More Perspectives

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While I was looking for a way of setting up a blog for something else, I found, to my amazement, this blog started in 2009 when I first began working as the URC's Ecumenical Officer.  It has posts on it that I put up when I took part in the World Council of Churches Assembly in South Korea in 2013 and various other activities.  It was not only an act of nostalgia to read them but also informative.  So I have kept them and any reader will realise that there is quite a gap between the dates of those posts and more recent ones, neveretheless, perhaps you will find them equally interesting.  

I retired in 2017 and have made various attempts to start a blog which has usually involved complicated tinkering with Wordpress or such which has taken so much time that I haven't ended up doing what it was originally intended for.  There's a lesson there somewhere, I'm sure.

So this post is put up in April 2021 towards the end of what we hope will be the last lockdown in the Covid 19 pandemic.  Posts from now on will be a mix of news, photos and comment on whatever it seems appropriate to include from now on and this posts is pinned as the starting point for anyone visiting. I hope you will find it of some interest and who knows, maybe some of it will be of use!

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Unity Day at the Assembly

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The Unity Day at the Assembly is really the core of the Assembly because without the search for unity the entire enterprise would not be happenng at all; we would all simply be going our own ways or engaging perhaps in disconnected gatherings focussed on separate issues. Most of the work for the documents that are being worked on has been done by the Faith and Order Commission over years so it is perhaps hard to see how the Assembly can make any substantial difference but some of the statements that are produced are worked on in the ecumenical conversations and there is a careful process of discussion and reflection on the appropriateness of the documents and the ways in which the churches can be asked to reflect and receive the them. The term 'receive' is an important one to explore because it means much more than simple accept and file away or display on the mantelpiece. it means to think about how it can create change within our own thinking and churches. The ecumenic
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5 Denominations Ecumenical Officers' Consultation

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Ecumenical officers from the Baptists, Church of England, Methodists, Roman Catholic and United Reformed Churches came together for 48 hours at the Swanwick conference centre from 11th to 13th October. This was primarily a conference focussed on the Edinburgh conference of 2010 but with a retrospect to the first conference in 1910. What where the characteristics of the Church and society reflected in the first conference, how have things changed over the century in between and where are we now? The standard of input was extremely high and the papers are being made available on the CTE website. One of the noticeable aspects of the meeting was that some people commented on the becalmed state of ecumenical relations in the UK. This was responded to by referring to the changed nature of the dynamics of Ecumenism which is becoming increasingly diverse, moving into areas that were not originally on the agenda. There is progress towards closer relationships between the URC and the C of E,
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Day 2 of the Assembly

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  Day 2 of the Assembly began as each day does with prayer and bible study. The bible studies are either in large plenary sessions or in small groups where there is the scope for shared reflection. This was the one that I chose and as one of the only native English speakers ended up facilitating. The text, within the context of the Assembly theme considered the creation story of Genesis 2, we shared both our undersatanding of the passage and our own thinking about its elevance in our modern context. Perhaps unsurprisingly our small group ended up thinking of the responsibilty for the creation that we are given as a valuable gift emerged as the most important aspect. In the morning plenary we were addressed by the Prime Minister of South Korea which was followed by a conversation between a number of speakers and a young theologian who put questions to them about the future of the ecumenical movement and its connection with the issues that challenge the wider world. At lunch
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