wfn.org | Pan-Methodist group moves toward spiritual unity

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Nov. 25, 2002 News media contact: Linda Green7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn. 
   10-31-71B{544}

NOTE: A sidebar, UMNS story #545, is available with this report.

By Edna Steinman*

LOS ANGELES (UMNS) - Members of a pan-Methodist commission, meeting Nov.
19-21, agreed on the need to improve visibility and cooperation among their
four denominations.
	
Adopting a vision statement of	"One body . . . many members," the 2-year-old
Commission on Pan-Methodist Cooperation and Union signaled its interest in
moving toward spiritual unity among churches in the African Methodist
Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Christian Methodist Episcopal
and United Methodist traditions. The four denominations represent more than
12 million members and share a common Methodist heritage.

The new chairman, United Methodist Bishop Fritz Mutti of the Kansas Area,
said his goal for the coming year would be to keep the movement progressing
toward more cooperation and union through its relationships with Jesus
Christ. He said he sees no interest in achieving unity through merger but
rather in developing unity through a spiritual movement, a theological
commitment within "our common heritage in the Wesleyan tradition."

The commission was born through the merger of two separate commissions on
pan-Methodist cooperation and union. It has spelled out its goals in its
mission statement: "As members of the family of Methodism, we are called to
move toward union by redefining and strengthening our relationship in Jesus
Christ." The 36-member group works to foster meaningful cooperation among the
four denominations in evangelism, missions, publications, social concerns and
higher education.

The problem always has been "what will union look like," said African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Bishop Nathaniel Jarrett of Tinley Park, Ill. "What
is the model? We've said some things that the model will not be. We keep
coming back with a model of cooperation. Maybe a model (of union) will come
out of that step."

Juanita Bryant of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, a member of the Christian
Methodist Episcopal church, expressed another concern. "Lay people and
grass-roots folks don't know about pan-Methodism. We need to communicate what
we are and why we exist," she said.

The trend toward saying "We're Methodists" and not claiming a specific
denomination is troubling to commission member Thelma Milner of Atlanta. "I
say I'm AME, and then I get to explain what African Methodist Episcopal is."

"In the past, we quickly dismissed merger and started talking about
cooperation," said the Rev. Sylvester Williams, a Christian Methodist
Episcopal member from Chicago. "How can you decide on a model when we don't
know where we are going? We should identify ministries that we can do
together and that will foster commitment and perhaps lead to a further step."

The commission's two committees, one focusing on models of union and the
other on program and ministry, recommended ideas for sharing, cooperating and
interpreting pan-Methodism. Both committees hoped the colleges and
universities of the four denominations could be encouraged to teach about the
polity of the other Methodist churches as a way to create understanding.

Both committees also called for drawing on the concepts and visible marks of
the Churches Uniting in Christ - an ecumenical network that includes the four
denominations and others - for developing new relationships.

"We all want to be what we are, but we need some model to become unified
without losing our identity," said the Rev. George W. Maize IV of Los
Angeles, a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, as he
presented the report of the Committee on Models of Union.

The commission accepted the recommendation to create a symbol that would
incorporate the logos of the four denominations and further interpret the
gifts each brings to the body. A sub-committee, chaired by the Rev. Taylor
Thompson of Quinn Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Forest Park,
Ohio, will accept proposals from graphic designers.

The members also agreed that the commission's brochure should be included in
the group's report to each denomination's general conference. 

The program and ministry committee recommended ideas for promoting
pan-Methodism by using regional meetings to encourage cooperation; sharing
information; offering programs about pan-Methodism; and developing
coordinating committees of clergy and laity. Other suggestions included
developing strategies to help immigrant populations and ethnic communities
start new churches. 

The commission also accepted broad recommendations to eliminate boundaries
(such as language) that prevent each from including the other; to share costs
(joint purchasing agreements, guest houses); to participate in one another's
ordinations; and to provide opportunities for bishops to work together,
perhaps with one overseeing all four denominations on a specific ministry.

Mutti will name a committee to develop a packet of these ideas that could be
refined and shared at the Eighth Consultation of Methodist Bishops, March
11-13 in Atlanta. 

The commission also plans on having a member attend the student gathering
sponsored by the Council for Ecumenical Student Christian Ministry, Dec.
28-Jan. 1, 2003, in Albuquerque, N.M. A Dec. 31 celebration at the event will
focus on the Pan-Methodist movement.

United Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert, chairman of the Committee on Program
and Ministry, agreed to explore the possibility of opening the United
Methodist Church's training for new district superintendents to new presiding
elders from the three other denominations.

The commission will meet again March 10-13 in Atlanta, in conjunction with
the bishops' consultation. The meeting's theme will be "Wesley's Message to
the Pan-Methodist Family," in recognition of the 300th anniversary of the
birth of John Wesley, Methodism's founder. Various sessions will focus on
Wesley's messages about worship, reconciliation, war and peace, education and
the future.

In the 1700s, Wesley laid Methodism's groundwork by leading a renewal
movement within the Church of England. He appointed two missionaries in 1769
to organize Methodism in America. In 1784, the Methodist Episcopal Church was
organized in Baltimore. The denomination became the United Methodist Church
in 1968 through a merger with the Evangelical United Brethren Church.

Racism within the old Methodist Episcopal Church prompted a group of
African-Americans to leave the denomination and form the African Methodist
Episcopal Church in 1787. For similar reasons in 1796, the African Methodist
Episcopal Zion Church was formed. In 1870, 41 African- American men,
representing eight annual conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, organized the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, now known as the
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

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*Steinman is the interim editor of the Circuit West United Methodist Review,
the newspaper of the California-Pacific Annual Conference.

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United Methodist News Service
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