We are, in 2020, navigating uncharted waters. To face the current disruptive ways of living requires discernment and radical engagement (DARE). Struggles of the past (poverty, racism, sexism, climate change, and a host of identity- and community-based injustices) continue and intensify in 2020, and Covid-19 comes on top of those to further reveal/underscore the systemic intersecting ills that prevent the flourishing of life for all. Our challenge is still the same – DARE.

More than just a crisis in the global context, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to function in a so-called new normal. It challenges us to review the effect of our God-talk. Who profits from, and who is minoritized due to, what our God-talk takes to be normal? This question opens us to other concerns: the shape(s) of mission, ministry and being church in the context of the Pandemic; the role of theological education in shaping the future of mission and ministry, and the “nature of the context” that shapes our thinking and behaviour.

This year, CWM’s DARE forum moves to a virtual platform to connect and learn from each other on the impacts of the pandemic and on the different ways our responses will (re)shape, affirm and challenge our God-talk. Taking COVID-19 as an opportunity to reflect on the ‘normal’ assumptions and practices of theology, mission and ministry, presenters from different regions of the world will present their views on the impacts of the pandemic, and on different ways we are and might respond to it.