Opening Address at Global Gathering 2024 by the Board Chair

Dear Friends, Brothers and Sisters, Directors and Board Chairs, Colleagues and Partners from around the world,

It is my privilege as board chair of the Wycliffe Global Alliance to extend a warm welcome to all of you!

As a community of more than 100 organisations, the Alliance has only one occasion when all of our organisations are invited to one meeting point: the Global Gathering. Normally we meet every four years. However, it has been eight years since our last in-person gathering. As you all know, the planned 2020 event had to be cancelled due to the pandemic. After a prolonged time apart, the theme of this gathering is fitting: Growing Together. We are now gathered to be community, to explore & discern, to inspire each other, and to worship & celebrate.

Together we form  Bible translation movements, serving language communities worldwide with the vision of seeing God’s Word and His love transform people and communities. Together, we will celebrate what God has done, what He is doing, and what He will do. We will worship together and praise God for His mighty works! Our community is unique in its cultural diversity, and together we form a beautiful expression of the global Body of Christ. This gathering will be a foretaste of the worship that one day will take place before God’s throne where people from ‘every nation and tribe, people and language’ will praise Him — according to Revelation chapter 7, verse 9.

We are committed to one another, and we hold community as a key value in the Alliance. This is expressed through the Covenant or Statement of Commitment that all Alliance Organizations have signed. We are called to community, and we identify as community. The Global Gathering is an expression of this community where we make new friends and strengthen relationships for the future. We will listen to engaging and challenging presentations from the stage. But more than that — around tables, during breaks and at mealtimes, we will share stories with each other of what we see God doing, and where we sense He is leading us. For these next five days, we will share our lives with each other.

In the Alliance, we want to be ‘reflective practitioners’. Through missiological consultations, we have identified shared values and guidelines. Desiring to be shaped by the Holy Spirit and God’s Word, we will continue to discuss key aspects of our mission, seeking to explore and discern God’s priorities and direction for the future of the Alliance and Bible translation movements. Through that, I believe we will be inspired. I also hope we will be ready to commit to what we discern as next steps on the journey.

During the past decade, we have seen and been part of  tremendous growth in the number of completed Bible translation projects, and record numbers of new projects have been started. More and more organisations are involved in Bible translation. And I am especially excited to say this – all over the world, churches are actively committing and engaging in this work as well! In addition to written translations, innovation is happening in the areas of sign language and oral Bible translation. We are truly living in exceptional days of seeing God’s Word becoming available to new language groups! This is God’s own work, and we are privileged to take part. May we be strengthened in our vision and calling to see all people having access to the Bible!

As Board Chair of the Alliance, I also want to point out that the Global Gathering has a legal side. Our bylaws require us to hold a quadrennial meeting to approve the Board appointments. Each Alliance Organization with a signed Covenant/ Statement of Commitment with the Wycliffe Global Alliance holds one vote and will be given the opportunity today to vote on the Alliance Board of Directors. By coming together and approving the Board slate, the community of Alliance Organisations fulfils our legal requirements. This is also an important reason why we are gathered.

Legal aspects aside, I am so much looking forward to the days we will be together here in Johannesburg! I have expectations that God will speak to us, and that we will return home inspired, more committed, more connected, and with renewed vision for our part in God’s Mission in the world.

Let us commit this gathering to the Lord with the prayer of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 3:

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.