"With gratefulness to God for Geoff Tunnicliffe's leadership to the WEA as International Director for the past five years, the International Council is pleased to announce that Geoff has accepted an offer to extend his term of service until 2015," reported the governing body of the WEA following a meeting Wednesday.
"Geoff's current term ends in 2010 and the IC was unanimous in its decision to offer Geoff another five year term," it added.
Dr Tunnicliffe served as an interim international coordinator in the weeks following the early resignation of the WEA's last general secretary, before being elected to lead the WEA in May 2005. He has since been helping to rebuild and reunite the alliance, which today networks churches in 128 nations and over 100 international organisations, together representing more than 420 million evangelical Christians.
Under Dr Tunnicliffe, the WEA has welcomed into its constituency a number of evangelical groups, including the Christian Council of Korea, the Kosovo Protestant Evangelical Church (KPEC) and the Evangelical Alliance of Azerbaijan. The WEA has also launched a number of new projects, including an initiative on peace-building and reconciliation, a task force on human trafficking, and a leadership institute to meet the leadership development needs of the WEA's 126 national alliances.
Among WEA's current activities are its collaboration with the Lausanne Movement for the third Lausanne Congress, Cape Town 2010, and the organisers of Edinburgh 2010, which will commemorate the 1910 World Missionary Conference.
Regarding the International Council's request to extend his term, Dr Tunnicliffe said he felt "deeply honoured and humbled" and that he accepted the role "with a deep awareness for the need of God's grace and wisdom and the prayers of Christians from around the globe".
"It is a great privilege for me serve the worldwide WEA family in the cause of the Gospel," said the Vancouver, Canada-based leader in a statement late on Thursday.
"As I look to the next number of years, it is my hope that WEA will continue to grow and become even more effective as a catalyst for Christian unity and the transformation of the nations," he added.
Founded in 1846, the WEA aims to foster Christian unity and provide a worldwide identity, voice and platform to Evangelical Christians. Aside from national alliances, WEA's membership includes organisations such as the Billy Graham Center, Campus Crusade for Christ International, Food for the Hungry, Jews for Jesus, and a large number of missions agencies.