wfn.org | UMNS# 04445-Unity commission to help United Methodists discuss

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Unity commission to help United Methodists discuss future 

Sep. 29, 2004	 News media contact:   Linda  Bloom * (646) 3693759*  New
York {04445}

NOTE: Photographs and related coverage, UMNS stories #444 and #446, are
available at http://umns.umc.org.

By Linda Bloom*

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (UMNS) - United Methodists shouldn't focus on debates
over single issues, such as the status of homosexuals in the church or
atonement for past sins of racism.

Instead, argues the Rev. Larry Pickens, all issues must be considered
together in the context "of how we ought to live together and structure our
church for the future."

As the new chief executive of the United Methodist Commission on Christian
Unity and Interreligious Concerns, he hopes his agency can take a lead role
in fostering such discussions.

In his report during the commission's Sept. 22-24 organizing meeting in
Daytona Beach, Pickens recommended the agency create a "long-range planning
and vision committee" to assist the denomination with dialogue and
theological reflection on its future.

Theological discussion also is needed on the global nature of the church-a
concept that United Methodists still struggle with, he told commission
members, "because we are primarily locked into our role of status as North
Americans." Such a role, he added, "creates a reality in which United
Methodists in the United States are oftentimes adverse to sharing power with
... the central conferences (outside the United States)."

As an example, he cited the process of the 2004 General Conference, the
church's top legislative body, in accepting the million-member Methodist
Church of Cote d'Ivoire into the denomination. Concerns arose over how that
membership would affect the church's system of assigning greater voting power
to geographic areas with more members and local churches.

Pickens noted that the denomination often rushes to make financial decisions
without fully weighing the impact on churches in Africa, Europe and the
Philippines. "Part of it, for me, is creating an awareness of what is at
stake for us," he told United Methodist News Service. "Frankly, the growth of
the church is in the central conferences.

"We need to create a culture, or at least a counterculture, in the church
that continues to lift up that we are a global church," he said.

Pickens said he also does not want to ignore conservative doctrinal agendas
and would consider establishing dialogues with unofficial groups such as Good
News, an evangelical renewal organization. "A nation can decide not to have
diplomatic relations with another country, but in this context, we should at
least agree to have conversations."

He called for "significant inroads for unity" with the historic
African-American Methodist denominations through the Commission on
Pan-Methodism and for the planning of a Pan-Methodist youth event.

Outside the denomination, the commission faces the challenge of providing "an
ecumenical and interfaith witness that is becoming ever more difficult in the
face of shrinking resources." He paid tribute to the contributions of his
predecessors-the Rev. Robert Huston, the Rev. Bruce Robbins and Bishop Melvin
Talbert-and noted that Talbert's "courageous advocacy has made an indelible
mark upon the landscape of the modern-day ecumenical movement."

Pickens considers the current ecumenical climate, although somewhat chaotic,
to offer "a time of tremendous opportunity." One opportunity, as well as a
challenge, is to address "the issues of brokenness and unity in our church
and world." Those issues include societal problems, such as poverty and the
AIDS crisis.

On the grass-roots level, he said he wants to improve relationships with
annual conferences and local churches. "Ecumenical formation, the need to
develop future generations of ecumenical leadership, will continue to be a
top priority of our commission," he said. "What we must do is work to develop
a cadre of youth and young adult leadership who will become the heirs of the
ecumenical movement."

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.

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United Methodist News Service