September 6, 2006

The coordinator of the stewards programme at Central Committee says he is in that position because he himself was inspired by being part of a Central Committee stewards programme seven years ago.

Lukasz Nazarko from Poland has been a consultant with the youth programmeme of the WCC since September 2004. He had the specific task of planning and coordinating the stewards programme at the Assembly at Porto Alegre.

Now, running the stewards programme at Central Committee in Geneva, Lukasz is responsible for 26 stewards. Almost all are new.

Lukasz says, "The main purpose of this programme is to train the ecumenical leaders who will come back home and multiply their skills and enthusiasm. So it is important to reach as many new people as possible."

The stewards arrived in Geneva much earlier than committee members did, seven days before the meeting started, for a weeklong intensive ecumenical formation seminar which consisted of different workshops, discussions, games, role-plays and community prayer life.

The seminar, says Lukasz, concerned many issues that the WCC is interested in: the unity of the church, issues of justice, mission, inter-religious dialogue, health and healing, HIV and AIDS, community of men and women, and the Christian response to bio-technology.

Throughout the week, resource people from the WCC visited the John Knox Centre, where the stewards are based, to talk and encourage discussion and inspire further reflection.

At the end of the seminar they spent time on planning a project each steward would implement at home.

"We first formed a community, provided information about the ecumenical movement and issues of concern – and then the work started."

Stewards were divided into teams: the press office, the plenary hall, documentation and language services, visual arts, and worship.

Daphne Martin, a Lutheran from Bangalore, India, has just moved to Geneva. She was a steward in Porto Alegre and is now volunteering as a steward with the communications team.

She said there was a lot of difference between being a steward in Brazil and at Central Committee. Firstly because it was a very large group at Porto Alegre, whereas "here the group is smaller and we tend to learn more, there is more fellowship, interaction and ecumenical community."

Daphne, whose ecumenical project is to form a youth network in Geneva to make contact with Christian denominations and possibly other faith groups, says she loves being a steward "because every day is a new experience ... every day I learn so much."

Lukasz also says he likes the small arrangement better. "In Porto Alegre the stewards were almost instantly thrown into the whirlwind of the Assembly operation. Here in Geneva we had more time for learning and discussion, for community building and only then to start working."

Lukasz says it is fascinating to see what a life-changing experience the stewards programme is for people.

"I am here basically because I was a steward seven years ago. That was my first contact with the WCC and that's how I got inspired with the whole idea of the ecumenical movement.

"Two years later I applied for an internship programme with the WCC, so I came back for a year or two, working with the youth programme.

"And then I got even more inspired and had this opportunity to come to the WCC to serve as the stewards coordinator. And it all started with the stewards programme."

Lukasz says, "If we look around in the plenary hall and look at the members of the Central Committee you will see that many people, including the deputy general secretary, started as stewards.

"Ten years ago an intern from the youth programme traced the history of the stewards programme from 1910 in Edinburgh. When you look at the list of people who were stewards at different WCC events, it's amazing to see all the names of people who are now personalities of the ecumenical movement or the leaders of their churches, bishops and authors.

"When I deal with the stewards on an everyday basis and when I talk with them this thought comes to my mind: that I am talking to a future bishop, leader or ecumenical personality. Because I think this is what the stewards programme forms."

Service as an act of worship

One such future leader could well be Isobele Simmons, the head steward at the 2006 Central Committee.

Isobele says being a steward is much harder work than people would imagine. And it's interesting meeting church leaders and seeing what they are like and how they act.

Of the 26 stewards, 14 are in floor management in the plenary hall.

"Being a steward in the floor management team is particularly interesting," says Isobele, "because you get to sit in on all of the sessions. But it is also interesting watching the dynamics between Central Committee members and the stewards themselves.

"Some of the Central Committee members don't really seem to realize that we have been here for a week previously, that we have been working towards ecumenical projects which we will implement within our own countries and that we are all young adults who hold positions of leadership in our own churches and, in fact, we are not employed to hand out documents and fetch things for them.

"This is something we do as a means of serving, as an act of worship. It is not necessarily about serving the needs of the Central Committee members, but is more a bigger idea about serving God, which is demonstrated through the Central Committee."

Isobele's project when she returns home is about transparence and best practice, "because in the United Reformed Church in the UK we have a strong history of youth assemblies and participation and of training young adults to empower other young people to feel like they belong to the church in a much wider sense than in their congregations.

"The most important thing about the youth assemblies is that they are run by young people for young people. And the reason we are able to do that is because we take seriously the training of young adults.

"My project is about sharing the knowledge and resources that we have in the United Reformed Church, to encourage our ecumenical partners to take seriously the idea of youth participation."

Isobele says she is torn over the idea of positive discrimination. "Half of me thinks young people shouldn't have a separate body. They should be an accepted part of the main body. And half of me thinks we need to accept the reality that, in many situations, young people aren't an accepted part of the main body. And it's only by having separate bodies that they become more involved in the whole.

"It really should be about fostering intergenerational work and all-age worship – being an all-age church. But I accept it has to be about positive discrimination until you get to the point where young people are not seen as young people; where they are seen as adults and as full members, just as anyone older than them is."

World Council of Churches