The theme for the World Methodist Council’s (WMC) next assembly will be “The Life and Death Issue” of reconciliation. The assembly is due to take place in South Korea in 2006 according to the program chairman of the WMC.

The historic assembly will be the nineteenth for the WMC, and will meet in Seoul, July 20-24 2006 under the theme “God in Christ reconciling.”

The event will be a historic one, as Gillian Kingston, a layperson from the Methodist Church of Ireland, will be the first woman to serve as program chairperson for a WMC event.

The meeting, which is quinquennial, is expected to gather together more than 5,000 delegates from around the world to the Kum Nan Methodist Church.

“The theme is a relevant message for people worldwide,” Kingston reported at the council’s executive committee during the September 15-18 meeting in Port Elizabeth.

Reconciliation is a ministry, a theological issue and a “life and death issue” for all people, she stated.

She went on to explain, “Reconciliation among Nations," "Reconciliation in Society," "Reconciliation in the Church," and "Reconciliation for the Individual" will be sub-themes for each day of the meeting.

Kingston has been keen to recruit to the event, as many cultures as possible, to be speakers for the event. However, she said, “we cannot hear every voice every time."

The top executive of the council, George Freeman, also gave his full backing to the council, and asked that all people in the Methodist-Wesleyan connection to pray for the conference. He said, “Pray that we will honour God and help us all in our ministry of reconciliation," he said. "We are praying this conference will bring together this family in a common witness and that the people called Methodist might bring about better lives through reconciliation."

The council represents 76 denominations with their roots in the Methodist movement, and the last conference was held in Brighton, England, in July 2001.