Kimsey Panel Clarifies Partnership Role
Episcopal News Service. December 17, 1976 [76397]
GREENWICH, Conn. -- In what will probably be its final meeting before the Episcopal Church's Partners in Mission Consultations in April, the national planning committee determined that its role should come to an end with the final reports.
The small national planning committee for the consultations -- headed by the Rev. Rustin Kimsey of Oregon -- was given the task by the Church's Executive Council of coordinating the complex two-level consultation, but its initial mandate did not set a cutoff date for the panel's activities.
Meeting at Seabury House here just prior to the Dec. 8-9 Executive Council meeting, the Committee reviewed the consultation planning and began to look to the period beyond the consultations when the Church begins to put into effect the conclusions of those meetings.
Nearly 60 invited Partners from Anglican and other churches will be in this country to take part in the nine simultaneous provincial consultations and then in the Executive Council consultation in Covington, Ky. The Kimsey panel has had the job of helping create and coordinate the nine provincial committees which will handle those consultations and of modifying the standard Partners in Mission design to fit the unique structure of the Executive Council.
Almost all province committees have held their second meetings and Executive Council staff member, the Rev. David Birney, reported that the planning is well-advanced throughout the country. Most of these groups have held at least two meetings and have set up a third to complete their plans, Birney said, adding that a "whole new environment of enthusiasm" was evident in these meetings.
The committee was also told that moderators and most of the invited partners had accepted and that the staff was beginning to assemble informational material for them and to collect biographical material to be made available on those partners who will remain in the country after the final consultation.
Much of the meeting was concerned with details but towards the end, Kimsey asked the members to consider the committee's role once the planning was complete and the consultations were underway. It was pointed out that some sort of body was probably going to have to be available to coordinate the results of the April consultations, the hoped-for partnerships that would come into being between dioceses, parishes or other Church groups.
The Kimsey committee decided that they would remain in office until the final reports of the consultations had been made and, before summer, set plans in motion for another committee -- drawn from provincial and diocesan representatives -- to carry on the actual work that will develop.