News

Christian Endeavour is a worldwide movement with groups in about 30 countries on all continents. Once in four years a World's CE Convention is conducted. During the first week of August this year, 430 delegates from 18 countries met for this reason near Lima in Peru. Most of the participants came from the host country. The second largest delegation was from the USA. Unfortunately there were no delegates from Africa. Europe was represented by Endeavourers from Romania, Hungary, Germany, Netherlands and England.

The programme was a good mix of different items. In the mornings there were Bible studies by speakers from Peru, Romania, Germany and American Samoa, as well as presentations of the national CE-Unions. They shared information and songs and some delegates displayed their national costumes. There were seminars on two of the afternoons, while Friday afternoon was used for collecting garbage and planting trees in a poor settlement in the area. In the evening rallies a Peruvian band served with modern worship songs in Spanish and English and Dave Coryell of CE Midatlantic (USA) shared the message. On two days the “late night special” continued after the rally with a Peruvian Night and a talent programme for an enthusiastic audience.

The convention was well organized by Deborah Wedekind and Sheba Palma and a team of volunteers from the Peruvian CE. Although it was quite cool (around 15°C) and cloudy, the participants enjoyed the happy atmosphere, contacts with Endeavourers from many countries and spiritual inputs. All were grateful for the successful convention.

The WCEU council, which met before the convention elected officers and board members, revised the by-laws and discussed various activities. Rev. Kalman Adorjan from Romania was elected as the new president of WCEU. The vice presidents are Rev. Eliseo Vilchez-Blancas (Peru) for the Americas, Mrs. Joyce Spicer (Australia) for the Pacific, Mr. Tong-un Ko (Korea) for Asia and Dr. Thomas Kroeck (Germany) for Europe. Rev. Andreas A. Rudolph (Germany) was reelected as General Secretary and Mr. Jonathan Steward (USA) as treasurer. Mr. Benjamin Wenzel (Germany) was elected as Assistant Treasurer.

You can find a video with some voices from the convention on YouTube at the following link:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d38o2Nfbz<wbr>ZE

Video with some impressions of the Convention

Tuesday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_QUS7JnVsY

Wednesday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3amMMEeh9k

Backstage Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q5vf4pzmVo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd8U3jeqJdo&feature=related

 IN DEUTSCH: http://www.ec-jugend.de/index.php?id=ec-welt

From March 11th to 14th the German Youth Federation for Christian Endeavour conducted its council meeting in Woltersdorf near Berlin. The council is the parliament of the German with 65 representatives of the various state unions and departments and meets twice per year.

In his annual report the director of the German CE, Rev. Rudolf Westerheide, focused on the spiritual situation in the German CE and the role of singing in CE groups. He gave an overview of various forms of songs and appealed to establish a corpus of musically appropriate (sing able) and theologically sound songs for various occasions in the CE groups and the church.

Another focus of the meeting was the topic of CE membership. In Germany CE members have to be actively involved in youth ministry and most of them are in the age group between 14 and 30 years. In spite of good attendance in the CE groups the membership is rather low. The council decided to start a campaign to promote CE membership. To encourage the commitment of young kids the status of “CE Juniors” will be introduced for the age group up to 14 years. There will also be a new status of “CE supporters” for adults who can support the youth ministry as coaches, through practical help, in prayer or financially.

The participants also commemorated the reunification of the German CE 20 years ago, when Christian youth groups from the formerly socialist “German Democratic Republic” were able to rejoin the CE movement.

CE is an international youth movement which is active on all continents. During the week from January 31 to February 7th we want to pray for the work of CE in the various parts of the world.

A guideline with short devotions and prayer requests is available as download.

The German Christian radio station ERF has a youth program on the internet called “Crosschannel”. Every first Tuesday in the month the German CE has a Radio Show running called EC(CE) Talk & Music.

On the 2nd February 2010 we`ll have a special CE birthday party on air and you can join it live from everywhere on earth. This radio program will run from at 7p.m. till  9 p.m. (German time, GMT-1).

You can just listen to the program in English or you can even send e-Mail-Greetings  to the studio. So be our guest when we celebrate the 129th birthday on the internet www.crosschannel.de.

The newsletter with reports from National CE Unions and information about the World Convention in Peru is now avaliable.

Click here for the download.

The former General Seretary of World's Christian Endeavour Union, Rev. David G. Jackson died on December 9, 2009. Dave served as general Secretary from 1984 till 2006 and traveled to all continents. In recent years has has frequently been sick and lost his strength. He is now with Lord.

You find his obituary at www.myersfuneralhomes.com and may post condolences in the guest book.

About 400 younger and older people who are involved in Sunday Schools and children's groups participated in the "denk-mal" Congress in Marburg, Germany from October 22 to 25.
The German phrase "denk mal" has the meaning "just think" and also means "monument". The Bible studies were about the life of Joshua, who had to errect the monument of 12 stones in Gilgal to make the Israelites think about what God had done for them. Among the participants were delegations from churches in the Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
The participants from Lithuania said about the congress: "It was so great to spend four days among such a big Christian community, who are all active in sharing their faith. For us this congress was not only very informative, but also it gave us a lot of practical experience and great ideas about working with children. But maybe the most important thing is, that it inspired us to pay more attention to children ministry in our churches. We will be glad to share this experience with others when we come back home."

