wfn.org | ABC/USA BOARD IN 'COMMON GROUND' PROCESS

[RICH.SCHRAMM@ecunet.org]

To: wfn-editors@wfn.org

AMERICAN BAPTIST NEWS SERVICE 
Office of Communication  
American Baptist Churches USA 
P.O. Box 851, Valley Forge, PA 19482-0851 
Phone: (610)768-2077 / Fax: (610)768-2320 
Web: www.abc-usa.org
Richard W. Schramm, Director 
 E-mail: richard.schramm@abc-usa.org

GENERAL BOARD EXPERIENCES 'COMMON GROUND' 
DIALOGUE PROCESS
 GREEN LAKE, WIS.-The General Board of American 
Baptist Churches USA, meeting here last week in semiannual sessions, 
spent significant time in two plenary sessions engaging in 
the "Common Ground" process of discussion that seeks to deal 
with difficult and divisive issues through respectful 
dialogue as opposed to debate.  
 In announcing the allotment of agenda time for the 
Common Ground dialogue, American Baptist Churches USA 
President Trinette V. McCray said recently that the event 
would be a predictable next step in the General Board's 
attempt to fulfill its own "Resolution Calling For Dialogue 
On Issues of Human Sexuality" which it approved in 1993.   
"We are convinced that the dialogue will enhance our 
experience of who we are as Baptists and that we will indeed 
look to our Baptist heritage, polity and history as we try 
to come to a deeper understanding of our call to be God's 
people rooted in a Baptist tradition," she said.
 The Common Ground process was approved by the General 
Board in 1998, when it approved the Report of the Commission 
on Denominational Unity.  That report recommended the 
process to the denomination as a means of increasing 
understanding and getting past apparently divisive issues to 
focus on those things that bind American Baptists together. 
 Dr. Adrienne Kaufmann, Order of St. Benedict, 
facilitated the Common Ground periods of dialogue.  
Kaufmann, who has used the process for many groups 
experiencing conflicts in their midst, has previously led a 
forum between the Association of Welcoming and Affirming 
Baptists and American Baptist Evangelicals.  The Common 
Ground process has been used with positive outcomes by a 
number of American Baptist groups seeking to understand each 
other better.  
 Among ground rules characterizing the Common Ground 
process are the commitment to refrain from attempts to 
convert or convince and the agreement that the stance of 
participants should be "to understand and to be understood."
 The June 2000 General Board meeting was an appropriate 
time to participate in the Common Ground process, McCray 
said, "precisely because we are not in a moment marked by 
critical notes that would create division and turmoil.  
Absent the heat of a crisis moment, the General Board should 
be able to experience Common Ground and evaluate its 
usefulness effectively....  We believe these hours will be 
well spent."
6/28/00
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