The East Asia Regional Consultation in 1998 originally proposed this meeting for two reasons: first, to explore the possibilities of using the Internet to improve communication in and between the region's churches and, second, because communication was seen as important to promoting regional empowerment.
We would like now to report to you the results of our Consultation for your discussion and further action.
A discussion of the region's churches' progress after the Global Communicators' meeting held in July 1998. Three churches from the region, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, were represented at that meeting. They noted how church leadership had recognised them as core communicators for their churches and in relation to CWM. The Presbyterian Church of Taiwan reported on the launch of a Communication Fund which will support the work of mission and Christian education through training, media awareness, community newsletters and TV broadcasting. Representatives were concerned, though, that the lack of communication coordinators and structures often undermines the churches' effectiveness in their mission.
An introduction to CWM principles and common resources and the work of the East Asia Regional Consultation. Discussion and action planning on means to improve the communication effectiveness of each church.
Training sessions on identifying and training new writers, using the Internet and church web sites, and personal development planning.
1 Information technology and the region
1.1 All of the region's churches have already started developing email and Internet links, some very extensively. The Presbyterian Church of Korea, for instance, has a well structured web site which covers comprehensively its various ministries and links viewers to sites set up by its individual presbyteries. Having looked at this in detail, we want to commend it as a pattern for other church web sites.
Other churches in the region are at various stages of development, but all report a common problem: the reluctance of many pastors and congregations to learn from new technology and discover the benefits from access to wider sources and information. We could see, on the other hand, several practical advantages for the churches in using the Internet. The Gereja Presbyterian Malaysia, for example, believes it can cut the costs of meetings radically by sharing papers electronically, rather than printing and distributing papers. We feel that all member churches should be encouraged to explore the benefits of the Internet and set up email networks. Pastors and congregations should be provided support, advice, training and encouragement to overcome their initial hesitancy.
1.2 We feel it important, for their own mission development, that each church is empowered to set up and operate its own server to establish an effective Internet network with their congregations and offices. HKCCCC, PCT and PCK already have their own servers. During our discussion, representatives were reminded that CWM Common Resources available to each church could be used to meet the expenses of this task.
1.3 We became aware that there are a large number of skilled resource people spread across the region who could help churches set up these electronic information-sharing systems. This we saw as a good example of how regional empowerment and cooperation could be put into practice. We recommend, then, that the exchange of personnel is also seen as a priority within the region to meet these needs.
Personnel exchange should not be limited only to setting up of communication systems. We recognised other priority areas for the development of our churches' mission and regional empowerment. These include women, youth and children's work, pastoral work, news-sharing and newsletter production, and the exchange of workers involved in mission projects. We want to commend these because the sharing of experience through people is an important part of CWM's principles and strengthens regional communication networking.
2 Networking for Regional Empowerment
Having discussed extensively the idea of a regional internet server, our conclusion was that the region would be better served by investing resources in setting up national church servers, as we recommended above. However, we do see a need for several activities to aid communication networking across the region:
CWM should be asked to continue the valuable service of providing its web site, which provides links with all its members churches and their sites. We feel it is important that CWM staff continue gathering and inputting details and addresses of church web sites and making sure that these provide at least the facility of sending email messages to the respective church. Even better would be the use of hyperlinks which gives viewers more interactive access to member churches' web sites.
Member churches should be encouraged to structure their web sites so that viewers can gain access to their own networks of congregations and web sites. (See 1.1 above.) This will make a very powerful network-of-networks which means that all the region's churches can connect with each other and with churches beyond the region. The addition of an email facility, though simple to do, gives the possibility for any church user to ask questions and gain information from any others in the region.
We would like the region, its churches and members, to support and use a regional emailing list service which was launched at our Consultation. This sevice will act as a means of sharing (and asking for) information and news from each other. The initial mailing list is made up of Consultation members who have each committed themselves to entering weekly news of forthcoming events, news reports, theological papers, biblical reflections, prayers and so on. We do, however, want many more interested people, who are willing to contribute to cross-regional information-sharing, to join the mailing list. This venture is called CWMEAST and new subscribers can join by emailing cwmeast@egroups.com and simply typing "subscribe". The service is free.
We would also like to explore the possibility of a regional web site, featuring all the region's churches, to give churches and the work of the Regional Consultation a profile. Information and documents specific to the region could be available here for downloading. Although this would involve costs for design and development, we want to commend it for your support.
This Consultation has proved an invaluable occasion to meet other family members from the region and make plans which, we hope, will help the region come together as a working, supportive community. We are aware, though, that we have only just laid the foundations of a network and much more needs to be done. We would like to propose two further courses of action:
That member churches continue to use their representatives at this Consultation as communication channels and coordinators, within their churches and with other churches in the region. This kind of continuity we believe is essential to building a working network.
That a second Consultation be planned for 2000 to develop a regional network between national church Internet servers, provide communication training in writing and using the Internet (as two priority areas), and to learn from and evaluate each church's progress in communication. Singapore/ Malaysia were suggested as possible venues and we commend this to those churches' executive committees.
Our prayer is that the whole region will continue to grow together in the Spirit of Christ to present a credible and relevant witness in the rapidly changing socio-political context we all share.
We commend the PCK web site as a pattern for regional church home-pages, particularly noting the inclusion of presbytery web site details and email contact addresses.
1.1.1 We recommend member churches examine the benefits and possibilities offered by investment in the Internet and email networks, making connections with Presbyteries, pastors and congregations.
1.1.1 We recommend member churches offer training, advice, support and encouragement to pastors, congregations and others so that they can make full use of information technology for the benefit of their ministry and the church's communication effectiveness.
1.2 We recommend all member churches make plans to set up their own national servers to support their email networks and to include this in their Mission Development priorities. Again, we commend this for the sake of improved and effective communication across the church.
1.3 We recommend a programme of personnel exchange between skilled information technology resource people across the church's regions.
We recommend a wider programme of personnel exchange, aimed at sharing skills and widening knowledge. This should be particularly targetted at those working in women, youth and childrens work, pastoral ministry and mission projects.
We recommend CWM's continued commitment to the CWM web site and to expanding it further to include more and updated church and regional web site links.
We commend the region's own mission email network, CWMEAST, to the region's churches and invite further subscribers to this free service.
We recommend setting up a regional web site, dedicated to raising the profile of the region's churches and their activities and request assistance to fund its development.
We ask member churches to recognise this Consultation's representatives as ongoing communication coordinators within their churches and with others across the region.
We propose that a second regional communication consultation be held in the region in 2000 to continue the progress made thus far.
Seoul, 25th April 1999