Plea for understanding from NCCT chair

Norwich Central Churches Together chairman John Myhill stepped down at the group’s AGM on February 20, 2007. Here he reports on his two years in charge with a plea for understanding and to work together.

 

It has been a huge privilege to chair the NCCT for the last couple of years. I was eased in by two years following Diana Cooke’s clear leadership and brilliantly supported by Gail Stanley’s reliable thoroughness, so that it was very difficult for me to mess things up!

 

When Diana and I volunteered four years ago, it looked as if the regular cycle of NCCT events might have to come to an end because of a lack of willing officers. 

 

Now I leave with confidence that new chairman Richard Capper and secretary John Ferguson will not just continue the Covenant, they will bring us all closer together in new and imaginative ways.

 

I have especially enjoyed the diversity of ways in which the different churches enable people in Norwich to express their faith. To pass from the high drama of incense and bells at St Giles to the clapping and waving exuberance of King Street, or from the vibrant dancing of the Salvationists to the silent devotion of Quakers, is to delight in the wonderful range of worship styles.

 

The City Council and people of Norwich are impressed by all the social action achieved by the churches, from the Mancroft Advice Project to the Ark, from the care of elderly to support of asylum seekers. We are all making a difference and we are all agreed that we could achieve even more by closer working together. I hope the Street Pastors scheme will be an opportunity for every congregation to send at least one person to work ecumenically on the streets of Norwich.

 

It is much the same in the churches education work for Fair Trade for Justice and Peace and for the Planet. We are much more effective when we work together. And all our work is done under the guidance of the same spirit, held by prayer and celebrated in praise.

 

But for me, the greatest challenge remains that we should recognise and understand our differences, rather than attempting to hide them. Some would sweep under the carpet our theological, doctrinal and creedal differences as if they were of little consequence. 

 

But if we can listen to each other’s reasons for choosing child, adult or no baptism: our belief in the second coming as metaphor: of views of just wars or degrees of pacifism: our very different understandings of miracles, sin, salvation and the soul: if we can listen on the things which divide us and still work together, we may inspire change in all those who are still killing each other because they have different beliefs.

 

The Body of Christ is one and indivisible, and we are often able to recognise that in each other. But for individual Christians to move out of their denominations and live as a full part of that body, we must each pass through a pain barrier, we must face up to the things which divide us and see them afresh with the eyes of love. Our longstanding doctrinal differences are the one source of strength which we have still to be open about and benefit from.