the regional level i.e.
CCA/WSCF-AP there is an understanding between each other but at the local or
national levels, the church and the SCM have different priorities, needs, and
different understanding on issues especially on social justice and ecumenism.
But despite the differences, there is no need to compromise each other’s stance
and perspectives; instead we need to find ways to work together;
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§
We
need to explore more creative approaches wherein we do not create tensions
because of ideological differences, but finding out a common grounding to work together
(church youth and SCM could develop programmes like choral festivals, relief
missions and other common interests);
§
When
the NCCs conduct programmes, invitations could be extended to the SCMs to make
a presentation of their work and ministry to encourage young people to join and
form SCM and vice versa so that SCMs could have knowledge on the work being
done by the NCCs.
On Specific Agenda - SCM Relationship with the
Faculty and Chaplains
Some Recommendations:
1. Tripartite talks and discussions between
Asian Christian Faculty Fellowship, SCM and the NCC
2. Networking with the chaplains
3. Networking with the faculty,
introducing SCM to the faculty members. In
Group 2 - SCM relationship with
churches
The group members reflected on:
§
To
find possible ways and thoughts of implementing relationship building between
SCMs, local churches and NCCs, and continuing the relationships that has
already been established within CCA and WSCF AP. Therefore there is a need to reflect and look
at the current models already implemented, with the understanding that
different models are relevant to different countries;
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§
The
current relationship that CCA has with WSCF-AP has given the SCM the unique
position of covering a meeting ground for SCMers on their national and regional
levels. Whereas other WSCF Regions do not share this relationship with their
respective Council of Churches, the close relationship CCA has with WSCF- AP is
unique and helpful. Therefore this gives
the SCMs an advantage of resource sharing and generating an arena to come
together to discuss issues. The regional
support from CCA to WSCF-AP will always be there in whatever capacity they
could offer their support;
§
Reflecting
on the relationship of the Churches, the group members reflected on the kind of
history that has already been established in this arena and within the
ecumenical circles. Therefore we need to
be reminded of the history of the relationship building that has already taken
place.
§
However,
it was mentioned that each SCM does not fully understand the structural
churches and their respective associated bodies. Therefore some of the SCMs and their students
do not fully comprehend these structures enough to create some form of
relationship building. With these lack
of understanding, it is difficult to build a relationship with the Church.
Particularly with the Church’s Youth Ministry, it is operating under the
structures of the Church and has a different mission and direction of nurturing
the spiritual direction of their members based on Christian Morals according to
the doctrine of their respective churches. Whereas this is somewhat different
to the central core and focus of SCM in that the SCM is more focal on issues of
social justice, ecumenism, gender issues etc. The Church hence, needs to be
educated and acknowledge that the work of SCM is very much part of a valid
student ministry to ensure the true Gospel of Jesus is implemented around the
world;
§
The SCMs of India and the
§
The
importance of Senior Friends is essential in this relationship building. Many Senior Friends are in influential
positions on the local, national or international ecumenical level thus, they
could act as resource persons in connecting SCMs to the NCCs. Senior Friends also play an important part in
helping SCMs with resources and resource sharing.
1. CCA could help set up a neutral
ground for good communication for addressing the issues discussed above
2. CCA could help promote SCM in a more
positive aspect through various types of mediums and media, examples:
Pamphlets, Newsletters etc.
3. CCA could help with resource sharing
especially in terms of open dialogues among Church members, WSCF-AP and SCMs in
their respective countries
4. CCA could help in the efforts to
help raise money to support the cost of accommodation of the WSCF General
Assembly in 2004.
The group members came up with the following comments
and observations:
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1. Evaluation of joint programmes,
particularly from 1997-2002
Members of the working group shared the following
observations:
§
That
whilst overall, the focus on local programmes had been fruitful and productive,
that there had been examples e.g.
§
The
group affirmed that from time to time this may be necessary, given local
prevailing conditions that the guidelines should generally be followed and
should be enforced;
§
Local
programmes should also be combined with regional programmes: the last one
having been in 1995 was considered to be a long gap. However financing is the
critical issue here and increased funding lies with the CCA;
§
The
Joint Programmes reports were very impressive, however the question of follow
up was also raised as there was a perception that many of the stated follow up
actions had not occurred and there were no mechanisms to find out if this
follow up had occurred and there is also no accountability to follow up;
§
The
group agreed that outcomes must be sustainable after the programme and that
financial support was critical to this.
