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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3199 notes).

Note 3196 by UMNS on Sept. 30, 1996 at 15:54 Eastern (5200 characters).

SEARCH: Confessing Movement, renewal, confession, movement, United
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CONTACT: Linda Green                             482(10-71B){3196}
         Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470            Sept. 30, 1996

Confessing Movement begins search
to employ full-time director
                                 
                 by United Methodist News Service
     
     More than 500 people attending a Conference on the Confessing
Movement within the United Methodist Church, Sept. 27-28, in
Cincinnati, voted to hire a full-time executive director to direct
the movement's commitment to doctrinal fidelity and missional
renewal in the denomination.
     The participants agreed to develop a plan for sustaining
membership for individuals, families, groups, local congregations
and annual conferences.
     The Confessing Movement was launched in 1994 when 102 United
Methodists met by invitation to share a concern for the church's
"abandonment of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ as
revealed in Scripture and asserted in the classic Christian
tradition and historic ecumenical creeds."
     A search committee has been formed to bring a recommendation
for an executive director to the steering committee of the
Confessing Movement at a Jan. 4-5 meeting.
     Of the actions taken during the meeting, the Rev. John Ed
Mathison, Montgomery, Ala., chairperson of the movement's steering
committee, said, "We came without a specific plan for the future
of the Confessing Movement, but the Holy Spirit gave direction
through the people of the grass roots. Organizing in this fashion
is a sure sign of our long-term commitment to doctrinal and
missional renewal in the church."  
     In her opening address, keynote speaker, the Rev. Joy Moore,
an African-American clergywoman, from Lansing, Mich., reminded the
Conference that "Jesus Christ is not a caucus, not one more item
on our legislative agenda." The first priority of the Confessing
Movement is to call the church -- including all of its caucuses
and groups -- to confess Jesus Christ as Son, Savior and Lord, she
said.
     Building on the unity of the church theme participants
further defined the purpose of the movement in the following
statement, "Confessing Jesus Christ as Son, Savior and Lord, the
Confessing Movement exists to enable the United Methodist Church
to retrieve its classical doctrinal identity, and to live it out
as disciples of Jesus Christ."
     One member of the steering committee, the Rev. Maxie Dunnam
said, "This means we are committed to doctrinal renewal and
apostolic mission and ministry."
     Participants in the conference pledged to build communities
of support for people, groups and churches that pursue acts of
conscience in the context of that commitment.
     As he led a Wesley Covenant Renewal Service, the Rev. Gregory
Stover of Cincinnati said, "While we are a covenantal church, it
is our confession of Jesus Christ which is the foundation and
gives substance to our covenant." 
     Stover pointed to the United Methodist Church's "Articles of
Religion" and "Confession of Faith" as the basis for defining the
movement's confession of Christ. He said, "You don't put
restrictive rules around the truth you expect to refine, re-define
or re-imagine over the years."
      Conference participants also celebrated the witness of grass
roots movements which have grown out of the "Invitation to the
Church" and the "Confessional Statement" previously issued by the
Confessing Movement. One of the new movements to arise revolves
around a group of pastors from Wisconsin who have challenged the
moral authority of annual conference legislation when it
contradicts the doctrines and disciplines of the church.
     At least 50 pastors have signed the Wisconsin Declaration,
which states, "We find unacceptable the designation by the
Wisconsin Annual Conference of itself as a Reconciling Conference
and will not be bound by it. Such a designation rejects Scriptural
teaching and spurs the consistent stance of the United Methodist
Church." 
     The Rev. Tom Lambrecht, Eau Clare, Wis., thanked the
Confessing Movement for its foundational documents which formed
the theological basis and organizational principle for the
Wisconsin Declaration.
     In a stirring closing address, James Holsinger, chancellor of
the University of Kentucky Medical Center, repeatedly called the
church to fidelity to its doctrinal standards. 
     Holsinger compared today's church to a time of the judges,
when "everyone did as he or she saw fit." He cited Wesley's sermon
on "Catholic Spirit" in which Wesley, deploring the doctrinal
indifference and instability said, "A man of truly catholic spirit
has not now his religion to seek. He is fixed as the sun in his
judgement concerning the main branches of Christian doctrine."
                               # # #
     The above article was adapted from a news release written by
the Rev. Maxie Dunnam, one of the founding members of the
Confessing Movement.

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