Local Ecumenical Partnerships

The Church needs to find new ways of expressing itself, but the old and continuing ways are equally critical and make a massive contribution to the overall picture. One expression of Church, no longer new by a long way but in which traditional denominations can engage in a meaningful partnership, is the "Local Ecumenical Partnership" (LEP). I have now been involved, as minister, in three, one an informal working together that never became a formal LEP, one a new venture that was initiated during my ministry, and the third a well-established united congregation. My experience tells me that LEPs have a huge amount to offer. There are some strands of current opinion that want to suggest that LEPs have reached their "sell by date" and that we need to find new and alternative ways of doing ecumenism. Clearly not every church is, or should be, an LEP. Equally clearly, we do need new and other ways of being ecumenical. However, I am convinced that new form of ecumenism should be complementary, not an alternative. At present, I am seeing several interesting opportunities for forming new LEPs. There is plenty of evidence against the view that this is not now a good way forward. We need to be looking for all the relevant ways of being the Church in our particular contexts and an LEP offers a real chance for integrated cross-denominational working.