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From the Martin Way Methodist Church Newsletter March 2004:
Working for Christian Unity
Churches Together in Merton Park consists of representatives of five local
churches, St. Mary's, St. James', Martin Way Methodist, Merton Park Baptist
and St. John Fisher. Previously known as the
Merton Park Council of Churches, it has existed for approximately 40 years
to promote church unity in the area. This article outlines the development
of this ecumenical work and explains how the Churches Together group is
considering how it can increase its effectiveness.
The Merton Park Council
of Churches was established some time in the 1960s. It was formed along with
many other such councils, at the time when there was a wave of enthusiasm
for, and interest in church unity work, fuelled by such matters as the work
of the World Council of Churches, discussions between individual churches
such as Anglicans and Methodists and the commitment to ecumenism in the
Catholic Church which emerged after the Second Vatican Council.
Progress, universally,
nationally and locally, was relatively rapid at first and there is no doubt
that significant change occurred. To give some examples of the developments
over the period through the 1970s and 1980s, shared services, particularly
during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, became commonplace;
ecumenical discussion groups sprang up at all levels of the churches; church
leaders began to share platforms to speak out on issues of common concern;
and, possibly the most important change, it became generally recognised that
Baptism, in whatever Christian denomination, provided entry to Christ's
universal Church and that rebaptism was unnecessary if a person switched
denominations.
The same was true in
Merton Park. Through the Council of Churches, united services took place not
only during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity but also on other
occasions; ecumenical discussion groups were held in Lent and sometimes
beyond; various types of joint social events were organised; talks by
invited speakers on a range of subjects were held and significantly,
Christian Care was established as a joint witness to support the homeless
and disadvantaged and, more prominently recently, asylum seekers in the
area.
But by the end of the
1980s or early 1990s, development seemed to plateau, again at all levels.
From being strangers, members of different churches had become friends,
comfortable with each other. And, as often the way with friends, they became
quite happy to be in each other's company, but further growing together
ground to something of a halt. That remains the position. Churches Together
in Merton Park (as Councils of Churches were re-named in the 1990s) still
organises an annual unity service, Lent discussion groups and other events
here and there but nothing new or different. Despite falling attendances,
Christians now seem content in their own separate churches, lacking any
impetus to want to ask themselves what next?
In view of this
apparent stagnation, members of Churches Together in Merton Park have been
asking themselves what its purpose and function should now be and what more
it should be doing. They would be interested in hearing any views that
members of the five churches may have. Some questions which may need to be
asked are as follows:
-
Do the churches really want to
work closer together or are Christians satisfied with the partial unity
that currently exist?
-
If the latter, how does that
address Christ's plea for unity ‘that we all should be one’
-
What more might the
Churches Together in Merton Park group do?
-
How can it encourage
more of the congregations in the five churches to come together in the
events already organised?
-
Is there any real
chance that the churches in Merton Park might be willing to enter a
covenant as church leaders from the various denominations invite us to do?
In brief terms, a covenant would mean our churches would agree formally to
work together and that they would only do separately what they could not
do together.
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