Conversations on the way to unity

Conversations on the way to unity; the report of the Trilateral Informal Conversations between the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church.

A call for existing two-way relationships among the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church to become three-way was issued today in the report of the Trilateral Informal Conversations between the three churches.  The report, Conversations on the way to unity, also calls for the three churches to explore the steps necessary to enter into a significantly closer relationship in England, without shutting the door to other churches.

These Trilateral Informal Conversations, which were set up to run alongside the Formal Conversations between the Church of England and the Methodist Church, shared some of the same membership and were included in the same circle of confidentiality.

The purpose of the informal conversations was to explore the two insights from the Reformed tradition - the shared ministry of the Elders and the conciliar expression of the apostolicity of the Church - which the United Reformed Church had wanted to contribute to the agenda of the Formal Conversations. It became clear as the conversations developed that it was also important to explore whether the three churches shared a common understanding of the goal of the visible unity of the Church.

The report identifies five areas requiring further work - personal episkope (pastoral oversight) and apostolicity; the place of ordination in relation to the various ministries in the churches; the nature of the Church and the path to visible unity; the ways personal episkope is officially understood and actually practised, not only in these three churches but also in the episcopal churches in Wales and Scotland; and the relationship of baptism to membership and membership to the ministry of the whole people of God. The report itself provides valuable material for that further work. In addition to the recommendation that the existing bi-lateral relations between the Church of England and the Methodist Church, and between the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, should, wherever possible, become trilateral, the report recommends that the further theological work should also be done tri-laterally, and that the three churches should explore together (with openness to other partners) what further steps would be necessary to make an English covenantal relationship between them.

The Church of England's co-chair, the Rt Revd Colin Buchanan, in a personal dissenting note, outlines alternative recommendations which seek to tie together the recommendations of the Informal and the Formal Conversations and their processes of reception and implementation.

Conversations on the way to unity has been published before the report of the Formal Conversations in the hope that its work, and its recommendations, will enrich the discussion of, and responses to, the report of the Formal Conversations which is to be published at the end of the year.

Note to Editors: The report is available from the United Reformed Church Bookshop on 020 7916 8629, priced £1 (inc p&p for single copies).

to read the online version click on the image