Christian Commitment to Building a New Nepal
The campaign action, Christian Commitment to Building a New Nepal has now been running for over one month. The main national church networks and hundreds of local churches have come together to pray, reflect on God’s heart for the poor, and to share a commitment to working and praying for a Nepal of justice, mercy and faith. They have reflected on the biggest issues facing their communities – discrimination, poverty, corruption, unemployment, violence and insecurity – and have begun to think about what responses they can make to these problems.
Workshops have now been held in 27 districts, with participants joining from all of Nepal’s 75 districts. Many have remarked on the powerful experience and witness of unity in these workshops. In Surkhet one pastor reflected, “This is the first time all the churches have come together.”
Once the national Commitment statement is drafted, Christians in every district will join together for a day of prayer and public meetings with civil and political leaders – not to demand or agitate, but to commit to helping build a “New Nepal” that is good for the last and the least. Then the real work begins: translating the Commitment into ongoing action. Local churches will work out how to continue meeting their communities with the transforming presence of Christ, and the national church networks will consider what a distinctive Christian voice for justice and peace will look like under new political structures.
