Kässmann called upon the WCC and its member churches, through the Decade, to join in building a culture of peace. The churches and the WCC had been involved in peace initiatives for decades and had long experience to draw on, she said. The "Peace to the City" campaign carried out by the WCC in 1996, for example, had shown that work for peace has to be concrete and anchored in local situations. This was not introducing new programmes but renewing existing ones and linking up with non-church initiatives. It would be important, too, said Kässmann, to develop a spirituality of non-violence.

Several Central Committee members suggested linking the proposed Ecumenical Decade with the United Nations' "Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World", likewise scheduled to begin in 2001. Members also said that the topic of "violence" was an opportunity to continue work on some of the concerns arising out of the Ecumenical Decade of the Churches in Solidarity with Women, which ended last year.

The various suggestions from Central Committee members will now be discussed by a WCC "Reference Committee", which will submit concrete proposals to the Central Committee.