Storyteller's World

Daniel's piece about denominations (NeoTheo(b)log: "Denominations are our downfall") reminded me of how it was when I worked in an LEP (Local Ecumenical Project, for those outside the British church scene) in the late 1980's. It was in a new town area on the west of Swindon (called, surprisingly, West Swindon), where 35,000 people were being settled on a green field site. Back then, and still today, for all I know, the mainstream churches believed that any new church-building was best done ecumenically, so we solemnly set up this LEP with Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists, URC and - to a lesser extent, goes without saying :-) RCs - working together.

And it went like this. It was very much a mission situation. So we would work with people and bring them to some kind of Christian faith, and then induct them into church life by making them members of all the sharing churches. And when they asked what kind of church we were, we would say something like:
"When you join the church here, you become a member of the C of E, the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church and the URC."
"How is that possible?"
"Ah, it's because we're an LEP."
"What's an LEP?"
"It's a church where all the denominations are working together."
"What's a denomination?"

And that was one of the main reasons why I gave up on the ecumenical movement. Because instead of moving beyond, or doing away with, denominations, it needed to perpetuate them in order to fulfil its purpose. A bit like a church that dealt heroin so that there would always be addicts to save. Ouch! that was a bit rough. Sorry, all you ecumenists, if that hurt. I speak as a man who used to believe in Christian unity but whose faith in it was shattered by the sheer institutionalism of it all.