You are in: Conversations on the Way to Unity

Participants

Church of England
The Rt Revd Colin Buchanan (Co-Chair)
The Revd William S. Croft
Mrs Elizabeth Fisher
The Revd Prebendary Dr Paul Avis (Co-Secretary)

United Reformed Church
The Revd Robert Andrews (Co-Chair)
The Revd John Waller
The Revd Elizabeth Welch
The Revd Sheila Maxey (Co-Secretary)

Methodist Church
The Revd Peter Whittaker (Co-Chair)
The Revd Hilary Cooke
Mrs Mary Wetherall
The Revd Keith A Reed (Co-Secretary)


Ecumenical participant, appointed by Churches Together in England
Mrs Faith Bowers

 

Bill Croft, Hilary Cooke, Paul Avis, Keith Reed and Sheila Maxey were also part of the Formal Conversations between the Church of England and the Methodist Church as members, co-secretaries and ecumenical participant respectively.

Foreword

The 20th century has often been called the ecumenical century of the Christian Church. During it, and with gathering momentum, churches long separated, often with bitterness and violence, began to approach one another, talk together, work together and even re-unite. In 1961, at the World Council of Churches Assembly in New Delhi, a vision of unity was set down in terms which have sustained and challenged the ecumenical movement to this day.

'We believe that the unity which is both God's will and his gift to his Church is being made visible as all in each place who are baptized into Jesus Christ and confess him as Lord and Saviour are brought by the Holy Spirit into one fully committed fellowship, holding the one apostolic faith, preaching the one Gospel, breaking the one bread, joining in common prayer and having a corporate life reaching out in witness and service to all and who at the same time are united with the whole Christian fellowship in all places and all ages in such wise that ministry and members are accepted by all, and that all can act and speak together as occasion requires for the tasks to which God calls his people.'

These conversations have been one way in which the participating churches, who already share so much common life, have sought to continue to be obedient to God's call to full, visible unity.

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