Ecumenical relations agency will seek interim staff executive
7/7/2003 This report is a sidebar to UMNS story #349. DAYTONA
BEACH, Fla. (UMNS) - Along with issues of structure, the United
Methodist Church's ecumenical relations agency acted on several other
items at its June 26-30 session.
Directors of the Commission on
Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns moved to seek an interim
general secretary for the first six months of 2004. Because of the
12-year limitation on elected staff, the Rev. Bruce Robbins will be
leaving the commission staff's top spot at the end of this year. In
addition, the commission extended the election of Associate General
Secretary Anne Marshall to the end of June 2004. She too is completing
her 12th year in that position.
The commission agreed that the
National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA had corrected its
financial problems and reorganized it procedures. The commission is
recommending that the interest the NCC has paid on the $400,000 loan
granted by the General Council of Finance and Administration on behalf
of the United Methodist Church be given back as specified in the
original agreement.
Looking at their own achievements, members of
the commission affirmed their work on racism and homosexuality,
including supporting acts of repentance observances in most of the
annual (regional) conferences and dialogues on homosexuality conducted
with the Council of Bishops, the General Council on Ministries and
racial and ethnic constituencies. A fourth dialogue for youth and young
adults is scheduled this fall.
"We've only scratched the surface
on these substantive issues," said Janice Love, a co-chairwoman of the
task force that shaped the dialogues. She spoke of "a great hunger for
models of grace-filled civility." Participants voiced the belief that
the worship settings for the dialogues were absolutely essential in
establishing a tone of civility in which people were able to express
themselves and disagree.
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