New Ecumenical Partnership
The Scottish Episcopal Church has entered into a new ecumenical partnership with the Methodist Church in Scotland and the United Reformed Church in Scotland. This marks the culmination (the end?) of what has been called the EMU (Episcopalian, Methodist and URC) talks which came about when the Church of Scotland pulled the plug on the Scottish Churches Initiative for Uion (SCIFU) venture, which the Scottish Episcopal Church had initiated.
The new agreement was signed in Perth this weekend and so far as I can tell, has been met with almost universal silence in the press and with almost complete ignorance by thosemost of those who come to our churches.
I’ve been trying to find the text online, but all I can find is on this page on the URC website, and I can’t work out whether the document has been modified since then.
The text I have is this:
STATEMENT OF PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN
THE SCOTTISH EPISCOPAL CHURCH
NATIONAL SYNOD OF SCOTLAND
THE METHODIST CHURCH IN SCOTLANDWe, the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Synod of the Scotland District of the Methodist Church and the National Synod of Scotland of the United Reformed Church, in recognition of our developing relationships, instigate this statement of partnership. We solemnly declare that we will work for ever closer co-operation in serving Christ. We are glad of the partnerships that have already been established between us and commit ourselves to strengthening these relationships and building new ones. By regular meetings between our various officers, and encouragement to our congregations, we shall work to identify, explore and develop opportunities to share in mission and ministry by continuing to forge stronger ties between us. Specifically we shall explore together ways of:
Being Church and serving God together; (1)
Increasing the confidence of our members to speak of God and faith in ways that make sense to others; (2)
Cooperating in teaching and learning about Jesus Christ, and our mission together; (3)
Cooperating on Church and Society issues, supporting community development and taking action together for justice, especially among the most deprived and poor in Scotland; (4)
Sharing in the provision and deployment of both lay and ordained ministries of all the people of God; (5)
Sharing our resources across Scotland to fulfil our shared Christian mission to spread the Gospel (6)
We shall seek to widen our Ecumenical engagement within this Partnership and with other denominations, wherever possible, so that our working together may be as wide as possible and our diversity not hindered by ongoing dis-union and rivalry. (7)
Progress in this partnership will be formally reviewed on a 5 yearly basis from the date of signature.In signing this statement we affirm our commitment to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and trust in God’s power for the implementation of this partnership.
Here is what I think of the points listed above:
1 – guff
2 – quite hard to achieve and difficult to measure meaningfully
3 – probably not specific enough to mean much.
4 – really good idea – lets hope this one works.
5 – why are we considering sharing in deployment with churches we are not in communion with? In what sense are we to provide or deploy lay ministries to the Methodists or the URC?
6 – not remotely serious – no budget I’ve ever seen in our church makes any provision for this. Not one single line. Not one single pound.
7 – Is there any risk that the broader this gets, the less it will mean?
I know I’m supposed to be enthusiastic about this. I’m not really though. There is a frightening ecumentical correctness at synods which makes it hard to express any belief in one’s own Orders sometimes. I don’t buy the idea that the SEC and the URC and the Methodists have particularly been treating one another as rivals. Nor do I feel that we have been living in any disunity that is somehow made less by this agreement.
Anyway, here’s hoping that number 4 works well.
Anyone else want to chime in with what they think these 7 points mean? If I’ve got the wrong text, will someone put me right?
No related posts.
Posted: January 24th, 2010 under Blog.
Comments
Comment from kelvin
Time 24 January 2010 at 8:23 pm
What, Dougal, you mean that the Methodists and the URC can use Adventures in Faith before you’ve shared it with the other pisky dioceses?
Comment from David Campbell
Time 25 January 2010 at 7:15 am
I must disagree with the learned Fr Dougal – there were, when I was last there, 3 men and a dog at Rosyth! Of course, depending on your standpoint, everything Piskies and Methodists do at the ‘altar’ are ‘lay’ celebrations!
Comment from Tim
Time 25 January 2010 at 9:09 am
Interesting. Can’t remember where I saw that announced (provincial website news?) but it struck me as an area of some potential friendliness, at least.
Maybe an angle to consider is the legal standing of the document. Let’s propose a future event, where the URCs, methodists and piskies have a 5-a-side fuit-ba’ tournament. If someone scores a goal will they be able to turn around and say “hey, point 1! We’re Being Church and serving God together!”? (Will the losers also? 
