wfn.org | COCU Asks Congregations to Pray For Plenary

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17-November-1998 
98371 
 
    COCU Asks Congregations to Pray For Plenary 
 
    by Jean Caffey Lyles 
    Consultation on Church Union Press Officer 
 
ST. LOUIS-Leaders of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) have called on 
the congregations of its nine member denominations to pray for an important 
January decision-making gathering of COCU delegates here. 
 
    COCU's 18th Plenary - its first in a decade - will receive reports from 
member churches giving their official responses to "Churches in Covenant 
Communion," a document approved by delegates to the 17th Plenary in 
December 1988 in New Orleans. 
 
    The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approved the 
document, but its presbyteries rejected a series of constitutional 
amendments to implement provisions of the "covenanting" proposals in the 
denomination. 
 
    Plenary delegates will seek to craft a document suggesting to the 
churches the next steps for COCU, which has been striving toward an 
acceptable and workable model of "visible unity" since the early 1960s. 
 
    At an Oct. 19-20 meeting here, the consultation's executive committee 
put the finishing touches on the agenda for the Jan. 20-24 Plenary, to be 
held at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis at Union Station. 
 
    COCU leaders hope congregations will use the prayer in services on the 
Sunday mornings before and during the Plenary meeting, said Vivian U. 
Robinson of Augusta, Ga., president of the consultation and a lay member of 
the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
    COCU member denominations are the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 
the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Christian Church 
(Disciples of Christ), the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, the 
Episcopal Church, the International Council of Community Churches, the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Church of Christ, and the United 
Methodist Church. 
 
    The full text of the prayer: 
 
    A Prayer for the Consultation on Church Union 
 
God of hope, 
Who calls us to abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit, 
We give you thanks for our common calling in Christ. 
You have made us one. 
Help us to become what you have made us. 
Show us how this Christlike hope can calm our fears 
and shape our future as You would have it. 
 
Soon nine churches will meet in St. Louis. 
Sisters and brothers in Christ will come together through the Consultation 
on Church Union. 
Grant that all who are gathered, 
And the communion of saints in all the churches, 
Will be blessed with the gifts of the Spirit in their days of discernment. 
 
Help us see beyond our divisions to your unity. 
Guide us into that new way of being. 
When we do not know how, show us the way. 
Give us courage. 
Give us strength. 
Give us hope. 
And give us that joy which comes from rooting our being in You, 
The Holy One who makes us One. 
 
Amen. 

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