Toward the Meeting of the Executive Committee

Professor Michel Abs

The Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC)

In a few days, the Executive Committee of the Middle East Council of Churches will convene, after several months of postponement due to the unstable situation in the region, which has made travel somewhat risky and challenging.

The Executive Committee is the highest authority in the Council, responsible for approving essential and strategic matters. All the Council’s constituent bodies refer to it for decisions on cornerstone issues concerning the work of this ecumenical institution, which has now entered its second fifty years, years the churches hope will be long and marked by renewal and creativity, seeking distinguishing features to guide its work and social service in all areas: ecumenical, developmental, educational, dialogical, environmental, and others that concern the church.

The current Executive Committee is meeting with a long-term perspective, aiming to outline the strategic framework for the coming years, as a continuation and follow-up to the framework plan approved by the Committee and adopted by partners in 2021. That plan guided the Council’s work over the past four years. The Secretary General presented a report on those four years during the Executive Committee meeting held at the St. John of Damascus Institute of Theology in Balamand, which was dedicated to the election of the Secretary General.

The heads of the Council’s executive units will present the achievements and projects completed over the past year and a half, covering 2024, the Council’s fiftieth year, and the first half of 2025, so that the MECC’s leadership is fully informed of all accomplishments since the previous meeting. The reports submitted to the Executive Committee will show the large quantity and high quality of achievements made by a small team, delivered with high performance standards based on effectiveness and transparency. This has placed the Council’s credibility at its highest, both locally and internationally.

The MECC has fulfilled a large proportion of the promises made to its leadership and supporting partners. For those strategic framework items not yet completed, particularly housing projects and church re-ruralization, these delays are due to circumstances beyond the team’s control and will be explained during the new strategic framework presentation; they will also be a priority for the next four years.

The current team’s vision for the Council’s course and future is long-term. This institution is not a fleeting or temporary presence in the history of Middle Eastern Christianity and ecumenism; it was created to remain and endure. It has proven its worth and ability to survive, emerging from crises not just intact, but stronger than before. The Arabic proverb applies: “What does not kill you makes you stronger,” thanks to the wisdom of the leadership, church committees and staff, who have always operated in a spirit of solidarity and cooperation, without which any institution would face decline or, as organizational theory says, entropy: a lack of order and foresight that leads to gradual collapse into chaos.

In addition to well-prepared, carefully documented, and credible reports, the team, under the Secretary General’s supervision and following the principles of ecumenical work he developed, has also formulated a future vision for the Council’s activities. All this will be presented in detail at the upcoming meeting, and the strategic outlook will later be shared with partners and published on the Council’s website.

From now on, as has been our approach for the past four years, building organizational capacities and staff competencies will go hand in hand with developing and refining programs. We apply the principle that no institution can grow without developing its organizational and professional capacities, essential for its sustainability.

Establishing an institutional mindset and maintaining ongoing interaction with a culture of innovation, creativity, and initiative, is the only way to ensure this institution works effectively and over the long term, serving the church and ecumenical movement in a region besieged and devastated for centuries, where Christians continue to sacrifice all that is precious to preserve the blood-stained heritage of their ancestors.