The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) has opened its new Evangelical Center in Dover, New York.

The building is near New York city, where WEA has its general office, and is intended to serve as a centre for evangelicalism worldwide.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by WEA representatives from various regions, national and local church leaders, and several county and municipal government officials.

The WEA has had a similar facility since 2010, but the new property offers considerably more space. It is held in partnership with the Olivet Center, a 2,500 acre campus owned by Olivet University.

Future plans include a large library of physical and digital resources, a centre dedicated to biblical resources, and IT and data centres to serve the online and data needs of ministries around the world.

"As one of the three world church bodies, we serve more than 600 million evangelicals in 129 countries," said WEA general secretary Bishop Efraim Tendero.

"The Evangelical Centre is God's gracious provision that enables us to be more effective in fulfilling WEA's vision of establishing and strengthening Evangelical Alliances around the world."

He continued: "This centre will be used by God not only for leadership meetings and events, but also for training national leaders and emerging leaders, so that they can be more effective in their mandate of serving the Church in their respective countries."

The WEA is preparing to launch two new onsite training programmes this year. In June, a three-month internship programme for emerging leaders will begin. A second programme called LEAD Exchange is designed to train Evangelical Alliance leaders and includes workshops and seminars on association leadership, governance, public engagement and more.