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The immense responsibility of the US churches in the world today was highlighted by the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia during the annual meeting of the US member churches of the WCC taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, 5-6 October 2004.

Ten individuals and organizations from Atlanta and surrounding areas will be recognized for their peace and justice-making efforts at the annual meeting of the United States Conference for the World Council of Churches (WCC), beginning today in Atlanta, Georgia.

Aboriginal representatives of Canadian churches, devastated by residential school scandals which have resulted in lawsuits against them totaling millions of dollars, told Rev. Dr Sam Kobia, WCC general secretary, that they must work together ecumenically if they are to bring hope and healing to the country’s First Nations, most of whom have had church connections for centuries.

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To "expose and inspire" the US churches' witness to "the power and promise of peace" is the aim of events being organized in October in Atlanta, Georgia, by the US Conference for the World Council of Churches (WCC).

The United Nations has called on all member states to observe 21 September as the International Day of Peace. In the framework of its Decade to Overcome Violence, the World Council of Churches, associating itself with the international community, has called on its member churches to observe the same day as an International Day of Prayer for Peace.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, and the head of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Bishop Wolfgang Huber are among those supporting an International Day of Prayer for Peace called for by the World Council of Churches (WCC) within its Decade to Overcome Violence. The date set for observance is 21 September.

Celebrating peace when the world is at war, when both Iraqis and Americans still are dying in Iraq, when civil war and genocide threatens thousands in the Sudan and again in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, may seem like an exercise in futility. But the truth is that it is when the world is at war that we need voices and prayers for peace even more.

Churches representing over 550 million Christians world-wide have been invited for the first time to mark 21 September as an International Day of Prayer for Peace.