wfn.org | Nine churches plan meeting to consider future steps

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Jan. 8, 1999	Contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
10-21-71B{011}

By United Methodist News Service

How will a movement toward unity that began with a pulpit call nearly 40
years ago continue moving ahead?

The answer, United Methodist delegates hope, will come from Jan. 20-24
meeting of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) in St. Louis. They will
be among the representatives of nine Protestant denominations considering
not a merger but a way to reach full recognition of 
each other's ministries.

"We're seeking a way forward," explained United Methodist Bishop William
Boyd Grove, the denomination's ecumenical officer and a member of  COCU's
executive committee. "Many believe, I among them, that we have to come out
of this with something that holds the nine churches together."

The Rev. Gerald Moede, a United Methodist pastor who served as COCU's
general secretary from 1974 to 1988, told United Methodist News Service that
a major benefit of the ecumenical movement as a whole is "the experiences
you have, the people you meet, the unity you build and share."

He wants COCU to continue so ordinary parishioners can "experience the
oneness," not just church leaders and those who serve on committees or
commissions.

In the prologue of a paper written for the upcoming plenary, Moede noted
that COCU came about "in a decade when unity was being taken seriously. Many
churches were preparing for actual union. Many lives were changed in this
process, and millions of Christians who had previously lived in divided,
competing churches now shared peaceful relations with others in united
churches."

While the COCU journey has brought "great blessings," he continued, the goal
is to make unity a daily experience among all churchgoers. If the churches
are not willing to act by committing themselves in covenant communion, he
declared, "all of these years of preparation and agreement-building will
have been tragically wasted."

COCU's beginning was sparked by a Dec. 4, 1960, sermon by Presbyterian
minister Eugene Carson Blake at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. "Led, I
pray, by the Holy Spirit, I propose to the Protestant Episcopal Church that
it together with the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of
America invite the Methodist Church and the United Church of Christ to form
with us a plan of church union both catholic and reformed."

The "reunited church," he said, would include a ministry whose orders and
ordination "is recognized as widely as possible by all other Christian
bodies;" that would clearly confess the historic Trinitarian faith;
administer the sacraments of Holy Communion and Baptism; continue the
reformation tradition; be truly democratic in its governance; recapture a
sense of fellowship of all its members and ministers; and include "a wide
diversity of theological formulation of the faith," along with variety in
worship and liturgy.

Two years after Blake's sermon, COCU was officially constituted by those
four denominations. By 1963, two more communions, Evangelical United
Brethren and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) had joined the
conversation. Eventually, nine members emerged: the United Methodists,
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), United Church of Christ,
Presbyterian Church (USA), Episcopal Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal
Church (CME), African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and the African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZ).

By 1973, COCU members began to move away from a plan of actual merger to
pursue another type of unity. During the 1974 plenary in Cincinnati, where
Moede became general secretary, there was a shift toward the acceptance of
theological pluralism and a desire to address racial, sexual, cultural and
economic issues.

By the end of what Moede calls "COCU's second era," in 1988, the churches
approved the plan of action, "Churches in Covenant Communion: The Church of
Christ Uniting." Each denomination was asked to approve it by separate
action.

Denominations also were asked to declare a willingness to enter into a
relationship of covenant communion with other COCU members approving the
plan and its theological basis, "The COCU Consensus."

The eight elements of the COCU proposal had become claiming unity in faith;
commitment to seek unity with wholeness; mutual recognition of members in
one baptism; mutual recognition of each other as churches; mutual
recognition of ordained ministry; celebrating the Eucharist together;
engaging together in Christ's mission and forming covenanting councils.

The United Methodist Church adopted "The COCU Consensus" at the 1988 General
Conference. It then became the sixth and largest denomination to adopt the
covenanting proposal, or plan of action, in 1996. Nearly 70 percent of the
General Conference delegates accepted the proposal, which was presented by
the Council of Bishops.

One of the major impediments facing the St. Louis plenary is the fact that
the Episcopal Church has yet to vote on either document. Grove noted,
however, that "their commitment to COCU has been renewed."

Moede said that COCU would be "very different and, to me, incomplete," if
the Episcopal Church was to drop out. "I hope and pray that a way is found
to reinvolve the Episcopal Church and its leadership," he added.

Much of the work at the plenary will be done through a "discernment
process." United Methodist Bishop Susan Hassinger of the Boston Area is the
resource person for that process.

In her preparatory paper for the meeting, Hassinger explained that spiritual
discernment recognizes all are still learning as disciples of Christ and
allows the listener to "hear Christ" in the other person. "And together, by
prayerful discussion, we may sense where God's Spirit is leading us in
matters that are critical to our life together."

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