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The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) Governing Board convened for the 2026 Christian Unity Gathering (CUG), held here October 12–16 to discuss pressing concerns facing churches, communities, and public life in the United States and around the world. Following these deliberations, the Governing Board approved four statements affirming the NCC’s commitment to Christian unity, human dignity, religious liberty, and civic responsibility. 

The post National Council of Churches Governing Board Issues Statements on Religious Freedom, Public Execution, Cuba and Election Integrity During 2026 Christian Unity Gathering first appeared on National Council of Churches.

A United Methodist project provides 50 young people in Ugandan refugee settlements with hands-on digital literacy training.

Building on 141 years of shared missionary heritage, leaders of The United Methodist Church and the Korean Methodist Church signed a new covenant committing their mission agencies to regular dialogue and deeper cooperation.

After fleeing the Democratic Republic of Congo and arriving at Tanzania’s Nyarugusu Refugee Camp, Sabina faced hunger, financial instability and depression while raising six children. Through a CWS-supported sustainable farming project, she gained agricultural skills, became a community leader and built a more stable future for her family.  Facing Hunger and Uncertainty in Nyarugusu Refugee Camp  When Sabina turned 30, she expected to find herself in ...

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The post Building Healthier Futures: Sabina’s Journey from Refugee to Community Leader appeared first on CWS.

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay extended congratulations to Rev. Éric Hébert-Daly, recently appointed general secretary of The United Church of Canada (UCC). 

Nicola Morrison reflects on why it's crucial to cultivate a spirit of patience in a world that refuses to wait

The World Council of Churches (WCC) hosted a panel at the annual Geneva Peace Forum on 15 October that explored the role of faith-based actors in peacebuilding. “What Faith Brings to the Dialogue Table” was co-organized with ACT Alliance, Arigatou International, and Caritas Internationalis.

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church is in the middle of a three-year celebration of the 50th anniversary of women’s ordination, and this weekend, the Diocese of California will host a panel discussion featuring the church’s first female presiding bishop, the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori. The event, “Celebrating Audacity,” is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Pacific Oct. 18, at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Jefferts Schori, who served as the church’s denominational leader from 2006 to 2015, will be joined on the panel by the Rev. Stephanie Spellers, priest-in-charge of St. Gregory of Nyssa, San Francisco, and the Rev. Liz Tichenor, rector of the Church of the Resurrection, Pleasant Hill. The panel discussion and an Evensong will be livestreamed on the cathedral’s website and on YouTube. “The commemorations help us learn and preserve valuable history about the many ordained women across the church who brought creativity and persistence to their ministries, sometimes at great cost in doing so,” the Rev. Paula Nesbitt, a co-chair of the “Celebrating Audacity” planning committee, said in a written statement to Episcopal News Service. “Inevitably, they have widened the path for others to pursue their own ordained or lay vocations.” The first women to be ordained as priests in The Episcopal Church became known as the Philadelphia Eleven, after their 1974 ordinations at Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Four more women were ordained in 1975 at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., before General Convention voted the following year formally to allow women to serve as priests in the church. Tributes to the Philadelphia Eleven and broader celebrations of women’s ordination on the 50th anniversary began in 2024. The church that year also designated three years of celebration, as outlined in a resolution passed by the 81st General Convention. “This General Convention encourages and supports churchwide events and programs commemorating the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women to the priesthood and the 50th anniversary of the first time a woman priest presided at the Eucharist,” the resolution said. “In doing so, the church celebrates both the historical and contemporary significance of increased gender diversity in the three ordained Orders, more closely reflecting that of the church overall.” In the Diocese of California, its convention passed a resolution in October 2024 establishing a timeline for diocesan commemorations related to women’s ordination and calling for the formation of a bishop’s advisory committee to lead the planning of those commemorations. “A commemorative triennium of the ordination of women to all orders of ministry provides a means to communicate and celebrate these significant events as well as to acknowledge the history of mutually supportive efforts by people of all genders, ordained and lay, to create a more just and demographically representative structure of ministry in the church,” the Diocese of California said in its resolutions supporting documentation. The diocese specified that its milestone commemorations are intended to convey the full scope of the women’s ordination movement, which it dated from 1944 to 2006, when Jefferts Schori was elected to the church’s highest-ranking ordained role 20 years ago. “Bishop Jefferts Schori will help us celebrate the audacity of pathbreaking women in The Episcopal Church, continuing the process of widening the gates of ministry for all,” the diocese said in announcing the panel discussion. Afterward, Jefferts Schori will preach at the 4 p.m. Evensong, and all ordained women in the diocese have been invited to process. The event is intended not only to mark the barriers broken down by Jefferts Schori, but also the way her election paved the way for others to step up, including LGBTQ+ Episcopalians. “I remember where I was in June 2006 when I learned of Bishop Katharine’s election –nreading the news at my dining room table, absolutely electrified,” said the Rev. Cameron Partridge, a co-chair of the “Celebrating Audacity” planning committee and a transgender priest who is active in the group TransEpiscopal. Jefferts Schori’s “steadfast, courageous leadership has broken trail for women and for people of all genders in the Episcopal Church. I very much look forward to celebrating her ministry here this Sunday.”

Prayer should be treated as a significant moment, "powerful enough to change our view of all that is before us in life and faith," writes Archbishop Chris Harper.

The post Change comes through prayer appeared first on Anglican Church of Canada.