Comment from Beat Attitude
Time 25 January 2010 at 10:39 am
Is the point not just them saying to their respective flocks “you don’t have to be quite so cautious in dealing with these other denominations” and to encourage churches to approach one another to support initiatives…anything we can do to help, kind of thing.
Regarding resources, I don’t think it’s about budget so much as things like fixed assets, contacts, infrastructures. If the piskies need a venue to host a special multimedia event and the methodists up the road have the perfect hall, then this kind of document encourages them to pool their resources when it’s useful to do so.
Comment from fr dougal
Time 26 January 2010 at 9:37 am
Before we shared AiF with the Hoi Polloi? I thought we had let you use bits? Tsk, if we haven’t!
Er, ok Fr Pat, the ancien regieme Anglo-Catholic theology of orders is still alive north of the Queensferry Road I see!
I’m not sure if an inter Church 5 a side would promote unity or encourage a punch up – Congregationalist/SEC ping pong matches were quite competitive at Coates Hall!
Comment from annie t
Time 26 January 2010 at 11:17 am
Saturday’s signing was a well-attended, significant and deeply celebratory event, and the covenant is a much more positive and ‘earthed in reality’ statement than you give it credit. To take just one of the listed avenues of co-operation: in the field of congregational development and indeed also in the field of theological education for laity and ordinands alike, much good fruit has already been grown. The illustrated text is available at http://www.scotland.anglican.org/media/news/files/statement_of_partnership.pdf
Comment from Kelvin
Time 26 January 2010 at 11:29 am
If there is good work going on in the field of theological education, particularly for ordinands, then it is important that we know more about it.
I confess that I’ve never heard any of our ordinands speak of their excitement generated by this level of sharing between these three churches, so it is good to hear that it is there. Maybe I’m a bit out of the loop.
Want to tell us more, Annie T?
Comment from annie t
Time 26 January 2010 at 1:47 pm
If you want to experience a local expression of this, then you are most welcome to attend any of the Ministry Reflection Course sessions in your own diocese, where there is an ecumenical mix. On Saturday, those present heard about the exciting moves towards Federated ordination training (as well as receiving an ecumenically-produced workbook for congregational development). Again, in your own diocese, there are plans for joint EMU CMD sessions. The loop is well and truly alive and functioning.
Comment from Kimberly
Time 26 January 2010 at 3:24 pm
Annie, could you say more about what the phrase ‘Federated ordination training’ means? I haven’t come across it before.
Comment from kelvin
Time 26 January 2010 at 3:37 pm
Good to hear the loop is alive and functioning.
I’m aware that there has been an ecumenical mix in training sessions for a long time, since the Methodist Church in Scotland started to use TISEC for some of its training. Does this new agreement lead to something even more exciting than that?
Is a Federated Ordination scheme what SCOC might have been if the Scottish churches had had the courage of their convictions 10 or fifteen years ago?
I would like to come to a Ministry Reflections session and would enjoy the opportunity to be there.
Comment from annie t
Time 26 January 2010 at 3:39 pm
Used in the same way as ‘The Cambridge Federation’; Mike F or David L are your best sources of internal further information, Kimberley, or else Principal Jack Dyce for the URC and Helen Wareing for the Methodists. They are on the relevant working party.
Comment from Bungie
Time 1 February 2010 at 9:48 pm
Sorry you had difficulty finding the document. It was there all along via a link at the bottom of the text you quote above but perhaps not clearly labelled. Next time we’ll make the link clearer.
A direct link to the pdf is
http://scotland.urc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/emu-statement-of-partnership-0903091.pdf
Comment from fr dougal
Time 24 January 2010 at 8:17 pm
1 – agree 2- ditto 3- they can use our adventures in Faith material (big radical step woo!) 4- yes great 5- only makes sense if there is general acceptance of ordained ministries and did that get agreed at Synod? Otherwise only affects SEC Methodist LEP’s like Rosyth (2 men and a dog) and Dumfries (6 1/2 Methodists) or Livingston LEP where current local agreements cover the ground. And where do Lay celebrations fir into this? 6 – And between the 3 of us we haven’t the money
7 – Bland and really unexciting
Was this worth the candle after SCIFU conked out? Debatable.