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The present position on membership in single congregation LEPs is stated very clearly in the 1998 guidance given by the Methodist/United Reformed Church Liaison Group in the booklet How to make it work. Only those who come into membership of the LEP on profession of faith can, at present, have their names on both membership rolls. Otherwise, the official position is that those members who were members of the two congregations which united, and those who transfers from another church at a later date, are either on the Methodist or the United Reformed Church rolls. However, in practice, LEPs work with a common roll of all the members and are proud of that prophetic witness to the unity of the Church. It is clearly unsatisfactory that the theory and practice diverge in this way. The CTE 1997 report The report of the 1997 Churches Together in England working group on Baptism and Church Membership with particular reference to Local Ecumenical Partnerships attempted to address this question when it made the following recommendation: "We recommend that the
Church/denomination, some of whose local churches participate in LEPs
and which is willing to consider the possibility of permitting
''extended membership' should, in consultation with other such
denominations, find ways of permitting it which are compatible with
its own understanding and practice of church membership." (para 85)
The FCC report in 2000 Early in 2000 the Free Churches' Council convened a small working group, on which the United Reformed Church was represented, to respond to that recommendation. Its report was before the committee at its July 2000 meeting. It described the URC position as follows: "it would be up to the local Church Meeting in each LEP to admit into membership those in other denominations who also desired membership of the URC." The Methodist Conference resolution in 2000 Meanwhile, the Methodist Conference in June 2000 passed a first reading of an amendment to their Deed of Union in order to be able to acknowledge members of other Christian communions who are partners in a particular LEP as also members of the Methodist Church. The proposed wording for this reception into membership of the Methodist Church is: N and N, you are members of other communions within the Church of Christ. Do you wish also to be members of the Methodist Church? Conclusion The advice of the Doctrine, Prayer and Worship Committee, the Ecumenical Committee and the Clerk to the General Assembly has been sought. All broadly agree with the view expressed in the report of the Free Churches' Council working group. The guidance offered to Local Ecumenical Partnerships by the Ecumenical Committee is, therefore, as follows: According to the Manual of the United Reformed Church, B.2 (1) (ix), it is one of functions of the church meeting to decide on receiving members by transfer, always on the advice of the elders' meeting whose responsibility is 'to advise on the admission of members on profession of faith and by transfer' (B.2 (2) (vi). The application of someone who is already a member of one of the other churches in the Local Ecumenical Partnership should be made to the elders' meeting (or its LEP equivalent) in terms such as: "As a member in good standing of the ……………….church, I wish also to be admitted to the full privileges and responsibilities of membership in the United Reformed Church." The formal acknowledgement within worship of such admission to membership is a matter for local decision. In order that the statistical returns to the sponsoring churches of the LEP should not be misleading, nor the LEP be expected to contribute more than its financial share, each LEP should have an agreed proportional division of the membership roll. This may be altered from time to time during the developing life of the LEP. Those members of the LEP who do not wish to be members of all the churches in the LEP are, of course, free to remain on the roll of their choice. approved by the Ecumenical Committee Jan 01
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