ALL Forum has conducted the “Moving School” for Youth in many countries in Asia. The lay-centered umbrella body focused more on empowerment for the young lay people. It is not exaggerated to say that harmony and peace with different religious denominations, especially Islam as the major religion, and ethnic groups are the lifelines. On the other hand, strengthening the Christian identity among Church workers in countries where Christians are a minority is also crucial. Inwardly, solidarity should be made manifest with increased laity
involvement in decision-making at all levels of the Church in order to serve the poor and marginalized more efficiently and effectively in the country. To achieve this goal, ALL Forum will promote various formation programs, especially for
young lay leaders. We employ the Catholic Social Teachings (CSTs) as the main tool, as well as the spirit or principles of FABC like “Triple Dialogue” and “Pastoral Spiral Assessment” based on a dialectical methodology “from below”. As an effective spiritual formation, the youth forum emphasizes religious identity amid the all-things-mixed global world. As mentioned above, strengthening the Christian identity of the young is very urgent and relevant, because they need to be conscious of their role in evangelizing mission works, including protection of religious freedom through social welfare for the poor and marginalized, and nation-building works.
– Witnessing the Gospel through Interreligious Collaboration for Common Good as Efficient Evangelization Method: Young lay leaders are invited to learn and become vibrant actors in promoting interfaith harmony leading to peace for ethnic groups and the country. Considering the situation of predominant Buddhist or Islamic culture and communist or authoritative political regime, how Christian young workers could accomplish their evangelizing mission works coupled with “double” tasks has always been a great challenge to them. They have tried hard to show their loyalty to the nation and its people, and at the same time, they also want to protect and develop their Christian identity and faith, which leads to tension sometimes between the Christians and the government or majority Buddhist or Moslem followers. One way to solve the task is to promote interreligious dialogue and cooperation among Christians, followers of other religions, and governments. For this Christian youth should be equipped with a better and deeper knowledge of Christian tradition and the meaning of being a Christian today. We have often witnessed that many young church workers working for social ministries have some knowledge in those fields, while little knowledge of the church teachings including Vatican II and FABC, which is a serious weakness to be gotten over. The other is for the youth to be given a new and big picture of the socio-cultural situation in their countries so that they could figure out what they have been doing and will do in the future. The following program is for this year’s moving school.
– Providing a New Vision and Spirit for Lay Leaders based on FABC & CSTs: The moving school is a youth forum that will be based on “integral human development” often expressed in Pope Francis’ documents like Joy of the Gospel, Laudato Si. And the recent papal exhortation titled “Gaudete et Exsultate”(2018). On the other hand, it stresses the “spiritual dimension” in human development by placing more emphasis on respecting local people’s spirituality based on various cultures peculiar to Asia, in building their communities where the Spirit of God works. It has a close relationship with practicing interreligious
dialogue and collaborations as “dialogue in daily life”, suggested by the Vatican document “Dialogue and Proclamation” (1991), which must be “the whole People of God-centered” simply because like Pope Francis said: all the people of God should be “missionary disciples” who live out actual lives at every corner of lives in the world.
– Providing “Asian Theologies and Spirituality” based on the Context of specific countries in Asia: The program will encourage lay people to become good church workers and activists by reflecting their concrete lives in the light of the Bible, in the dialogues with the poor, diverse cultures and religions. Therefore, the theologies we mention should be localized and contextualized. It could be momentum for lay workers to become “contemplative actors” equipped with “praying in action”. It is so that the Church of Asia could get great help from them in her mission. Church workers should work together with theologians, scholars on religions, experts on cultures, and many others in various fields, to make Christian theology relevant to the concrete realities in Asia.*