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2. Reflection on the partnership:
§
§
The
Aotearoa/NewZealand model was shared with the group who agreed that it was a
positive one for other SCMs (i.e. all women’s and youth work being delegated to
SCM rather than having separate Youth and Women’s Desks in the NCC);
§
The
SCMers in the group affirmed the importance of NCCs being truly ecumenical in
nature and not non-denominational;
§
The
SCMers in the group reiterated that it was important that the CCA and NCCs recognise
the importance of the relationship with SCM as opposed to other student
organisations due to the ecumenical nature of SCM rather than other student
organisations;
§
The
WSCF-AP staff member reiterated how important it was for responsibilities on the
CCA-WSCF Joint Committee to be shared equally, and for it not to fall onto
WSC-APF alone to have to organise many aspects of the programmes;
§
One
of the CCA members of the working group reiterated the importance of accurate
orientation regarding the expectations of the committee members to allow smooth
transition into the committee;
§
Outcomes
must be monitored, guidelines enforced and participation monitored to ensure a
broad cross section
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of participants attend to the programmes rather than just high level
church leaders;
§
One
of the CCA members shared that it may be possible and desirable for
consultations to occur in conjunction with other CCA Programme such as
CATS. Particularly, through these joint
efforts the Joint Committee can suggest the “ecumenical student ministry” to be
in seminaries’ curriculum. The
WSCF-AP Staff welcomed this idea;
§
The
group believed that the CCA-WSCF Joint Committee was not recognised adequately
at the CCA level e.g. it could not be found in the CCA directory. Discussions
were about how to better relate the committee into official CCA structures.
Again funding was raised as being critical to raising the profile of the work
of the Joint Committee;
§
Issues
were also raised about where funding should come from and the problem of
whether it should come from a programme budget or not. Issues regarding
ownership of the programmes was also raised;
§
The
importance of more regular meetings for the Joint Committee was raised and that
it is important to make the structure stronger and having a balance of staff
and committee members;
§
On
the question of programmes, national consultations were seen as being very
cognitive and intellectually oriented rather than praxis or touching the heart.
There must be a balance that could emphasize discussions focusing on more grass
roots solutions, or SCM and local committee members could consider implementing
the School for Ecumenical Leadership Formation (SELF) at the local movements.
The need for external
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animators was critical in the success of such local SELFs in order to
break down barriers that often can be found between CCA/NCC youth and SCMers.
The group members came up with the vision of:
3 areas were seen as the most important for future
vision and action between CCA and WSCF/SCMs in:
a. Higher Education
b. Ecumenism
c. Globalisation
§
The
importance of SCM maintaining itself as a faith based movement was critical.
Methodology was also seen as critical: being clear about integrating social
aspects and having a holistic approach;
§
It
is important to stay within the church and maintain that relationship: to learn
from the mistakes of the 1960s but to also maintain the importance of social
action in conjunction with being a faith based movement;
§
The
importance of the student’s role in promoting dialogue and social discourse is
critical. Unlike in previous eras though, SCMs are no longer the only groups
voicing these things. We are now one of many, both within the church and in the
NGO community. We cannot claim to have a prophetic voice in this day and age.
This fosters a sense of elitism which we must avoid;
§
The
group also promoted the importance of interfaith dialogue.
Following the plenary on the group discussions, the actions plans that
were recommended are:
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1. Monitoring of programmes and
partnership through strengthening the Joint Committee. The Joint Committee will
be composed of one committee member and one staff from both the CCA and WSCF-AP
2. A regular page in the CCA Newsletter
for WSCF as part of promoting SCMs in the churches
3. CCA commits $20,000 for WSCF General
Assembly for accommodation costs. CCA will contact some NCCs to make appeals to
churches to contribute some funds to the General Assembly
4. Promotion of Common Programmes that
will bring together church youth and SCM e.g. Youth Week
5. Asia Student and Youth Gathering
(ASYG) and Ecumenical Asia-Pacific Student and Youth Network (EASYNet) National
Coordinators’ Training in 2004, are venues for the young people to get together
and to develop young leaders on joint efforts
6. Resource sharing not only in terms
of finances but on other resources of the church, e.g. church venues where SCM
could use at a discounted basis or for free
7. CCA Assembly to invite SCMs to
attend and vice versa for WSCF Assembly
8. Ecumenical women’s meetings and
programmes where WSCF can be invited
9. Asian Conference of Theology
Students (ACTS) to address the ecumenical student ministry, and the possibility
of including the student ministry in the theological curriculum
1. Joint Meetings of CCA-member NCC
Youth Secretaries and General Secretaries/National Coordinators of the WSCF-AP
region at least once in five years
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2. SCM to initiate dialogue with the
church. (For
3. Future National Consultations in
4. Joint SELF Programme
1. Tripartite Meeting between Asian
Christian Faculty Fellowship, Student Christian Movement and the National
Council of Churches
2. Mobilising the Senior Friends for
finance and other resources
3. Defining the relationship and
partnership of SCM and NCC. Study what structure will be appropriate for each
country(Some countries have SCM as NCC’s associated member or SCM’s as the main
arm of NCC’s in its student ministry)
4. Accompaniment /Internship programmes
for students and youth
The closing worship was facilitated by Rev. Stephen
Hsu, Chairperson of WSCF-AP. Rev. Hsu stressed on the importance of the
ecumenical partnership that CCA and WSCF-AP has and the need to help and
support each other in the overall people’s ministry because all of us are doing
God’s work. Thus, it is important to lift each other up in times
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of difficulty and to journey together in mutual respect and
understanding so as to stimulate learning process and growth.
With these closing words, the CCA-WSCF Joint
Consultation of 2003 came to an end.