World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF) will change its name to World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) from 1st January 2002 to reflect evangelicals' growing desire to be more pro-active, inclusive and engaged with the world around them.
A greater commitment by evangelicals to look less at themselves and more at society for the betterment of the community was the highlight of this year's general assembly, WEF outgoing International Director Dr Jun Vencer told a press conference on the final day of the WEF 11th General Assembly.
Dr Vencer cited WEF's engagement in issues such as refugees, Third World debt and domestic abuse as evidence of this social concern.
The word "Alliance" better represents the true nature of how the world's largest evangelical cooperative actually works drawing together churches and para-church organisations to pool resources and expertise, and engage in evangelism and social action, he said.
Also, as evangelicalism continues to spread to more countries around the world, it was found that the word "Fellowship" does not translate into every language, causing some countries to have to adopt alternative descriptions such as "Confederation" or "Union".
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