Viva at the All African Bishops Conference

If you were paying close attention, you may have heard that 398 Anglican Bishops from dioceses all around Africa met from the 23rd to the 29th of August in Entebbe, just outside Kampala. The theme for this All Africa Bishops Conference was ‘Unlocking Potential and Securing our Future’. Viva was invited to share a stall with World Vision representatives at the conference, and as Viva’s Regional Director for the Africa region, I took up the challenge.

It was a great opportunity to bring the issues facing Africa’s children to the attention of the Anglican Church, and right on topic: we at Viva happen to believe that children are the key to unlocking potential, and the embodiment of our future! It seems they listened. In their Conference Statement, released at the end of the conference, the bishops added a little something proposed by Viva and World Vision:

“The children and the youth are the embodiment of the future and the church seeks to unlock the inherent potential in this generation. Therefore, the Church in Africa commits itself to providing biblical upbringing of children and youth and give a special attention to their needs and rights.”

Over half of the people in Africa are under 18, and this is reflected in many African churches. It is obvious that children must be invited, included and taken seriously if the church is truly interested in ‘unlocking potential’. Children must be a priority for churches because there are many of them, they are strategically important (most people become Christians as children), and they are in need.

Thankfully the Church – Anglican and otherwise – is the best-placed institution to bring help and care to children at risk. There are churches in most communities in Africa. These churches tend to have huge influence in their communities: on local authorities, adults in the congregation, and even governments. The church can mobilise adults to care for and respect children in a more deep and impactful way than any other institution. It can also often provide a venue for physically caring for children, as buildings and playgrounds are available during the week.

Church pastors and members of the congregations know what’s going on in their neighbourhoods; they know because they’re living and working there, and because locals trust them with their problems. So they have the unique gift of knowing exactly what needs are waiting to be met, even more intimately than local governments might.

All of this means local churches know which children are most at risk and are in a position to help them.

At the All Africa Bishops Conference Viva challenged these powerful religious leaders to prioritise the holistic wellbeing of children. That means caring not just for the child’s soul, but also his or her physical needs, dealing with emotional trauma, helping provide education, and doing everything possible to make sure children have families. Too often churches offer a Sunday school programme and not much more… Viva is trying to change that! (See our blog on the Child-Friendly Church.)

To start on this path of holistic wellbeing, we encouraged the conference attendees to plan budgets with children in mind, develop strategies to protect children such as child protection policies, pray for the specific needs of children, and forge partnerships with other churches and organisations in their communities to provide better, more complete care to vulnerable children.

Part of our strategy was to provide CDs and resources on children’s ministry in our Viva-World Vision stall at the conference venue. We handed out cards encouraging bishops and other attendees to pray for children for one minute every day, and shared a checklist of things that make up a Child-Friendly Church. But the best part was when the representative from World Vision was able to share with the bishops as a speaker, after which my 9-year-old daughter and her friend came forward to take the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, as a symbol and challenge for the church to care for and nurture children. The girls then spent the rest of their time at the conference handing out prayer cards to all the bishops.

In his opening speech the Archbishop of Canterbury said this:

“Our focus is quite rightly on the nature of this new life and of those changes that God desires – our focus is on our responsibility to bring healing, justice (and sometimes judgement too), to bring hope where there is none…”

We agree. The Church, no matter what denomination, has a responsibility to bring healing, justice and hope to the societies of the world, because that’s what God intends for every man, woman and child! Today, children are in the most need; they’re also the fastest-growing segment of the global population. I can’t wait to see how these African bishops get back into their communities and congregations and start changing life for the world’s most vulnerable children.

~ Isobel, Viva Africa Regional Director

To read the rest of the Conference Statement please go to www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk