c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Like cousins at a big family reunion, representatives of the various streams of Christianity from across the globe will gather this fall near Nairobi, Kenya.

The Global Christian Forum is a rare opportunity for Christians who don’t always speak to each other _ and in some cases have never met _ to spend a few days together and simply get to know one another.

It’s not, supporters and organizers say, meant to be a new large organization with a new large agenda for the world’s Christians.

“Enormous numbers of Christians do not talk to each other,” said the Rev. Cecil Robeck, a Fuller Theological Seminary professor and Pentecostal who serves on the forum’s planning committee. “They talk about one another or they just try to do their own thing.”

Robeck and other committee members hope the gathering, set for Nov. 6-9 in Limuru, Kenya, will open new conversations that might not have occurred a generation ago.

Existing ecumenical organizations have often differed on whether evangelism or social action should be their focus. Groups such as the World Evangelical Alliance and the World Council of Churches gather smaller circles of Christians and have differing ideologies or political persuasions that have kept them apart.

“I think, increasingly, a whole new generation is saying, `This is nonsense. This is a violation of what we should be about,”’ said the Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, another member of the planning committee and a president of Christian Churches Together, a U.S. group that shares a similar vision.

Some 250 representatives of Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Pentecostal and charismatic Christians will break into small groups at the global meeting and share their “faith journeys,” study the Bible and discuss the results of meetings that brought dozens of Christians together ahead of the gathering in Kenya.

The last regional meeting, held in June in Chile, included Latin American and Caribbean religious leaders.

“The testimonies of encounter with Jesus and of personal calling from each one of the participants allowed us to see each other as brothers and sisters, beyond differences and traditions, overcoming distrust and hostilities in an environment of humility and frankness,” reads the report from the Chile meeting. It was attended by members of Anglican, Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox, Pentecostal and Protestant churches.

Those involved in the upcoming meeting say it’s uncertain where it will lead. Another could be set for a future date or other regional gatherings could be planned.

More than a dozen leaders of the World Evangelical Alliance have committed to attend the global meeting.

The Rev. Geoff Tunnicliffe, the alliance’s international director, said he is optimistic that the meeting will help deepen personal relationships but he doesn’t expect it to lead to another institutional entity.

“We’re not looking to start to be part of some suprastructure, but are very committed to being part of a global conversation,” said Tunnicliffe, whose office is in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Rev. Denton Lotz, outgoing general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, said he hopes Christians can gather and realize the basics of their faith on which they agree.

“We’ve been invited to a table to discuss and to see: Is a forum a potential avenue for Christians around the world to share with one another those things that unite us more than those things that divide us?” said Lotz, whose alliance office is in Falls Church, Va.

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The forum was proposed by the Rev. Konrad Raiser, former general secretary of the World Council of Churches, in the 1990s. The Rev. Martin Robra, a council staffer focused on ecumenism in the 21st century, said the gathering will include WCC officials and staffers but has a much broader focus.

“It is much more intentional in nurturing broader participation in the ecumenical movement,” said Robra, who is from Germany.

“There are new members born and the old family pillars have not yet seen them and have not yet recognized them as belonging to the family,” he said.

Robra said the WCC supports the gathering as a necessity for the future of Christian unity.

“Together, with other partners, we want this meeting to succeed,” he said. “We believe it is absolutely necessary for the future of the ecumenical movement that this meeting is successful.”

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Editors: `a president’ in 7th graf is CQ