The final message adopted by the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) last November in Busan, South Korea, invites WCC member churches around the world to engage in a pilgrimage for justice and peace.
This message was the inspiration for a recent meeting of a Latin American ecumenical network that produces musical and liturgical resources for churches.
Coming from different countries and representing several confessional families in the region, members of the Red Crearte, an ecumenical network, met between July 24 and 31 here to celebrate a decade of working together and also to develop resources around the theme of A Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace.
During the meeting, participants had the opportunity to share liturgical material that has been created in their own contexts and to produce new songs and prayers to be used by the ecumenical family during the pilgrimage of justice and peace.
The resources will be edited and then digitally shared in the near future. They will be in Spanish and Portuguese. If financial resources are available, hard copies will be made available.
The materials produced are complete liturgies, such as liturgy of the oasis, a liturgy on the theme of climate refugees, a liturgy focused on the economy of life and a liturgy on the pilgrimage of Jesus. The group also wrote other resources, like prayers, affirmations of faith, songs ― always inspired by the pilgrimage of justice and peace.
The motivation to focus the work comes from strong links between Red Crearte and projects of the WCC’s spirituality and worship program.
“These resources are mainly liturgical suggestions, like orders of service, prayers, songs and Bible readings for churches including children, youth,” said Simei Monteiro, a member of Red Crearte and former WCC staff member .
“The theme spoke to us very much since Latin America and our history is always an experience of pilgrimage, of longing for the Reign of God. Community celebration (la Fiesta) is central,” she said.
Most recently, the Crearte network collaborated with the WCC by producing “Imagine Peace” and “Singing Peace,” a set of musical and liturgical resources that aimed to express the motto that was chosen for the 2011 International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC) in Jamaica: “Glory to God and Peace on Earth.”
The Crearte Network is a group of people from Latin America with recognized liturgical and musical skills. However, there are relatively few resources for editing, producing and printing the fruit of their work. Instead, the network is primarily a space of exchange, training and collaboration on resources in partnership with organizations, churches and faith groups from the local to the global level.
Besides visiting different local churches and encouraging their members to experience a more ecumenical, inclusive, open and contextual liturgy, the group also had the opportunity to lead a liturgical workshop the students of the Comunidad Teológica en México, a set of several confessional theological seminaries that operate together as a fellowship.