CWME was full of tough challenges like that – but also the joy of a common life (praying, talking, breaking bread, sharing the Word) which cultivates the faith and courage we need to face them.
4. After the experience of the Conference, what would you suggest to the Churches' Commission on mission of CTBI in order to advance both the home mission and world mission of the UK?
Well, for a start we need to understand that ‘home’ and ‘overseas’ are artificial constructs. There is now no locality which is not in some sense global. And we cannot make sense of the global without developing a capacity to think and act locally. So global partnership in mission is essential.
Secondly, many of the British and Irish participants in CWME want to explore with the WCC how we deepen and extend our commitment to holistic evangelism – ways of speaking and acting which truly bear witness to the reconciling love of God in Christ. To be evangelists is to carry good news in our whole being. Often ‘preaching the Gospel’ is associated only with small bands of arrogant fanatics. But it is the whole church which has to recover its vocation to hear, say, do and be good news. That is why it is an essentially ecumenical activity.
5. How does the ecumenical movement help the mission in the UK and what do you think is the future trend of the movement?
There are quite good ecumenical relations among the churches in Britain. But I am not sure whether there is much of a movement at the moment. We can get trapped by cosiness and limited in our boundaries. We forget that in the New Testament the oikumene is the ends of the earth to which God impels us. It isn’t about re-engineering church structures.
In CCOM we have a project called Building Bridges of Hope which may point the way forward. Its aim is to provide long-term ecumenical accompaniers – people who can support, encourage and ask questions – to churches seeking to be renewed bridges for the Gospel in their communities. It brings together people who never imagined they had much in common – Catholics and new evangelical churches, for example. To their surprise they discover God speaking through the other. They realise they need one another. And in that way ecumenism and movement became essential, rather than add-on extras.
In this sense I would say that the future of ecumenism is pentecostal (Spirit-driven, in the broadest sense of that term), and vice versa. From the former we get a unifying ethos and a commitment to social justice. From the latter we get the multiplication of gifts and the energy of the word. And together we receive a vision of church-in-mission which is truly catholic.
