Mutual Responsibility Commission Meets in St. Louis
Diocesan Press Service. January 20, 1969 [73-11]
ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- One hundred representatives from sixty-three Dioceses of the Episcopal Church met here for the third annual conference of the Mutual Responsibility Commission. The meeting, held from January 12 to 14, was in response to the Presiding Bishop's "Call to Prayer," issued to the whole Church in July.
The conference leader was the Rev. Canon Douglas A. Rhymes, vicar of St. Giles Church, Camberwell, London, England. The theme of the conference was "Prayer in the Secular City," the title of a book by Canon Rhymes used as the basic material for the conference. His theme was "Praying Your Life."
The Presiding Bishop, the Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, in opening the conference, spoke of a "restlessness" within the Church's membership. He spoke of the desire of Christian people to be up and doing and of the frustrations that harry the lives of sincere seekers who want to follow Jesus Christ.
Dr. James W. Kennedy, Director and Editor of Forward Movement Publications, the Program Chairman of the conference, said:
"This conference might be the beginning of something as significant in the Episcopal Church as The Forward Movement was in the '30's which led to the renewal and reinvigoration of the life of the Church, beginning with the inner life of devotion. "
Group meetings of the conference discussed ways to serve God and man through prayer.
"Does prayer provide avenues for service or does prayer provide a substitute for service?" asked a young woman from upstate New York.
Canon Rhymes' insistence that real prayer is "praying your life" was amply illustrated from the speaker's personal experience in the Soho District of London, and he inspired many of his hearers to want to "go and do likewise." The Very Rev. Charles A. Higgins, Dean of the Cathedral Parish in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Chairman of the Prayer Outreach Committee that sponsored the conference for the General Convention's Mutual Responsibility Commission, said: "Canon Rhymes showed us the way to develop a mutuality of purpose and an interdependence of humanity that is essential to Christian living in our secularized society."
A conference member from Sacramento, Calif., seconded the Dean's summary and predicted that renewal of the average Episcopalian's devotional life may one day look to St. Louis for its beginnings.
A report of the conference with suggestions for possible follow-up in dioceses will be sent soon to all Bishops and MRI diocesan chairmen.