Black Country Churches Engaged
the sub-region’s ecumenical intermediate body
Principles of Ecumenism | The Swanwick Declaration | Five Marks of Mission | Ecumenical Officer’s Bons Mots | Pat Nimmo at Walsall on Identity |
Ecumenical Texts
A click on the sub-headings above can lead you to:
the Principles of Ecumenism which are featured on page 9 of Jenny Carpenter's book "Together Locally". The oft-quoted Lund Principle, urging united action whenever possible, was actually posed as a question at the 1952 World Faith & Order Conference at Lund. The British Faith & Order Conference at Nottingham in 1964 added a rider (for after all the Gadarene swine were acting together!). Three years later an increasingly relevant dictum emerged from a group exploring new patterns of church life in Northamptonshire. Ecumenists will have these principles inscribed upon the tablets of their hearts: but why ecumenists only?
On the same page you will find a reflection of Bill Snelson, writing in "Pilgrim Post" in 1997 just before taking over the CTE General Secretaryship. He has sometimes been misquoted, but not here!
The Swanwick Declaration that was adopted at a major conference in 1987 at the culmination of "the Inter-Church Process" a British and Irish church initiative which brought together denominations (including the Catholic Church) not "on board" the former British Council of Churches. The Pilgrim Prayer (see our Worship words) was framed at the same time, and within a few years new "ecumenical instruments" were adopted, including Churches Together in England. The CTE basis and commitment is the foundation of ours.
the Five Marks of Mission which derive, it seems, from the Lambeth Conference of 1988, and while originally enunciated within an Anglican context, have been taken up by the United Reformed Church and commended by Churches Together in England.
a selection of our Ecumenical Officer's Bons Mots. Well, during the 10 years he's been doing this job, he ought to have said something worth-while.
a talk by the Rev Pat Nimmo, Chair of our Enabling Group, given at one of the lunch time services programmed (at The Crossing at St Paul's during Lent) by the Walsall Town Centre Ministry.
Office Address:
18 Selman’s Hill
Bloxwich
Walsall
West Midlands
WS3 3RJ