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70 A common commitment to the full visible unity of the Church and a common recognition that all three churches faced the same urgent missionary situation were the basis of and the motive for the conversations.

71 However, through these conversations a significant degree of common ground was also found in two particular areas. Firstly, as stated following paragraph 32 above:

"It seemed that all three churches were conciliar, all were connexional, but in different ways. Conciliarity involving representation, constitutionality and consent could be seen in all three churches. All exercised oversight through councils as well as through personal leadership and all saw their life as in faithful continuity with the apostolic church."

72 Secondly, all three churches were able to identify with the various pastoral and ecclesiological principles for local church leadership which had emerged from the discussion on eldership. They were, in summary:-

1. that such ministries should emerge from the local congregation and exercise a representative ministry in all the councils of the Church:
2. that such ministries should demonstrate shared authority and collegiality of oversight and a commitment to corporate responsibility:
3. that such ministries should be exercised with maturity and, if possible, with continuity:
4. that such ministries should seek to enable and equip the whole people of God. (see 39 above)

73 A number of ecclesiological issues emerged as needing further work as the three churches journey towards the goal of visible unity. These have been noted in heavy type as they arose in the account of the conversations and are re-stated below:

1. More work is needed to examine together how far the different ways in which personal episkope relates to apostolicity are contingent and how far they are a matter of theological principle.
2. More work is needed on the place of ordination and authorisation in this range of ministries, (this refers both to the eldership and to the many forms of lay leadership in the three churches)
3. More work is needed on a shared understanding of the nature of the Church. More work is also needed on the differing understandings of the path to full visible unity.
4. Further work is needed on the ways in which personal episkope is officially understood and actually practised in the three churches. Because the Methodist and United Reformed Churches are committed to Christian unity in three nations, it would be useful to include the episcopal churches in Scotland and Wales in this work.
5. More work is needed on the question of the relationship of baptism to membership, and membership to the ministry of the whole people of God.