EURIM stands for the European network of Inner Missions.  The EURIM network links Christian ministries in Europe which have been influenced by the Pietistic revival movement and hold to biblical teaching and active involvement of lay people in Christian service. Members of the network are the Gnadau movement in Germany and neighbouring countries, the Inner Missions in Scandinavia and groups with a pietistic background in Central and Eastern European countries. All these organisations cooperate with their national protestant (mostly Lutheran) churches.

The network was formed in 1984, before the iron curtain came down and has been meeting every third year for a conference. Representatives from Christian Endeavour in Germany and Transylvania (Romania) have been participating in the EURIM conferences.  

In October a committee of representatives from Germany, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Poland met in Copenhagen to evaluate the conference held in Bratislava in May 2009 and to plan for the future. All felt that it is important to stay in contact, but also found that it is time to discuss the future activities on a broader level. If you want to share your views and comment on the EURIM network, please write to sma(at)ec-jugend.de.

From September 25 to 27 the German Youth Federation for Christian Endeavor conducted a congress for young adults called “echt” (genuine). The 350 participants came from CE groups in various parts of Germany and Austria.  They were challenged by the messages of Pete Greig (24-7 prayer, UK), Markus Laegel, Karsten Huettmann and Rudolf Westerheide to focus on Christ and live by faith in a more radical, genuine way. Many young people joined the 40 hours prayer chain from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. We expect and pray that the congress kindled new commitment and initiated changes in the lives of the participants and their CE groups.  

“Building Foundations” was the theme for the 95th Irish National CE Convention, hosted by the Belfast Union on 18th and 19th September, 2009. Special guests were Mr. Stuart MacDonald, Secretary of the Christian Endeavour Union of Great Britain and Ireland and his wife, Avis, President of the English Union.
In his address the Revd Alan McCann, Rector of Holy Trinity, Carrickfergus  stressed that we must not just know about Jesus Christ but know Him personally, putting our faith and trust in His death on the Cross for us. 
As usual, special events were held for every Grade. Young peoples appreciated the convenience of the Hostel Accommodation within the complex of this beautiful new church, especially after their two late night events.  
As the outgoing President Carole Dillon had travelled throughout Ireland, visiting Societies, she detected a note of encouragement and hope and was totally amazed at what God is doing in CE. She continued, “I can see God is training people up for the future. There are 3 new Societies and hope for more this year. She installed her successor, Mr. Paul Nesbitt (photo), Leader of Glengormley Methodist Juniors. Paul has chosen as his Presidential theme, “Shine from the inside out,” based on 1 Sam 16:7.                                               
Prayer meetings, within the weekend, formed a firm foundation for all that took place.

From July 15th to July 27th a German CE-Team of twelve young volunteers travelled to Portaferry, Northern Ireland, for the 5th year in series to support the resident parachurch group “PresenCE“ during Galaweek.
Our days started with the so called “Open Hour”, a service divided into four inputs by different members of the churches in town, in which we took an active part by preparing prayers, songs and also short sermons. This time of day was our chance to get in contact with the local inhabitants, to show them our motivation and to talk about problems and success in regard with the kids and teens.
The Galaweek Committee gave us the chance to arrange a puppet workshop and a music workshop for the younger children in Portaferry and to show the results on stage one evening. The stage was also the place where we performed short fairy tales as bedtime stories.
Nevertheless, our focus was to connect to Portaferry’s young. The male team members made themselves heard by organizing football matches for the boys, the women tried to get in touch with the girls by talking about what is important in their lives. Especially the boys became friends during our time in Portaferry and we think that we found some young people who would be willing to be volunteer co-workers in a youth group.
Therefore we need your support by praying for a lively youth work in Portaferry because the boys and girls need a constant pool of activities during the whole year. (Anna Wördehoff)

Representatives of the CE Unions in Ireland, Hungary, Germany, Romania and Ukraine met on April 30^th and May 1^st in Bratislava (Slovakia) to share experiences and discuss the future cooperation of Christian Endeavour in Europe. All participants saw the value of fellowship and cooperation. It was decided to form a working group which shall maintain the contacts between the National CE Unions, to redesign the website www.ceeurope.eu and to encourage visits between the National Unions. 

Almost 300 very young, young and not so young participants attended the KreativeIntensiveSeminar (KIS) of the German CE in Kassel on March 7th to 8th.

In five teaching sessions they were able to polish their skills in areas as different as percussion, singing, drama, creative preaching and setting up a website.

Jan, one of the participants said: "I just want to rush home, to practice what I learned here and to teach others as well."

We thank God, that many who attended felt this way. As KIS 2009 was almost overbooked, we plan to repeat the event in November 2010 for the 4th time.