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A new Church is born

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‘We, the members of the Congregational Union of Scotland and the United Reformed Church in the United Kingdom, meet in Christ’s name to join our separate bodies together into one body, the United Reformed Church. We do so in response to the leading of God’s Spirit, believing that Christ wills his Church to be one, a sign of the grace of God which seeks the unity of all people.’

With these words the Revd John Dyce, the Chairman of the Congregational Union of Scotland, welcomed a congregation of 600 to the Barony Conference Centre in Glasgow for a day of worship and formal business which saw the formation of a new Church in the United Kingdom, the United Reformed Church.

The partners

The Congregational Union of Scotland (CUS) consists of 52 congregations - the earliest dating back to 1797. Foreshadowing the ecumenical movement of the 20^th century, in the 19^th century the CUS brought together congregations from both Congregational and Presbyterian backgrounds. Down the years the CUS has made a contribution to ecumenical work in Scotland out of all proportion to its size.  For many years it provided both the chairman and secretary of the Multi-Lateral Church Conversation in Scotland; it is involved in a number of local ecumenical projects and is currently committed to the Scottish Church Initiative for Union. A forward-thinking Church, it was the first in Scotland (in 1928) to ordain a woman minister.

The United Reformed Church in the United Kingdom (URC) was originally formed in 1972 by the union of the Congregational Church in England and Wales and the Presbyterian Church of England.  It was the first (and is still the only) union of Churches across traditional denominational lines in England since the Reformation. The commitment to the visible unity of the whole Christian church is written into the constitution of the United Reformed Church, which has continued to express that commitment by its subsequent union with the Re-formed Churches of Christ, through continuing talks with other traditions and in more than 400 local churches where URC members and ministers work alongside those other denominations in united congregations.

The Unifying Assembly

It was a day full of symbolism. The two black Assembly Bibles bearing the signatures of past Moderators and Presidents respectively of the partners, presented as symbols of the past - to be replaced by a fresh, strikingly red Bible. The flames of two candles used to light a new, single, flame - which in its turn spread out to thirteen candles representing the 13 synods of the new Church.

Greetings were given by Jim Wallace, Deputy First Minister of the Scottish Parliament, who spoke of his own affection for the United Reformed Church since student days in Cambridge at the time of the Church’s foundation and looked forward to the distinctive contribution of the Synod of Scotland in future years. The Revd Wynne Jones, Moderator-elect of the Welsh Presbyterian Church praised the URC fulsomely for its pioneering ecumenical role, while the Revd Jan-Willem Doff, President of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands brought the greetings of Reformed Churches around the world. He spoke from his own perspective within a Reformed and Lutheran community seeking the same road to unity the URC has already taken.

The afternoon session saw the charge to the new Church preached by the Revd Dr Michael Taylor, former Director of Christian Aid and Professor of Social Theology at the University of Birmingham. While recognizing the ecumenical commitment of the two partners he called upon the new Church not to fall into a naïve belief that Christian unity would somehow usher in unity in the wider community: ‘The world will not become one because you are one.’ Despite that, he called on the Church to be confrontational rather than comfortable, courageously facing up to the issues that divide human beings into rich and poor, black and white, gay and straight. Unlike the past, however, the Church needed to learn how to confront divisive issues without, as a consequence, excluding those on one or other side of the argument.

In music, accent and words there was a distinctly Scottish strand to the occasion reflecting the fact that despite the disparity of size between the two former partners, the new structure of the Church takes into account the growing consciousness of national identity and desire for self-determination in Scotland and Wales. The new National Synods of both Scotland and Wales will speak for the whole united Church in relation to the life of their respective nations and have the right to operate in ways appropriate to their national contexts, which may be different from what generally applies in the rest of the Church.  The new structure celebrates diversity in unity and will witness to the ways in which different national identities, styles and traditions may be recognized, respected and preserved, and yet belong together for the enrichment of all in the oneness of God’s people. As part of the business of the afternoon, the Revd John Arthur, previously General Secretary of the Congregational Union of Scotland was installed as the first Moderator of the Synod of Scotland. As Moderator he will oversee the life of the Synod during its first five years of life.

The new Church

The United Reformed Church, as the new Church will be known, will consist of more than 1800 congregations throughout Britain, representing a community totaling some 250,000 people, served by more than 1100 ministers, both men and women, paid and unpaid. Though one of the smaller mainstream denominations, the URC is part of the world-wide Reformed communion - the largest strand in Protestantism, with some 70 million members.