According to members of the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCC), a beachfront location, an opportunity to be a witness for peace and reconciliation, and a commitment to engage the breadth of the region’s church community as widely as possible: these are among the features those attending the World Council of Churches' (WCC) 10th Assembly in Busan, South Korea can expect.

The WCC central committee on 31 August chose Busan, the second largest city in South Korea with more than 4 million people, as the venue for the 10th Assembly in 2013, and the host region is eager to welcome the event.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak welcomed the selection of Busan as the host of a world church conference, calling it an opportunity to improve the country’s image in the international community. “I welcome the hosting of the 2013 WCC Assembly,” the president said in a congratulatory message to the NCCK.

"It is a really great joy to be able to invite the WCC Assembly to Korea," said Rev. Dr Jong-wha Park, chair of the international committee of the National Council (NCCK) and Senior Pastor of the Kyungdong Presbyterian Church (PROK). "You can experience there how a wide ecumenism may be possible." He also expressed hope that the WCC’s presence could "contribute greatly toward peaceful reconciliation and reunification" for the divided peninsula of Korea.

The assembly will take place at the state-of-the-art BEXCO exhibition and convention centre, which has previously hosted the final draw for the 2002 FIFA World Cup and was the main venue for the 2005 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economic leaders' meeting. Its main exhibition hall is three times the size of a soccer field, according to publicity materials.

"Every venue we visited offered challenges to be overcome and opportunities that made us dream," said Douglas L. Chial, WCC programme executive for church and ecumenical relations and coordinator of the WCC’s 9th Assembly in 2006. "As we look forward to planning (the assembly) in Busan, we have an exciting city to host us, excellent facilities, many possibilities. Now we can focus our dreams there."

Chial joined a committee responsible for visiting the four regions whose churches had extended invitations for the assembly. The National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) issued the invitation to come to Busan on behalf of the 12 member churches and six associate members of NCCK, including four who are members of the WCC.

Among the unique features in Busan named by the site visit committee were the diversity of Christian churches and the inter-religious context of Korea, the "new horizon" of holding an assembly in the Far East for the first time and the strength of local congregations, along with the hope for unity on the peninsula.

Park re-iterated the local steering committee's plan to invite North Korean churches to the assembly and to promote dialogue and cooperation in the years leading up to the event. He also expressed his desire for South Korean based evangelical and pentecostal churches and other religious groups to have a presence at the assembly. Many of those churches joined the WCC members in extending the invitation to host the assembly. That spirit of cooperation could be a particularly powerful witness in Busan, Park said, as the city has not been a hub of much ecumenical activity. "We will try to ecumenize this community," Park said, laughing. "It’s a good chance!"

Chial said that the participation of groups beyond the WCC membership will be determined by central committee and its work with the assembly planning committee, but he noted that the assembly is always expanding and changing.

"In the past assemblies we have seen a growing participation of evangelical and pentecostal churches at the invitation of central committee," Chial said. "There are many new possibilities in this assembly."

According to 2005 census data South Korea has a population of 49 million. The percentages of adherents to the predominant religious communities are: Buddhist, 22.8 percent; Protestant, 18.3 percent; and Roman Catholic, 10.9 percent.