wfn.org | Grassroots cooperation anticipates

[ENS.parti@ecunet.org]

June 6, 1997
Episcopal News Service
Jim Solheim, Director
212-922-5385
ens@ecunet.org

97-1790
Grassroots cooperation anticipates the practical benefits of full
communion

by Walt Gordon
   (ENS) Even before the General Convention of the Episcopal Church
and the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America (ELCA) vote this summer on whether to approve "full
communion" through a Concordat of Agreement, pioneering lay people,
priests, pastors, and bishops of both churches have been busy living out
the kind of practical cooperation that the Concordat would envision and
encourage.
   The range of cross-church interaction evident across the country
clearly reflects a common truth that it is at the grassroots that ecumenical
cooperation really flourishes:

   * Grace Mountainside Church in Robbinsville, North Carolina, is a
Lutheran- Episcopal Fellowship with about 40 members, a joint parish
recognized as a member of both the Diocese of Western North Carolina
of the Episcopal Church and the North Carolina Synod of the ELCA.
Each congregation maintains its corporate identity and relationship to its
parent denomination while electing representatives to a joint governing
board. A retired Lutheran pastor and a retired Episcopal priest alternate
as celebrants at the Eucharist and the form of worship alternates between
the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) and the Lutheran Book of Worship
(LBW).

   * At Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Brookfield, Connecticut, an
Episcopal priest with a Lutheran-sounding name "worked very hard at
learning the liturgy," according to parish secretary Dory Kutz. Since
October 15 of last year the Rev. Carole Johannsen has been serving as
interim pastor for this 700-member congregation. Congregation president
Karen Riesterer reported that the church council was impressed with
Johannsen's skills. Riesterer added, "Those familiar with the Concordat
are very enthusiastic. We will get a chance to actually see how this might
work."

   * In Missouri the Rev. Mary Lou Kator is a circuit rider serving two
churches located 21 miles apart. One church hadn't had its own priest for
10 years and the other had never had its own pastor in 17 years of
existence. With 35 and 55 members respectively, St. Barnabas Episcopal
Church in Moberly and Peace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Salisbury
now have a clergywoman to call their own. They hired an Episcopalian
as their first priest/pastor, and they will consider a Lutheran when the
time comes to choose another. Kator uses the BCP at St. Barnabas and
the LBW at Peace ELC. 
   In an interview in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, ELCA Bishop
Charles H. Maahs said of the arrangement, "This type of pastor sharing
could become more common in clergy-starved rural America. Many
churches face closing or reduced services because they can't find or can't
afford full-time clergy. For some, the only solution is to share across
denominational lines."

"Because we wanted to, not because we had to" 
   Does this mean the Concordat is only useful for small churches that
can't afford a priest? Not according to the people of All Saints Episcopal
and Good Shepherd Lutheran Churches in Morristown, Tennessee, who
have begun cooperating in a variety of ways. "We did it because we
wanted to, not because we had to," says the Rev. Suzanne Smitherman,
associate at All Saints.  
   All Saints has a rector and an associate and two services each
Sunday, with a total attendance of over 200. Good Shepherd has fewer
on Sundays but still has a full-time pastor. They had always done things
together but now they are "cooperating with a new intensity," said
Smitherman. "In getting together to talk about the Concordat and what
we have in common, members of our study group--especially the lay
people--asked why we couldn't start doing it now."
   Now joint Morning Prayer services at All Saints use each church's
worship forms on alternate Sundays and the leadership of Bible study
groups at Good Shepherd alternates between members of the two
churches. 
   The Rev. Smokey Oats, rector of All Saints, says, "We don't like to
think that someone else has a lock on some part of the Gospel that's a
little more Christ-like than our own. The Concordat has caused us to
think again, why and what we are doing. I think it's incredibly healthy." 

Personal stories cross denominations
   All of these pioneering efforts give weight to the comments of
church historian Dr. Martin Marty as he spoke to the combined meeting
of Lutheran and Episcopal bishops in October, urging them to move
beyond "issues that to many church members will seem to show
preoccupation with professional, hierarchical, clerical issues that do not
make much difference in their lives."
   Even where congregations are not involved in ministry together, the
Concordat is important to many individuals on a personal, spiritual basis.

   John Stonehouse and his wife, Mary Barnes Stonehouse, of St.
George's Episcopal Church in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, attended a
joint festival Eucharist in "anticipation of the Concordat," held at the
Cathedral Church of St. Mark in Minneapolis. ELCA Presiding Bishop
George Anderson preached and James Jelinek, Episcopal Bishop of
Minnesota, celebrated.  
   Like many of the 400 Episcopalian and Lutheran participants in the
service, the Stonehouses had personal or family reasons for rejoicing in
the Concordat. John was confirmed in the Lutheran Church of the Good
Shepherd in 1948. Fifteen years later he married Sandra, an
Episcopalian, and was received into the Episcopal Church, not because of
any desire to leave the Lutheran church but simply to attend the same
church as his wife.
   For them, overcoming one of the divisions of Christendom resonates
in very personal ways. What did John think about the Concordat and the
cathedral celebration of it? "Great. Wonderful. A rich coming together.
Long overdue."

--The Rev. Walt Gordon is communications officer for the Diocese of
Minnesota and will be a member of the ENS team reporting on General
Convention. This article includes information from reports by Jeanette F.
Crane, The Southern Cross, (Diocese of SW Florida); Alice Clayton,
East Tennessee Episcopalian; Patricia Rice, St. Louis Post-Dispatch; The
Rev. Kathleen Reed, New England Synod News; James Thrall and James
Solheim, Episcopal News Service.