Latest News

As faith-based organizations, we are deeply concerned by ongoing human rights violations experienced by refugees, asylum seekers, and other forcibly displaced people. Across the world, people fleeing persecution face barriers to accessing protection, are denied the right to seek asylum, subjected to refoulement, detained arbitrarily, separated from their families, and exposed to exploitation and abuse. At the same time, increasing ...

Read More

The post Joint Faith-based Organisation statement for UNGA High-level Week and the 75th anniversary year of the Refugee Convention appeared first on CWS.

 “Collective Action for Women Refugee-Led Organizations” will collaborate with women refugee leaders, who are driving solutions despite limited access to critical resources.  NEW YORK CITY, September 23, 2026—Church World Service (CWS) today announced a new movement in partnership with Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) to amplify women leadership in responding to the largest displacement crisis in history, “Collective Action for Women ...

Read More

The post Church World Service Commits to Elevating Refugee Women Leaders with Clinton Global Initiative  appeared first on CWS.

For Rev. Dr. Manhong Lin, Bossey was more than a place of study. The General Secretary of the China Christian Council and Professor and Doctoral Advisor of Christian Ethics, Nanjing Union Theological Seminary, reflects on what she valued about her experience—and why Bossey still matters today.

The Baltimore-Washington Conference filed a federal lawsuit against a church to defend The United Methodist Church’s trust clause. Meanwhile, developments continue in the Texas lawsuit involving Highland Park United Methodist.

Theme: Hope overcomes fear

The United Methodist Church’s health coordination team is constructing a 50-bed treatment center and reaching thousands through a large-scale community response.

