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06579 November 8, 2006
Putting the 'national' back in the National Council of Churches of Christ
NCC President Livingston calls group to greater unity, witness
by Jerry Van Marter
ORLANDO, FL - As American society and its churches threaten to fragment, it's time to put the "National" back in the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC), the organization's president told the opening session of the NCC/Church World Service General Assembly Nov. 7.
"As our financial resources and influence wane and as our leaders are marginalized in a society that values volume over substance, so much greater is the need to be a 'national' council of churches," said the Rev. Michael Livingston, a Presbyterian who is executive director of the International Council of Community Churches.
"Simple cooperation is not enough to bear the weight of the witness our times demand," Livingston said. "Being a national council means that we bear witness together, stand and testify together, that we become the exclamation points * like the cross stabbed into the ground on Calvary."
Livingston called for the heads of communion of the NCC's 35 member churches to take a greater leadership role in the ecumenical grouping. "And we must also engage our people in this work and witness at all levels of our churches," he said. "In many places they are already ahead of us."
Livingston said his comments were not meant as criticism, but as words of hope. "We are responding to the call of the earthly Jesus and the risen Christ, who are one and the same," he said. "Our hope is that our nation, its people and its leaders will bear witness to the gospel everywhere * asking the hard questions and addressing the issues - the madness of war and the gluttony of a market that embraces only growth at any cost - that signal that we are a society that has lost its way."
Only by speaking and acting as a "national" council of churches, Livingston said, "can we confront the powers in this country that challenge our moral convictions as people of faith."
The NCC General Assembly continues here through Nov. 10.
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