AN ANGLICAN-METHODIST COVENANT. The Common Statement Charts issues concerning unity in faith, ministry and oversight Proposes a new relationship between.

AN ANGLICAN-METHODIST COVENANT

The Common Statement

• Charts issues concerning unity in faith, ministry and oversight

•Proposes a new relationship between the Methodist Church of Great Britain and the Church of England

The formal conversations

• Seeking visible unity by stages

• Building on existing convergence and co-operation

• Mutually affirming each other’s churches

• Seeking a stepping stone to the next stage

• Releasing energy for mission

• Using the language of covenant

We share a common history

• We each have myths about the other

• We must challenge our own stereotypes

• To tell the common story of God at work in both churches

“The Methodist Church in Great Britain believes it is part of the Holy Catholic Church, called by God for

mission and service”

• A community of over a million people

• In England 300,000 active members

• 6,000 local churches • 600 circuits • 33 districts

• Ministry of Circuit Superintendents and District Chairs

• 2,000 active ministers• 100 deacons• 10,000 local preachers• The World Methodist

Council

The Church of England:

• Two provinces each with their archbishop

• 44 dioceses each with their bishops and cathedrals

• a million Sunday worshippers

• 1,200,000 on Church Electoral rolls

• 16,000 parish churches

• 9,000 stipendiary clergy

• 10,000 Readers • The Anglican

Communion

“Our aim is NOT…to put the clock back

to gloss over differences andto construct a monochrome unity.

It IS

to harvest our diversity

to share our treasures and

to remedy our shortcomings,

so that we may enjoy together

what we believe God has given our churches

and still holds in store for us.”

The formal conversations

• Were given a specific, deliverable mandate

• 11 Church of England participants

• 12 Methodist Church participants

• Five observer-participants from four other churches

• Drew upon the work of Releasing Energy

• Went in parallel with the tri-lateral informal conversations with the United Reformed Church

We share in God’s mission • God’s purpose is to draw redeemed humanity

and the created order together into communion through Christ

• The Church contradicts its own nature and calling when its members are unable to live together in a reconciled fellowship

• Anglicans and Methodists share a conviction that unity and mission belong together

Our growth towards full, visible unity is based in:

• Scripture and the Creeds

• Church of England formularies and other doctrinal statements

• Methodist doctrinal standards

• Reason and experience• A common expression

of faith

• But there are two areas of doctrinal difference:

• The question of freewill or election

• The doctrine of Christian perfection

Sharing one baptism and one eucharist…

a vital dimension of full, visible unity • We already recognise

each other’s baptisms• We already welcome

each other’s communicants to the Eucharist.

• We share ecumenical convergence and common practice in baptism

• We basically agree about confirmation but express it differently

• We agree that baptism is fundamental to membership

• We have similar liturgies of the Eucharist but some differences of practice

A common ministry of word and sacrament

• All ministry is rooted in baptism

• All ministry is the ministry of Christ himself

• The diaconate: differences of understanding and practice

• The presbyterate: pastoral, preaching, teaching and sacramental ministry

“A priest in the Church of England is a person called and ordained to the same ministry of word and sacrament as is exercised by ministers in Methodism. We believe that there is a common understanding of the presbyterate and that this provides a sound foundation for the eventual interchangeability of presbyteral ministries.”

Convergence and unresolved issues

• There is theological convergence on so many essential things. Faith and vision are what are chiefly needed now.

• There are unresolved issues about:

• the ministry of women at every level; and

• presidency at the Eucharist for those not ordained to the presbyterate

A common ministry of oversight

• A united pastoral oversight

• Leading the Church in mission

• Different patterns of oversight in our two churches

• “Personal episcope in both churches is exercised in a collegial and communal context”

We make this Covenant

• From all we have in common

• Making affirmations

• Making commitments

• With penitence for our past divisions

• With thanksgiving and joy for our convergence in faith and collaboration in mission

We affirm one another’s churches as

• Belonging to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church

• Authentically preaching the Word of God

• Duly administering the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist

• Confessing the historic creeds

• Having ordained and lay ministries which are instruments of God’s grace

• Having ministries from Christ and the Holy Spirit

• Embodying the conciliar, connexional nature of the Church and exercising

episcope in various forms

• Sharing a basis for agreement about episcopal oversight

We commit ourselves to

• Overcoming remaining obstacles to unity

• Realising our common life and mission

• Continuing to welcome each other to our churches

• Encouraging eucharistic sharing

• Listening and taking account of each other’s concerns

• Developing further structures on the way to a fully united ministry of oversight

The report makes recommendations to:

• The General Synod of the Church of England

• The Methodist Conference

The recommendations are:

• Study and response in our two churches

• Study and comment by our fellow Methodists and Anglicans in these islands and by our partner churches, especially the URC, and in the ecumenical instruments

• A small joint group to monitor these developments

And after the study and responses...

• Recommendation that the governing bodies of the Churches enter into the Covenant on the basis of the Common Statement

• Working out the commitments through a Joint Implementation Commission

• Priority to the question of the interchangeability of ministries

“The heart of ecumenism is renewal… we need to dwell far less upon our ecclesiastical structures and

far more upon what we can do together as Christians, learning from one another across the denominational

borders, in the deepening of spirituality, in the exploring of theological depth, in evangelism together

and in together saying something and doing something towards the secular community beyond the

Church’s frontier.”

Archbishop Michael Ramsey to the General Synod 1972