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filings summer 2003 - issue 18
To all Synod and District Ecumenical Officers, Synod Moderators, United Reformed Church members of ecumenical bodies and members of the Ecumenical Committee.
I take the opportunity of my last Ecumenical Filings before retirement to reflect on what seem to me to have been, from my United Reformed Church perspective, the significant ecumenical themes and trends of the last 10 years. 1. The question of our identity, in single congregation LEPs and in church-to-church relations both bi-lateral and multi-lateral -leading to guidelines and advice papers such as Reformed Expectations (1998), Inductions (1998) and Recognition of ministers of other churches(2002).
-Leading to descriptions of who we are in, for example, the CTE Called to be One book (1997) and Conversations on the Way to Unity (2001)
-Linked to internal working groups on future patterns of ministry, on the possibility of a URC diaconate (2000), and on oversight ministries with special reference to synod moderators (2002).
- most recently surfacing in the local church responses to the questions regarding any future covenant with the Anglicans and the Methodists. Provisionality and flexibility have been two keys words in this area and a certain unease that in talking about our identity we are disloyal to the ecumenical vision.
2. Regular re-assessment (and questioning) of our original ecumenical vision in the light of a changed ecumenical landscape where there seems more emphasis on reconciled diversity than on organic unity. leading to a recommitment at the 1996 General Assembly to specific aspects of UK ecumenical life and to the goal of visible Christian unity.
leading to a broader ecumenical vision being adopted at the 2001 Assembly in the Three Ecumenical Principles for a Missionary Church in today’s world, which still included a commitment to work towards full visible unity. 3. A growing recognition that becoming more intentionally a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic and multi-lingual church is also part of our ecumenical commitment. leading to a day consultation on the comparative merits and ecclesiological significance of single-ethnic and multi-ethnic congregations.
leading to receiving two Urdu speaking Presbyterian Pakistani congregations into the URC leading to deliberate bridge-building work bringing Koreans into a URC in Kingston, using a Korean worker.
leading to a questionnaire on how extensively URC congregations share their buildings with Christians whose recent origins are overseas. (still to be analysed) leading to ongoing discussions with Ghanaian partner churches both about the role of the Ghanaian minister they send us and about Ghanaian Presbyterian people in relation to the URC.
leading to questions about what is necessary for a congregation to join the URC (back to identity?) and what about ministry?
All this linked to the calling of Revd Marjorie Lewis-Cooper from Jamaica as Multi-racial, multi-cultural development worker and then the appointment of Mrs Katalina Tahaafe-Williams as Secretary for Racial Justice. Katalina will have a key role in taking these things forward. 4. Steady ecumenical progress in spite of the apparent ‘ecumenical winter’ and partly because of the increasing financial pressures.
- with the Methodists:
*resources from the Liaison Committee - Getting to Know You(1997): How to Make it Work(1998): Managing Change in Ministry(2000).
* consultation on responding to our ‘clustering’ with the possibility of a United Area (April 2002)
* Towards an appropriate pastoral strategy in the three nations which we serve - a discussion document sent to every local church (June 2003)
- far more LEPs where one minister represents all the participating churches
- areas, such as Northumberland, where the Christian presence is being planned across the denominations
- CTE resources, too many to mention, including Ecumenical Notes and a data base of LEPs.
- a joint statistics gathering form(still in draft) for LEPs produced not by the ecumenical officers but by the statistics gatherers from the participating churches.
- increasing cross-representation, e.g. the theological reflector at Mission Council, an ecumenical member of the appointment group for my successor, our General Secretary sitting with the Baptist Union during their review process etc etc.
- the development of ‘quiet days’ and retreats, drawing on Roman Catholic and Anglican resources for leadership and training.
- increasing role played in many local Churches Together of the more ‘evangelical’ churches, bringing a renewed emphasis on mission to the community.
5. Some disappointments - some challenges
- seven challenging years working on the Scottish Church Initiative for Union appears to have ended in rejection by the Church of Scotland in May 2003. In October 2002, the proposal for an Ecumenical Bishop for Wales was rejected by the Church in Wales after at least an equal number of years of work.
Wasted time and money, or a pioneering sowing of seeds?
- the URC Younger Ecumenists’ Consultation (April 2002) longed for a single Christian presence in each community - but worshipping in several centres in different styles. Unity in diversity?
- the representatives of our two Korean partner churches were impressed by the depth and generosity of the ecumenical relationships here, but asked where the missionary edge was. Is our witness in the quality of our relationships? Postscript: The ecumenical movement depends for its life on ecumenical friendships. The friendship of my colleagues in the other churches and in the ecumenical instruments in the three/four nations and, from time to time, in partner churches overseas, has enriched my life and, I hope, my work during these 10 years. However, without the friendship and support and advice of my United Reformed Church ecumenical network, of the three conveners and many members of the Ecumenical Committee and of my colleagues here in the office the job would have been virtually impossible and certainly not so enjoyable.
Thank you one and all!
I am delighted that I will be succeeded by Revd Richard Mortimer, whose title will be Secretary for Ecumenical Relations and Faith and Order.
Please photocopy and distribute this to your District officers and to the churches in your District, especially the LEPs.
Also available on the URC web site - www.urc.org.uk
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