I accepted this award on behalf of pastors and church workers who are working in very remote areas, who are not being appreciated for their work, who are undergoing a lot of suffering and persecutions. One of the reasons I accepted this award is so that through this I can can be their voice, and in a small way bring awareness and consciousness of the suffering church worldwide. Glory goes to God alone. This is not one person’s effort but a team effort, a collective effort – efforts of people who have responded to the call of God and are working under very difficult situations in remote and dangerous areas.
Q. How is a regional evangelical alliance different from national evangelical alliance?
Each regional evangelical alliance or national evangelical alliance is very autonomous in nature and structure. In each country, evangelical churches and organizations come together and form an evangelical fellowship or alliance. These churches and organizations have complete freedom to work in their respective nation. And, many of these evangelical alliances in the nations come together to form and become a part of the regional alliance like EFA. We have regionally Asian Alliance, European Alliance, African Alliance, etc. and all regional alliances are member bodies of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA).
The rationale behind forming regional alliances is to give a bigger identity, a greater sense of belonging to the national alliances. There may be some national alliances which are small but as a member of the regional alliance and that of WEA, they gain strength knowing that they are not alone, that they are a part of 420 million evangelicals worldwide and have a common forum to express their views.
Q. Do you face any conflict in executing your role as general secretaries of both EFA as well as NCEASL?
My work as general secretaries of the two evangelical bodies is complementary. By nature, regional alliances are not organizations with a lot of resource or capacity. Usually regional alliances are given all the support by national alliances. National alliances nurture the regional alliances and give them a strong and firm base to work from.
Society
Interview with Rev. Godfrey Yogarajah, general secretary, EFA
By: Jacob Chaterjee
Tuesday, 30 January 2007, 12:02 (IST)
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