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Doctrine, Prayer and WorshipThe purpose of the Committee is to encourage and advise the Councils and Committees of the United Reformed Church in their continual study of theology, enabling the Church to reflect upon and express its doctrines; to participate in and respond to ecumenical and interfaith discussions on doctrinal matters; to produce resources and arrange consultations, in response to requests or on its own initiative, in order to enable the Church in all its councils to grow in faith, devotion and spiritual experience; to publish regular and occasional prayer and worship materials; to support and develop ecumenical and international collaborations in the areas of faith and order and spirituality; to oversee the work of the Prayer Handbook Group and the Network for Silence and Retreats.
Committee Members Convener: Revd John Young Secretary: Revd Kirsty Thorpe (to 2003),
Revd Richard Mortimer, Secretary for Ecumenical
Members: Revd Geoffrey Clarke; Revd Hilary Collinson; Revd Dr Susan Durber; Mrs Chris Eddowes; Miss Sarah Lane; Revd Jason McCullagh; Revd Dr Peter McEnhill; Revd Dr Robert Pope; Revd Prof Alan Sell; Revd Alistair Smeaton; Revd Peter Trow; Dr John Turner.
Representatives of other committees: Revd Barry Hutchinson (Silence and Retreats Network); Revd Dr John Parry (Interfaith Relations Committee) Representatives of other denominations: Revd Canon William Croft (Church of England); Revd Dr John Emmett (Methodist Church).
1. Worship from the United Reformed Church Part 2 was published to wide acclaim in 2004 and sold extremely well at General Assembly. Very grateful thanks are due to the writers of the services it contained and to the Publication Sub-Committee. A further CD Rom of Collects is being actively explored.
2. There have been two pieces of collaboration with the Youth and Children’s Work Committee. In respect of the first, thanks are also due to Alistair Smeaton for producing material, particularly on the services of baptism and thanksgiving for the birth of a child, for the booklet In the Beginning. In respect of the second, personnel were provided to assist with two one-day Conferences on Believing, Belonging and Baptism. At these two events dilemmas were recognised around issues of Christian initiation in general and in particular the admission of children to communion, eg the situation of families who moved house and became part of the worshipping life of a church which in all good faith did not admit children to communion when the church where they had worshipped before had done so. As a result a draft questionnaire is being prepared on the practice of Christian Initiation in our churches, in order to discover what local churches are doing, how they see current practice and what they identify as real needs.
3.1 An invitation was received from the Deputy General Secretary to respond to section C, on Ecclesiology, of the paper on Personal and Conciliar Leadership and Authority, which had been submitted to Mission Council as part of the work decided on at the conclusion of the Human Sexuality working party process. Our opinion was sought about the value of printing it as a separate document, as some saw it as the first systematic commentary on the Basis of Union as a working document. It was decided to set up a Task Group to recast the paper as an aid to ecumenical talks. This duly took place and we thank Alan Sell, Sarah Lane, Peter McEnhill and Robert Pope for a very important and helpful statement.
3.2 Mission Council expressed considerable gratitude for a piece of work faithfully and thoroughly discharged. However it reached the conclusion that the document did not present the full and final form of all that needed to be said. It recognised that further work was needed to reflect the changes which had taken place in the theology of mission and to help address the missionary calling of the Church in the 21st century. It also discerned the United Reformed Church was in evolution and valued the document as a profound statement of what we had been but did not feel it described either the fullness of what we had become or of what we aspired to be. Recognising that it was deeply unfair to ask good people to give time to producing work and then shift the goalposts between meetings, Mission Council concluded that what was really needed was a portfolio of documents. Further work will take place to establish a ‘contents page’ for such a portfolio with Mission Council.
4. Our committee notes two pieces of work arising from the Catch the Vision process. The first of these is on the nature of Eldership and ordination, having regard to matters outstanding from Conversations on the Way to Unity, and recent work by the Ecumenical Committee in respect of last year’s General Assembly Resolution 41, by the Ministries Committee in respect of Equipping the Saints and by the Life and Witness Committee on the structures of the local church.The second is on the provision of catechetical material. In order to commend the Christian faith it is necessary to know about that which one commends.
5. Other matters which the committee has been considering include a number of responses – to Covenanting for Justice in the Economy and the Earth, the Confession agreed at the 24th General Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in Accra, to government proposals on Civil Registration and to a request from the Synod of Scotland Church and Society Committee for a reference point from the theology of marriage in their engaging with proposals before the Scottish Parliament. We have also done some thinking on transsexualism and gender reassignment, produced material for the Ministries Committee on lay presidency at communion and discussed future work with the Interfaith Committee on apologetics to people of other faith.
6. We thank the retiring editor, Revd Ken Chippendale, and his team for their contributions to the Prayer Handbook and welcome the new editor Geoff Duncan.
7. The Silence and Retreats Network reports elsewhere in this book but we would like to indicate our support for them in a time of discernment and reassessment.
8.1 Committee Membership. Since the last time we reported we have said farewell to Glyn Millington, Robert Pope, Jenny Poulter and Alistair Smeaton. We have welcomed Geoffrey Clarke, Hilary Collinson, Chris Eddowes, Sarah Lane, Jason McCullagh, Peter Trow and John Turner. John Parry has joined us as a representative of the Interfaith Committee. David Bunney ended his period of service representing the Silence and Retreats Group and has been replaced by Barry Hutchinson. Likewise Stephen Wigley has been replaced as the representative of the Methodist Church by John Emmett. We offer deep thanks to all for services rendered and willingness to serve.
8.2 In particular we would wish to draw attention to two great servants of the Committee. Kirsty Thorpe completed her service as Secretary of the Committee in July 2004. We are greatly in her debt for all her work, her mighty labours on our behalf, her deep involvement at textual level and the huge support she has been to other officers. Richard Mortimer, who became Staff Secretary relating to the Committee in July 2003, has taken over her secretarial duties.
8.3 And at this Assembly we say farewell to our outgoing Convener John Young. We pay tribute to John’s gracious, gentle and eirenic leading of business and especially to his use of poetry and creative writing in worship which has stimulated much imaginative reflection upon the representation of reality and how words open up the numinous. We look forward to welcoming Susan Durber as his successor.
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