Week 32—Thursday Romans 13:8-10
Romans 13:8-10
CHURCH UNION LED TO COMMUNITY UNION
We continue our consideration of ecumenicity become flesh in the town of Lunenburg, Massachusetts. The union there was a Federal Union made up of the Congregationalist Branch, the Methodist Branch, and the various people, not Congregationalist or Methodist who were brought in as members of the United Parish. When they say they had church union they went a step further and planned community union—they united the community around the United Church. They went out and raised $130,000 to put up a parish house which would be a center for church and community activities. The two Branches had separate church services, but one Sunday school in the parish house, thus saving each Branch from building a separate educational plant. The young couples could now do community and church service as one. They did not have to choose between them.
The tenth anniversary celebration brought out the fact that the churches and town had found real unity. And were they enthusiastic! At a panel discussion of achievements, the Methodist pastor said, “Before the coming of this union it was not respectable to be a Methodist in this town. Now it is. Before, I was the pastor of a segment of the town—the Methodists; now with my brother pastor I’m the pastor of a whole town, we are both in on everything.”
The Methodist and Congregationalist district superintendents were at the celebration and backing the plan, for the two Branches were still members of the Methodist and Congregational wider fellowships and sent their benevolences to them. Yet they were really united at the local level.
And now the plan is being inaugurated in a hundred localities across the country with the Lunenburg group giving their witness to what has happened. Dr. Pat McConnell, a rural-life expert, said, “This is the best answer on the local level we have.” But this is Federal Union at the grass roots, ecumenicity in shoes, the word of church union become flesh.
O God, our Father, as we have seen these possibilities help us to act upon them and put them into operation. For your prayer that we may be one must be answered. Help us to answer it by planting these demonstration centers everywhere. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I will demonstrate the ecumenical spirit by being a brother (or sister) to all my brothers and sisters in Christ.