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1  In 1994 the Methodist Church invited the Church of England to explore, through informal conversations, the possibility of formal conversations which had organic unity in view. The Church of England accepted the invitation and Informal Conversations began in March 1995.

2 In 1995 the United Reformed Church invited the Church of England to enter into Informal Conversations on three particular matters:

developing ecumenical relations in the European context

 

the implications of the 1984 international Anglican - Reformed text, God's Reign and our Unity, for current ecumenical relations

 

the reconciliation of memories of 1662, the date of both the Act of Uniformity and the Book of Common Prayer

During five meetings held between 1995 and 1997 those conversations also discussed the responses of the two churches to the Churches Together in England process, Called to be One, the exercise of oversight in the two churches and Church and State relations. Once Commitment to Mission and Unity, the report of the Informal Conversations between the Church of England and the Methodist Church, had been published in July 1996 it too was discussed.

3The recommendation of those Informal Conversations to the Ecumenical Committee of the United Reformed Church and the Council for Christian Unity of the Church of England was that Informal Conversations should be continued in order to explore the possibility of formulating

"a common statement of our understanding of the nature and purpose of the Church, our existing agreements in faith and what sort of diversity would belong to a visibly united church"(final report, para.52).

Neither church took up the recommendation because, by 1997, the proposals for Formal Conversations between the Methodist Church and the Church of England had taken centre stage.

4 In July 1996 Commitment to Mission and Unity, the report of the Informal Conversations between the Methodist Church and the Church of England, was published. It proposed that, given that the two churches believed they shared a common understanding of the goal of visible unity, they should enter into Formal Conversations while taking into account the wider ecumenical relationships of the two churches. The report listed ten issues, of varying degrees of difficulty, to be resolved between the two churches and proposed that Formal Conversations should address those issues and then proceed to prepare a Common Statement similar to the Meissen and Fetter Lane Common Statements. (see appendix)

5 In September 1996 the Chairman of the Council for Christian Unity, the Rt Revd David Tustin, Bishop of Grimsby, and the Secretary of the Methodist Conference, the Revd Brian Beck, wrote to every member church of Churches Together in England asking for comments on the report and stating that the responses would help to inform the debates and the decision-making processes which lay ahead.

6 Several partner churches responded. The Baptist Union Faith and Unity Executive Committee, after some debate about the appropriateness of bi-lateral conversations within the overall context of the multi-lateral Called to be One process, felt the time was right for these bi-lateral talks. However, it expressed concern for the position of the United Reformed Church in view of the number of Local Ecumenical Partnerships in which it was a partner with one or both of the churches involved. The Roman Catholic Church emphasised the need for consistency with the work of the Anglican Ð Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and pressed hard questions about ordination in relation to paragraph 27 in the section on the reconciliation of ordained ministries.

7 In July 1997, the United Reformed Church at its General Assembly endorsed the following response made on its behalf by the Ecumenical Committee.

"As a church committed to the search for the organic unity of the Church, the United Reformed Church welcomes the recommendation of the report of the Informal Conversations between the Church of England and the Methodist Church that they now enter Formal Conversations.

 

Encouraged by the extent of local sharing in mission, worship and service which the United Reformed Church already enjoys with both the Church of England and the Methodist Church, and bearing in mind the Scottish Church Initiative for Union and the Welsh Covenant (Enfys) in which the United Reformed Church shares with the Methodist and Episcopal churches in Scotland and Wales, we hereby express our interest in becoming a full participant in the process of Commitment to Mission and Unity.

 

Our particular contribution to Formal Conversations would be insights from the Reformed tradition, notably the conciliar expression of the apostolicity of the Church and the shared ministry of the Elders.

 

We await with interest the responses of the Church of England Synod and the Methodist Conference to the recommendations of the report, assure them of our prayers, and look forward to the contribution the United Reformed Church may be able to make to this process from our united traditions." (resolution 28)

8 Some of the effects of consultation with ecumenical partners, and of extensive consultation within the two churches, can be seen in the proposals which were presented to the November 1997 General Synod of the Church of England by the Council for Christian Unity. The task of the Formal Conversations, as set out in its report to the General Synod (GS1266:30), would now be to prepare a Common Statement which would include a description of visible unity, an exploration of outstanding issues of difference, and a declaration of acknowledgements and commitments. Out of the ten issues listed in Commitment to Mission and Unity, these particular conversations would concentrate on the nature and style of the office of the bishop, and the ways of exercising authority, oversight and governance in the Church. It was acknowledged that difficult issues, such as the integration of existing ordained ministries, would not be resolved during a first series of Formal Conversations. Neither church was committing itself at this stage to a scheme for organic union. The General Synod supported the proposal for Formal Conversations, as set out in GS 1266, by a comfortable majority.

9 The proposals for Formal Conversations, set out in GS 1266, included (in paragraph 31) the hope that there might be an informal trilateral conversation which included the United Reformed Church

"in order to consider the two subjects which the United Reformed Church has indicated as needing exploration, namely the conciliar expression of the apostolicity of the Church and the shared ministry of the Elders."

Paragraph 31 continues:

"It would be important to keep Formal Conversations between the Church of England and the Methodist Church in close contact with the work of any informal trilateral conversations."

 

10 Another development during the consultation period was that the 'ecumenical observers' (Roman Catholic, Baptist, Moravian and United Reformed) became 'ecumenical participants' and the United Reformed Church request that it should have two ecumenical participants in the Formal Conversations was granted.

11 The proposal that the Church of England and the Methodist Church enter into Formal Conversations, including the hope of Trilateral Informal Conversations involving the United Reformed Church, was presented to the 1998 Methodist Conference in precisely the same terms as to the 1997 General Synod. The Secretary to the Conference, the Revd Brian Beck, in his presentation made special reference to the United Reformed Church when he spoke of the role of the ecumenical participants in the proposed talks. He said:

"But the URC especially must be at the table because they and the Methodist Church are particularly close in some areas, though not in all. But in some respects there is a separate agenda with the URC, and a distinct, though linked, set of talks is proposed."

The proposal that the Methodist Church should enter into Formal Conversations with the Church of England received overwhelming support from the Conference.

12 The Trilateral Informal Conversations first met in April 1999, following the first meeting of the Formal Conversations in February 1999. The agreed terms of reference were that their consideration of the two issues raised by the United Reformed Church in response to Commitment to Mission and Unity would be set within a developing understanding of the sort of visible unity required for effective mission and the experience of shared living already enjoyed, particularly in Local Ecumenical Partnerships. It was also agreed that the Trilateral Informal Conversations would meet between the meetings of the Formal Conversations. This would enable a constructive relationship to be established and regular reports exchanged so that each group could reflect on the progress of the other and contribute to it as appropriate.

13 By the second meeting the Trilateral Informal Conversations, recognising they had their own integrity and dynamic, felt free to move beyond the two topics raised by the United Reformed Church in order to deepen understanding of each other's churches and to examine more closely both what united and what divided the three churches. The meeting also considered it had a responsibility to try to ensure that bi-lateral progress in the Formal Conversations did not damage Local Ecumenical Partnerships involving the United Reformed Church and one or both of the other churches, or the wide range of shared life and work at regional and national level. As churches in three nations, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church had also to bear in mind their ecumenical relations in Scotland and Wales. A further consideration was that the work of the Trilateral Informal Conversations might enable the United Reformed Church to enter into three-way Formal Conversations at a later stage.

14 The group met four times residentially between April 1999 and December 2000 and twice for one-day meetings in January and March 2001. The size of the meeting Ð twelve members and one ecumenical participant - meant it was possible to build relationships and establish a dynamic quite quickly.