From June 10 to 14, 2024, the annual consultation of the ICEF (International Consultation on Ecclesial Futures) took place in Halle in cooperation with the CES. The aim of the annual meetings is to exchange research results, promote critical discussion and develop and discuss suggestions for missional, sustainable and context-sensitive church development. The key questions of the ICEF are: What are the specific conditions of our own context? How does the mission of God manifest itself in our environment? Where do we discover traces of the work of the Holy Spirit and how does church life develop in our contexts? What theological questions arise from this and need to be reflected on in more detail? What can we learn from each other? What can be empirically ascertained and how can it be interpreted theologically?

This year the meeting was entitled “Christian Empowerment, Secularity and Church Development”. With researchers and practitioners from four continents, we thought intensively about the reality of secularism, the challenges for community development and the opportunities for Christian empowerment. There was also an intensive exchange with full-time and voluntary employees from the Evangelical Church in Central Germany, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony and a Halle Free Church (Evangelical Congregation).

On June 12, 24, the Consultation invited people to a public day at the MLU’s Faculty of Theology, where they discussed the issues related to the topic with a larger academic and church public. (MKG)