The United States Office of the World Council of Churches, located in the Interchurch Center, New York City, serves as a channel of communication between the WCC and its 34 member churches in the United States. It also functions as the office of the United States Conference for the World Council of Churches.

Throughout its history, the US Conference has sought to provide US member churches with a forum based in the international Christian community to address key issues of the day.  When Conference leaders met with President Kennedy on February 15, 1962, it was to encourage a more aggressive pursuit of Civil Rights.  Four years later, a US Presbyterian leader -- Eugene Carson Blake -- hosted a Roman Catholic pontiff at World Council of Churches headquarters in Geneva to promote the visible unity of all Christian traditions.  As the latter half of the 20th century unfolded, US churches spoke through the WCC to seek the mind of God on nuclear disarmament, peace, racism, economic and social justice and a host of contemporary issues.

Today, as the 21st century begins in a context of terrorist attacks and social upheaval, the churches of the United States are seeking again to discern God's mind in an uncertain world. 

The Decade to Overcome Violence, conceived by the delegates to the WCC's 8th Assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1998, was launched in Berlin, Germany, in January 2001.  At the September 2003 meeting of the WCC Central Committee, the United States was designated as the regional focus for the DOV in 2004, under the theme: "The Power and Promise of Peace".  At the mid-point of the Decade, during the 9^th Assembly in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2006, the Central Committee of the WCC called for the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation to be convened as the ‘harvest festival' for the Decade to Overcome Violence and at the same time, as a ‘planting season' for fresh initiatives in peacemaking by churches around the world.  This convocation will take place in Kingston, Jamaica in May, 2011. For more information, please visit:  www.overcomingviolence.org

A high priority for the United States Conference for the World Council of Churches is to nurture the ecumenical formation of the next generation of church leaders in the United States and to facilitate links between North American young adults and their peers in member churches around the world.

The need for visible Christian unity has never been greater and the stakes have never been so high.  The US Conference for the World Council of Churches calls upon every Christian to seek ways to work together to do God's will and to live more fully in to the gift of our unity in Christ.