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Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2017
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As every year of this time between 18th and 25th of January churches of different denominations come together to pray for their unity. This year was a special one since it is the year of 500th anniversary of Reformation. The opening prayer was at the Evangelical Church in Rabieh, Beirut on Sunday 15th, 2017. The patriarch of the Syrian Orthodox church, Mor Ignatius Aphrem II attended the worship service with many bishops, pastors and faithful people.
Rev. Habib Badr preached from the Prodigal Son parable (Lk15:11-24) on the chosen theme of reconciliation. "We ALL went astray from the Father," said Rev. Badr, "we turned every one to his own way... but the Father, and out of His mercy, went out after them both: the younger son and the elder". Therefore, reconciliation is necessary to come back to ourselves and to the Father again.
Executive Committee of MECC in our Church
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Our church hosted the Executive Committee of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) on the 16th and 17th of January 2017. Rev. Habib Badr as president of the Evangelical Family in MECC welcomed the Patriarch Youhanna X, the president of the Orthodox Family and Patriarch Aphram II, the president of the Oriental Orthodox Family along with the General Secretary Fr. Michel Jalakh.
Rev. Badr underlined 5 important points concerning the future of MECC. First, the necessity to make MECC activities known to churches, after 42 years of services. Second, the image of MECC for the international organizations needs to be crystallized through united and standard documents on crucial issues that concern us as churches in the ME. Third, a kind of reforming the MECC relationship with Muslims is needed, since MECC played a significant role in strengthening the connection with them. Fourth, MECC played a major role in the diakonia among churches and therefore this should be improved and expanded. Finally, the potential for MECC’s advocacy in different issues, as the issue of Palestine in the past, should also be given much attention.
The MECC executive members also had the chance to visit the Lebanese President Michel Aoun at the presidential palace.
Intercultural Bible Reading 2016
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In December 2016 the Youth Group of our church participated in the Intercultural Bible Reading project. The project was organized for our church and some of Evangelical churches in Nederland. Different youth groups in the two countries exchanged Biblical reflections and also friendship via email. Some of the youth from Nederland even had the chance to visit Lebanon, last summer, and shared many experiences with our youths in order to learn about the Christians, their faith and traditions in the Middle East. And now, it was the term for our youth to do the visit to Nederland. So, three representatives of our church youths visited Nederland at Christmas time in 2016. This was an occasion for them to learn about the churches there, their culture and faith-traditions. This was an enriching experience for our youths and an occasion to widen their perspective about faith and people in the world.
Fellowship of the Middle East Evangelical Churches: General Assembly
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The 7th General Assembly of the Fellowship of the Middle East Evangelical Churches (FMEEC) took place in Beirut from 22nd of November to 25th, 2016. FMEEC consists of three Evangelical churches in the ME: Anglican, Lutheran and Reformed. The General Assembly was also combined with the 3rd International Conference on the Evangelicals and Christian Presence in the Middle East. This conference comes as a continuation to FMEEC's previous conferences on the same topic (Cairo - Egypt, 2014 and Beirut 2012).
The opening session took place in Haigazian University of Beirut while the Conference was at Gefinor Hotel. The speakers presented the theme in two days and focused on the complex role of Protestant Churches in bridging the gap between East and West and promoting understanding between different societies.
