wfn.org | New covenant strengthens church-school connection

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

May 6, 2000	GC-025

CLEVELAND (UMNS) - Leaders of the United Methodist church and its schools
have strengthened their commitment to provide quality education and
supportive faith communities as they prepare people for lives of service.

A new agreement, titled "An Education Covenant of Partnership," was signed
on May 5 by Bishop William Oden, president of the Council of Bishops, the
Rev. Roger Ireson, top staff executive of the United Methodist Board of
Higher Education and Ministry in Nashville, Tenn., and Peter Mitchell,
president of the National Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities
of the United Methodist Church. 

The signing occurred at a Higher Education Night banquet held in conjunction
with the United Methodist 2000 General Conference. Delegates at the banquet
were asked to affirm the document. No official action was requested from
General Conference, the denomination's top legislative body, which is
meeting through May 12.

The covenant emerged as the result of conversations with bishops, college
presidents, campus ministers and conference boards of higher education and
ministry during the past eight years, Ireson said. The leaders endorsed the
document as a way of affirming the denomination's 250-year tradition of
church-related education and committing to a partnership of mutual service
and support.

Too often, the Board of Higher Education and Ministry feels as though it is
on a bridge, Ireson said. Academia and the church have much to offer each
other, but "we are saddened that no one will walk across the bridge into the
other person's world," he said.

The covenant signifies the joining of lives so that "those who are in
education will walk across the bridge into the world of the church and
stretch out their hands in covenant and that those who are on the other side
of the bridge will walk across it," Ireson said. "And together learning and
religion will be joined and we . . .will prepare a new generation of
Christian leaders for this world."

The partnership covenant calls for the church and its schools to:
·	Create an inclusive atmosphere that supports the faith journeys of
students, faculty and staff.
·	Uphold academic freedom without restricting the integrity of each
church-related institution.
·	Stress through teaching and example the worth and dignity of each
person by providing voluntary community service and a concern for
international relations.
·	Prepare students, regardless of social status, ethnic identity or
gender, for lives of "intellectual vigor," moral integrity and spiritual
fulfillment, and for leadership in a new century.
·	Provide mutually agreed upon support and service.
·	Affirm the relations between the church and its educational
institutions openly and with pride for their mutual history and shared
potential for the future.

Keynote speaker Thomas J. Moyer, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio,
discussed the value of education in culture today and the issues facing it.

Other speakers included Oden, Mitchell and the Rev. William H. Willimon,
dean of the chapel at Duke University, who provided reflections of a United
Methodist-related college graduate. The Rust College Choir of Holly Springs,
Miss., provided musical entertainment.
# # #
-- Linda Green

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United Methodist News Service
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