An ecumenical meeting will take place in St. John the Baptist Church in Egglescliffe. the meeting is open to anyone wishing to attend.
Below is information from the parish.
Perhaps also, whence ecumenism? For churches working together with the ultimate goal of unity must be a part of the determination of every tradition. Not least because in John’s gospel Jesus is shown as praying that the world, and hence Christians, might be one.
Whence ecumenism is also a sharp question for us here in Eaglescliffe and Yarm. When I first came to Stockton deanery in 1977, one of the features was what was going on in Eaglescliffe. There was something called ‘Key’. What is this ‘Key’? Well it turned out to be Kirklevington, Eaglescliffe and Yarm working together to serve their communities. But when I returned in 2000 I found little of that. I found an occasional meeting of clergy to manage the Week of Prayer service in January, and to some extent Christian Aid week. The fire seemed to have gone out. I was disappointed.
But this is of course what happens to ecumenism when a forward momentum is not maintained. Inter-church relations are always likely to be last on an agenda (I am guilty!) because as traditions we all have our own momentums and priorities. But it won’t do.
The world needs us to work together. It needs our different strategies and emphases, and the wider church needs it too. So the ecumenical planning group, which has on it representatives from most of the traditions at work here, is organizing an open meeting on Monday June 11th at the Parish Hall in Butts Lane. There we shall tell a story or two from the past; look a bit perhaps at where things began to slow down, and why; and consider how we might perhaps regain some of that lost momentum.
So please come along. Monday June 11; Parish Hall, Butts Lane, at 7.30 p.m.