Together we meet to worship you, Lord;
Together we hear of your saving word ...
Thus started a hymn by the late Revd Adrienne Dones, a United Reformed Church minister. She sent it to me early in my ten years working as County Ecumenical Officer with Churches Together in Suffolk. The hymn included the lines:
But week after week we meet on our own;
Your call to be one we choose to disown ...
Adrienne told me: “I got very cross with united services singing as if ecumenism is all sweetness and light, and tried to write a hymn closer to my experience of unity”.
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is in January. For many years, at well-attended services up and down the country, there have been enthusiastic singing and worthy intentions, and the preacher has been one of the local Anglican or Roman Catholic bishops, or the Methodist Chair, URC Moderator or Baptist Regional Minister. But what difference has all this made?
In my work I have been heartened and encouraged by the creativity and vibrancy shown by local Churches Together groups. I know of Town Pastor schemes springing up, staffed entirely by volunteers from local churches, helping and supporting the young and vulnerable in our night-time town centres. I know of Credit Unions taking shape in areas of need – many started within the local Churches Together group. Much youth work is done ecumenically, as well as Fair Trade campaigning. There are also more obviously Christian undertakings – united choirs, work on music CDs, and Good Friday passion plays – all done ecumenically, with those taking part car¬ing neither about the denominations of others nor of their detailed beliefs.
To these people, the seemingly arcane discussions going on in ARCIC and elsewhere appear to be from another world. For them and for me, the doing and being is more important than the precise beliefs. How can any of us know what?s going on inside someone else?s head? Stating that someone „must believe? something is not just unreasonable; it?s completely impossible to enforce. By working with people where they are we can each be a bridge.
Adrienne?s hymn ended:
Empower us to break from the chains of the past
Till, gathered in you, we become one at last.
Margaret Condick
