Pulpit Exchange
Diocesan Press Service. February 3, 1967 [51-11]
(EDITORS - During the Spring there will be a massive pulpit exchange among the nine churches involved in the Consultation on Church Union. This is a largely local story, but the following paragraphs may be useful as background.)
The Consultation chairman, the Rev. David G. Colwell, minister of the First Congregational Church of Washington, D.C., has designated Sunday, April 23 as Consultation on Church Union Sunday. In addition congregations all across the country are already involved in local interchurch study groups, using the document Principles of Church Union. These Principles represent the agreement which the Consultation has reached over the past five years.
The nine denominations involved in the Consultation are the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, the Evangelical United Brethren, Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ), the Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Since its founding in April, 1962, the Consultation has met five times.
During its last meeting, in Dallas, Tex. the Consultation approved Principles of Church Union for transmission to participating churches for broadest possible study and resolved that its executive committee develop principles for organization of a united church during 1966-1967.
These principles will be the major subject of the sixth session at the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Mass., 1 - 4.
(EDITORS NOTE: Below is a special prayer written for the sixth plenary session. It is for use in all participating churches throughout the country on April 23, Consultation Sunday.)
Let us pray for the Consultation on Church Union, in session May 1-4 at Cambridge, Massachusetts, that its delegates may be led by God to discover His will for the unity of the Church in our day.
O God, who through Thy Son Jesus Christ hast created the Church, and empowered and renewed her through Thy Holy Spirit so that we are bound together as one people in faith, hope, and love, and commissioned to serve Him through the service of men, we thank Thee for all that Thou hast done for us in Him and in His Church through the ages. Especially we thank Thee for the stirrings within the Church toward a larger obedience and a renewed unity, that Christ may be manifest to all men and accepted and followed as the Lord of life forever.
We confess our need of Thy forgiveness and Thy help. We have been too easily satisfied with our smugness, our insipid concerns with the lesser matters by which we think we avoid Thy requirement of justice, mercy, and faith. We have acted as if the Church were our own, and have not asked of Thee what is required of us to be Christians now. We have repelled others from Thy Church, not because we followed boldly the Pioneer of our faith, but because our lives and actions have not squared with the word we proclaim. From all that hinders Thy light and truth and love in flowing through our lives, deliver us, and make us ready to trust and to obey.
Help us to find the lost greatness in the Church's life, and not to settle for anything less than that great Church Christ gave us. We pray especially for the Consultation on Church Union that its work may bring our churches to a fuller oneness in Thee. Send Thy Spirit upon all in each place who love the Lord Jesus Christ with love undying, that the unity of Thy household may be manifest and visible and the day soon come when all men shall sit down about Thy table and break the bread of fellowship and peace. In His Name. Amen.