Consultation on Congregations in Mission Meets in Durham
Diocesan Press Service. April 28, 1969 [77-1]
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- When a priest or minister lets his congregation make the decisions some unexpected things can and do happen. Repeatedly, participants in an ecumenical "Consultation on Congregations in Mission" stressed this fact of Church life as they met in Durham, N. C. April 24-26.
Why or how this occurs could not be defined. The thirty-some participants in the Consultation -- all of whom are involved in "live," exciting, experimental congregations -- could not, themselves, describe why or how it happens that particular congregations develop a special "style of life. "
As they talked about their local situations -- whether in Waterloo, Iowa; Mobile, Ala. or New York City -- it became obvious that one common factor in the changes that had occurred and are occurring is that the laity are making major decisions and are not afraid of controversy.
At Payne Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church in Waterloo, Iowa, members of the congregation are involved in all of the major issues of their community, including a program to develop low-cost housing.
The congregation at St. Mark's-in-the-Bowery, Manhattan, took the initiative in many of the liturgical changes which have occurred there. It was parishioners, for example, who decided to remove half of the pews in the church and then did the job. Dancing during recent electronic masses has been one result of the innovation. The space and freedom has given a new dimension to the congregation's sense of unity in worship.
Laity, too, have been instrumental in pinpointing needs the congregations had to meet.. Black members at St. Clement's, Manhattan, startled the vicar by bringing to his attention the tact that the American Place Theatre, which shared the building with St. Clement's on West 46th Street, was not hiring blacks, except for black plays.
The incident helped to illustrate, the vicar said, that even in an avant garde congregation, such as St. Clement's, "racist" practices exist which need to be erased.
How the laity uses its power differs with each congregation. In one Virginia congregation all the laity are involved by choosing the vestry out of a hat and by assigning parish tasks to everyone on a rotating basis. In other places sensitivity training has been used to help the congregation to know themselves and each other. In still others the priest has deliberately refused to exert his authority, making the vestry or some other lay leadership make the decisions.
All admitted, however, that the basic question is not lay leadership alone, but rather the development of a spirit of freedom and honesty in which a congregation faces its internal life and its life in the world.
The members of the Consultation did some experimenting of their own and designed a special liturgy for Saturday morning, the last session of the meeting. it was a simple, brief, and moving celebration "of our unity." Poems and scripture were read; the Kiss of Peace was passed; a Gospel hymn was sung. Four priests then blessed the bread and wine and participants passed these elements to each other.
As the Very Rev. George Alexander, Dean of the School of Theology at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn., and an observer at the conference said in summing up his impression:
"The thing that catches my imagination is that things are going on all over. They aren't necessarily reproducible elsewhere, but they don't need to be."
The Consultation was sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, the Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, the Overseas Missionary Society and Complex, Inc., an ecumenical mission group in North Carolina. Representatives of seven communions from all over the country took part.