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopalians from the church’s Province VIII will gather Sept. 25-27 at the Episcopal Retreat & Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, for its inaugural Creation Care Network Conference to learn about building climate resilience, how to reduce fossil fuel dependency and more. Many of the potential solutions presented will center Indigenous wisdom and leadership, including an overview of what it looks like to live a subsistence lifestyle; how to manage natural resources and their harvest sustainably; an overview of regenerative agriculture; and land, water and animal conservation and stewardship practices.  “We have disconnected from nature, from our creator,” Forrest Cuch, a member of the Ute tribe and senior warden of St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church in Whiterocks, Utah, told ENS. “Indigenous people are reminding people that it’s important to stay connected … to fulfill what Jesus taught us to be, which is to share the power.” Cuch is one of several Indigenous leaders who will speak at the conference. He also will lead the closing ceremony. During the conference, the Rt. Rev. Cathleen Bascom, The Episcopal Church’s eco-region networks coordinator and a former bishop of the Diocese of Kansas, will share information on the church’s eco-region networks, including the granting process. Since General Convention passed a resolution in 2024 calling on Episcopal institutions to “build networks around creation care and renewable energy,” 12 have been established across 55 dioceses in the United States, Latin America and Taiwan, and they’re now addressing region-specific environmental concerns and possible solutions. These eco-region networks seek to “link people, projects and properties dedicated to nature-based solutions to slow climate change.” Under Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, who took office in November 2024, development of the eco-region networks has been one of the church’s primary creation care initiatives. It is now facilitated through a partnership with the Center for Religion & Environment at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Last month, The Episcopal Church relaunched its creation care granting program with an emphasis on local ministries connected to the eco-region networks. The church is now accepting proposals until Oct. 26 for grants of up to $15,000 to fund projects involved with “nature restoration, regenerative agriculture, climate advocacy and environmental justice.” Each new eco-region network that is formed receives $10,000 a year from The Episcopal Church to hold an annual in-person gathering and to support an “eco-fellow” to help organize events and activities, Bascom told ENS. The Center for Religion & Environment’s eco-region networks facilitator, Hampton Randall, works closely with the “eco-fellows.” Part of Bascom’s inspiration for developing the eco-region networks came from serving as a delegate at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s annual Conference of the Parties. “At the U.N. climate summits, nature-based solutions were being talked about,” Bascom said. “This is a larger work of healing God’s creation that we have, that in many ways we’ve damaged more than we probably even realize.” When she was bishop of Kansas, Bascom led the formation of the first eco-region network, the Grasslands Network, which largely spans the Great Plains. It includes the dioceses of Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Navajoland, Nebraska, North Dakota, Northwest Texas, Rio Grande, South Dakota, Texas, Western Kansas, and Wyoming. The network, which held its first gathering in 2025, aims to address grasslands preservation and restoration, biodiversity, regenerative ranching and farming, and water quality, depletion and rehydration. Like the eco-region networks, the Creation Care Network Conference will focus on region-specific climate issues. In the case of Province VIII, its 18 dioceses share similar challenges, including water scarcity and wildfires, even though they’re geographically spread across more than 7,000 miles, from Navajoland to Alaska, Hawai‘i and Taiwan. The Rev. Jazzy Bostock is a Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) Episcopal priest who serves as vicar of St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church and Maluhia Lutheran Church in Waianae, Oahu, Hawai‘i. She integrates Kānaka Maoli perspectives with spiritual creation care and environmental justice in her ministry. As an Indigenous presenter at the conference, Bostock said she hopes to help guide participants to approaching regional climate issues from both an academic and a spiritual perspective. “I hope we can help ground the conference more in a spiritual kind of heart space, not just an academic kind of approach to tackling these issues,” she said. “There are a lot of facts to learn, but also pieces of our faith and spirit that are affected when creation is affected negatively. That impacts the way that we live.” As the eco-region networks are developing, the Earth’s surface temperatures continue to rise due to human-induced climate change, exacerbating severe weather events like droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, heavy rain and floods. This year, for example, wildfires have burned more than 8.5 million acres nationwide, especially in the western part of the United States. Last month, intense storms throughout Indiana killed at least seven people, displaced at least 1,000 people and left hundreds of thousands of households without power for up to two weeks. Meanwhile, since beginning his second term in 2025, President Donald Trump’s administration has rolled back multiple environmental protection policies in favor of energy policies that aim to increase oil, gas and coal production, while reducing renewable energy development. “This is not what God intended. This is not living in right relationship with ourselves, with the natural world, with non-human kin. We’re not doing it right,” Bostock said. The Rev. Lisa Graumlich, a climatologist and a deacon serving at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Tucson, Arizona, will be the conference’s keynote speaker. In her speech, she will question why, she believes, not enough action is being taken to mitigate climate change even though climatology research and data are frequently updated and readily available.  “I’ve spent 50 years as a climate scientist watching the gap between what we know and what we do grow wider, not narrower,” Graumlich, who’s served with Bascom as an Episcopal delegate at U.N. climate conferences, told ENS. “We have the science. We increasingly have the […]

Dr Liza B. Lamis is executive secretary of the International Committee for the Fellowship of the Least Coin. She reflects on the collaboration with the World Council of Churches, and the importance of Thursdays in Black. 

A Lantern for Peace—which remembers the victims of atomic bombings—has arrived at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland. The lantern is among 22 sent by the city of Hiroshima to International Geneva, the City of Peace, and the headquarters of the United Nations. The lanterns, accompanied by messages prepared by young citizens of Hiroshima, were distributed among organizations in Geneva, including the WCC.

Two years after Hurricane Helene devastated communities across the southeastern United States, families are still rebuilding their homes and lives. Through volunteers, donors, and local partners, World Renew Disaster Response Services has helped to repair more than 120 homes so far. A two-minute video released by World Renew offers a glimpse into their ongoing work in partnership with Delmar Reformed Church in Madison County, N.C., where the disaster caused nearly $200 million in damages to infrastructure and many homes. “Your support of our Hurricane Helene response has been vital for affected families,” said Chris Gibson, director of Disaster Response Services. “Now 120 families can once again sit around the dinner table for a shared meal. 120 families have a place...