Forthcoming program of the WSCF AP:

SELF 2003

September 14 to October 8, 2003
Bangkok, Thailand

The Programme

SELF (School for Ecumenical Leadership Formation) 2003 which will be held in the Bangkok Christian Guest House, Thailand from 14 September to 8 October 2003. 15 participants will attend SELF 2003 from all SCMs in the Asia-Pacific region. The first SELF was jointly organised with the Christian Conference of Asia - Youth Department in July 2001, which invited 28 participants from the region.

As a biennial leadership development programme, SELF targets second-line leaders aged between 24-30 who will play a key role in the SCMs in future. SELF 2003 will provide a challenging platform for the young people to receive the appropriate training, knowledge, skills and network to improve themselves as qualified ecumenical leaders

SELF 2003

Generally, SELF seeks to enable participants to:

• Sharpen their awareness and analysis of the Asia-Pacific society and challenge the churches through sharing of experiences, exposure, studies and reflections.
• Study the biblical-theological perspectives on ecumenism and on issues and ideologies related to Asia-Pacific and the global society.
• Trace the history of the ecumenical movement in the national, Asia-Pacific and global levels, identifying convergence, challenges and possibilities.
• Search alternative approaches to communicate and advocate ecumenical witness among students and youth in the concrete life of the peoples.

SELF 2003 will be implemented with the following 6 modules:

• Module 1: Orientation and Community Building
• Module 2: Defining our times
  Aims: To have a critical understanding on the realities of Asian plurality and the dynamic and complexity of such context.
• Module 3: Reading the signs of the times
  Aims: This is an intensive study module to clarify current theological positions dealing with the context of Asia. The participants will acquire a strong theoretical as well as theological base. It also aims to challenge participants to doing theology in context. The issues to be covered are: Politics, Ecology, Human rights, Feminism, Inter-faith dialogue and actions, Globalisation and Economic Justice.
• Module 4: The ecumenical movement
  Aims: To understand and challenge the prevalent practices and ideology in the ecumenical movement in Asia and worldwide as well. Participants are also expected to be aware of the different trends of movement in Asia.
• Module 5: Communicating the ecumenical vision to the students
  Aims: To set guiding principles for promoting ecumenical vision to the students and experiment the different forms of building and strengthening this communication in order to “act locally”.
• Module 6: Reflexive Learning
  Aims: To wrap up this extended training programme by reflecting on what the participants have learned and to suggest ways to moving forward in challenging the ecumenical movement, be it local, regional and global.