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Winter2001

The URC and its ecumenical priorities

United Reformed Church ‘nuts and bolts’ for LEPs

News of good practice

Staff

At the end of January the Ecumenical Committee will be considering our ecumenical priorities.  Our fundamental commitment to Christian unity at every level stands firm.  The proposed priorities, which lay special emphasis on the role of the local church, are:

•    to develop relations with a broader range of Christian partners

•    to deepen relations with our old partners

•    to be clearer about who we are and what we offer, and what we need to receive, as we seek unity with different partners in the different nations,  and as we enter new Local Ecumenical Partnerships.

•    to witness to the reality of our European and World Church partnerships in our local ecumenical and community life

Something will come out of this to next Assembly. If you have strong views you want the committee to hear, or suggestions on how the above could be implemented, contact me before 20 January.  Otherwise, make sure your district has its say at Assembly. 

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•    A checklist has been produced, in consultation with the synods, for step-by-step procedures when the United Reformed Church is entering into a Local Ecumenical Partnership.

Available from this office, from EOs and on the URC Ecumenical Committee web-site.

•     Proposals on how the URC, in a single congregation LEP, can extend membership to those in membership of the other partners in the LEP are expected to come to Assembly 2001.

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Wales

The proposal for an Ecumenical Bishop in East Cardiff, revised in the light of several years of discussion, will be brought to Assembly 2001 by the Synod of Wales for final approval.  Only three churches, the Church in Wales, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, are fully involved, although the Presbyterian Church of Wales is continuing as a close observer.

The Synod of Wales is prepared to welcome the personal leadership of a bishop, provided that, if the candidate is not Anglican, there is no hint of re-ordination.

Scotland

The Area Councils and local churches of the Synod of Scotland have been discussing  what the union proposed in the Second Interim Report of the Scottish Church Initiative for Union would mean for them.  The Synod will be responding to the report on behalf of the whole United Reformed Church.

The Synod of Scotland is less concerned about the personal leadership of bishops than about being swallowed up by the larger churches.

England

•     Together in a common life is the theme for the July 2001 Forum of Churches Together in England and for CTE’s ongoing life.  It seeks to map and affirm and challenge the huge variety of ways in which Christians in this country work and witness and worship together.  

•    From 1 April 2001, the Free Churches Council will be repositioned within CTE with its present General Secretary, Geoffrey Roper, becoming the Associate General Secretary (Free Churches).  The Methodist Church will be the lead church for the continuing education work.  CTE will move into the FCC offices in Tavistock Square. A Free Churches Group will continue to consider any specifically ‘free church’ concerns.  That group will include CTE member churches, like the URC, and those not in membership of CTE, like the Free Church of England and the Countess of Huntingdon Connexion.  It will also have representatives from the Welsh Free Churches.  FCC in Wales will not be repositioning within CYTUN.

•    The churches and the Millennium.  Signs of ecumenical progress: - a broader than CTE grouping worked well together, including the Evangelical Alliance: the Lambeth group, which related to the government, moved beyond the Establishment pattern of the past, to allow a broader Christian, and also an inter-faith voice to address the government.

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•    The Methodist Church, at its 2000 Conference, affirmed in principle its willingness to receive the sign of episcopacy on the basis of guidelines set out in a report from the Faith and Order Committee called Episkope and Episcopacy.  Comments on the report and the guidelines will be sought from Districts and Circuits and a final decision taken in 2002.

•    The Episcopal Church, USA (ECUSA) has formally approved entering into full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ECLA).  From now on all ministers will be ordained by bishops in the historic succession, but there will be a period during which normal ECUSA canons will be suspended so that current ECLA ministers, not thus episcopally ordained, can minister freely in both churches.

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News of good practice

•    The URC Church and Society annual event for its network became, last May, fully ecumenical – planned by a group of social responsibility officers from several churches and open to all with a responsibility or interest in this field.

•    The churches in the north-east of England get together to discuss one another’s key new documents – the RC One Bread, One Body, the RC/Lutheran agreement on Justification, the Salvation Army’s Called to be God’s People.  The Methodist statement on the Church, Called to Love and Praise and the WCC Nature and Purpose of the Church follow in 2001.

•     Methodists and United Reformed Church people from a wide West Midlands area got together for a day to discuss the problems of living together when their parent churches are not married. The issues raised will be taken up by the Methodist/United Reformed Church Liaison Committee.

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Sheila Maxey, Secretary for Ecumenical Relations [ecumenical@urc.org.uk]

Philip Woods, Secretary for International Relations [international@urc.org.uk]

Veronica Singh, Personal Assistant to Secretary for Ecumenical Relations
[veronica.singh@urc.org.uk]

Doris David, Personal Assistant to Secretary for International Relations.

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