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45 Commitment to Mission and Unity, the report of the Informal Conversations between the Church of England and the Methodist Church, begins with the words:

"We believe that our churches share a common understanding of the goal of visible unity."

It goes on to describe the four characteristics of a visibly united church as:

• a common profession of the one apostolic faith grounded in Holy Scripture and set forth in the historic creeds;
• the sharing of one Baptism and the celebrating of one Eucharist;
• a common ministry of word and sacraments;
• a common ministry of oversight.

This portrait of unity is similar to that in the Meissen Common Statement and, with some variation of wording, is found in all the ecumenical agreements which the Church of England or the British and Irish Anglican Churches have signed in the last few years. Its origins lie both in the Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888 and in World Council of Churches Faith and Order statements.

46 The Church of England members explained their 'steps and stages' approach to the goal of full visible unity. Methodist and United Reformed Church members found it difficult, from their church perspective, to understand the distinction between the stage of formally acknowledging the other churches, with whom these agreements had been made, as true churches, and the further stage of interchangeability of ordained ministry.

47 It became clear at the first meeting that the other two churches had some questions about the willingness of the United Reformed Church to express its commitment to the full visible unity of the Church in the terms agreed between the Methodists and Anglicans in Commitment to Mission and Unity. (see 45 above) The United Reformed Church representatives had taken for granted that their church's commitment to the goal of an organically united Church, as re-stated most recently at the 1996 General Assembly when it resolved to express that commitment through

"active participation in initiatives leading towards organic union"

was recognised as equivalent.

48 In order to make it clear that the United Reformed Church shared

"a common profession of the one apostolic faith grounded in Holy Scripture and set forth in the historic creeds" (see 45 above)

its representatives drew attention to the Statement Concerning the Nature, Faith and Order of the United Reformed Church, which is read at the ordinations and inductions of ministers and elders, and which states:

I. "The United Reformed Church confesses the faith of the Church catholic in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit

 

II. The United Reformed Church acknowledges that the life of faith to which it is called is a gift of the Holy Spirit continually received in Word and Sacrament and in the common life of God's people

 

III. The United Reformed Church acknowledges the Word of God in the Old and New Testaments, discerned under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as the supreme authority for the faith and conduct of all God's people

 

IV. The United Reformed Church accepts with thanksgiving the witness borne to the catholic faith by the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, and recognises as its own particular heritage the formulations and declarations of faith which have been valued by Congregationalists, Presbyterians and members of the Churches of Christ as stating the Gospel and seeking to make its implications clear."

It is not common for formal credal statements to be said by the congregation during Sunday worship. However, whenever new members are received or elders or ministers ordained, all these are required to publicly affirm or re-affirm their trinitarian faith in a form of words laid down by the General Assembly.

49 The United Reformed Church representatives maintained, firstly, that the common understanding of visible unity, set forth by the Church of England and the Methodist Church in chapter 2 of Commitment to Mission and Unity, fell clearly within the intention of the 1996 General Assembly resolution. There the United Reformed Church resolved to express its commitment to the unity of all God's people through

"active participation in initiatives leading towards organic union"

Secondly, they suggested that there might be other, equally faithful, approaches to the unity of all God's people than the one set out in Commitment to Mission and Unity. They pointed to the Leuenberg Agreement as one example of an alternative approach.

50 The original purpose of the Leuenberg Agreement, made in 1973, was to reconcile the European Reformation churches which derived from Luther and from the Genevan reformers, and also the churches of the 'first Reformation' - the Church of the Czech Brethren and the Waldensian Church. The Agreement is based on the Reformation understanding that there is a difference between the essential nature of the Church and its shape.

51 For the churches of the Leuenberg Fellowship, pulpit and table fellowship follows agreement in faith, and does not depend on a common ministry of oversight. The pulpit and table fellowship found in the Leuenberg Fellowship is seen as a visible expression of the invisible unity already given by God. The Agreement begins:

"The Church is founded upon Jesus Christ alone. It is he who gathers the Church and sends it forth, by the bestowal of his salvation in preaching and the sacraments." (Leuenberg Agreement 2)

The 1995 Leuenberg text on Sacraments, Ministry, Ordination adds:

"Differences in structure do not impede a "church fellowship" in the sense of pulpit and table fellowship. The reciprocal acknowledgement of ministry and ordination is not impeded so long as the question of church leadership remains subordinate to the sovereignty of the word." (Sacraments, Ministry, Ordination p 114)

52 The 1973 Agreement also states that the question of organic union between particular churches must depend on their situation. The Agreement goes on to express anxiety that such organic unions might either suppress diversity or oppress minority churches. However, the 1996 document, The Church of Jesus Christ, shows a willingness to promote dialogue on episcopal ministry and the historic apostolic succession if that serves the extension of church fellowship. Nevertheless, it continues to hold

"that no single historically arisen form of church leadership and ministerial structure can or may be laid down as a prior condition for fellowship and for mutual recognition." (Church of Jesus Christ pp98ff)

53 In contrast to Leuenberg, the United Reformed Church's commitment to the full visible unity of the Church, believing that unity to be an expression of the koinonia to be found in the Godhead, does not depend on the situation. Commitment to the full visible unity of the Church is part of its very being. Nevertheless, it shares the conviction of the Leuenberg Fellowship that where churches mutually recognise one another - where there is the right teaching of the Gospel and the right celebration of the sacraments - that should be expressed in 'fellowship in word and sacrament'. (Leuenberg Agreement 29). This includes

"the mutual recognition of ordination and the freedom to provide for inter-celebration,"(Leuenberg Agreement 33)

Although the documents produced by the Leuenberg Fellowship are cautious about the road to organic union which lies beyond that fellowship in word and sacrament, the United Reformed Church has made it abundantly clear through its successive unions that it is committed to the visible, organic unity which lies beyond such fellowship.