For most of Anglicans 'church' is our local congregation - the people we see each week at a building we call 'church'. We may extend that to include the others who also worship in that building such as those who have the strange desire to get up for an 8 o'clock service, but otherwise that group is what we think of when we think of church. Of course, those of us on General Synod have a broader view than that. We 'know' that the local church is really the diocese, with the Synod being part of the way those dioceses relate to form a National Church, which in turn is part of the Anglican Communion, about whose Covenant we get worked up! Yet we often forget and slip back into thinking only of those we meet each week as church.

So it is no surprise that the Ecumenical dimensions of Synod leave us little moved. Look around you when we debate the Anglican-Methodist Covenant and see how many people are taking a coffee break instead. It doesn't feel like 'church' to us; which is a pity, since we also 'know' that we are 'part of the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church'. We are part of it, not the whole of it. The ecumenical observers remind us of this in their presence at Synod. We are less than the whole. We need the other traditions in or-der to be Christ‘s body - the Church.

So a challenge for this group of sessions: take a moment in the tea room to chat to one of our observers about what is going on in their part of the One church. Oh, and why not read the Joint Implementation Commission‘s re-port and join in the debate on the Anglican-Methodist Covenant. Now, there‘s a covenant I can support!

Moira Astin, Oxford
Anglican Ecumenical Officer for Berkshire and Oxfordshire