RESOURCING THE CHURCH FOR ECUMENICAL MINISTRy A ...

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that is like a Bach fugue—lifting, floating, flying! For the first fourteen years of our life as a Council, Peter Ainslie, pastor of Christian Temple of Baltimore, served as president. Dark days came to the Council in the 1920s. The Disciples were in the often angry agony of dividing. Peter Ainslie was in the spotlight of contention. He felt he had to remove himself as president of the Council. The days were so dark that Professor Willett of Chicago voiced the fear in many people’s hearts: Can the Council survive without Ainslie? More than a church fight, it was the very wounding of the body of Christ. The music in the heart of those who loved God’s one church was Bach’s “O Sacred Head now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down; . . . mine, mine, was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain.” A dozen years earlier Peter Ainslie had been a mentor to a young student he met in New Haven when he was there to give the Yale Lectures. Soon H.C. Armstrong was on the staff of Christian Temple with his portfolio primarily focused on the work of the Council. God had given us a prophet in Ainslie. Now God gave us a healer. H.C. Armstrong led the Council from 1925 to 1931. We can thank God for H.C. Armstrong that we are still here. George Walker Buckner was one of the volunteer leaders who guided us through the lean depression years of the 1930s. When the financial recovery began, he was named the executive director on a halftime basis, along with serving as editor of World Call magazine. Through him we Disciples were present and contributing when the provisional committee was forming the World Council of Churches and when plans were drafted for the National Council of Churches. The love and commitment of George Buckner to our Council’s calling was like a Bach toccata. It was the music for us to anticipate and prepare for the fugue that followed it and sent us soaring again. Soar we did. George Beazley came to the presidency like Bach’s great Fugue in D Minor. In 1961, after the controversies and the lean times we again were lifted and floating and flying! George Beazley gave us the gift of contagious enthusiasm. His ministry is remembered for the “Beazley Buzz” and Midstream Morgan • Celebrating 100 Years as a Movement for Unity The celebration is not primarily your celebration. It is the church celebrating once again God trusting it to propagate the gospel.” 2 journal and his pioneer work of bringing Disciples on board with the Consultation on Church Union. Dr. Beazley died on World Communion Sunday— during an ecumenical trip to the Soviet Union. In God’s providence the great soaring fugue continued. However, with Paul Crow you get more than a fugue: you get the whole Bach repertoire. Our longest serving president brought us to prominence in the worldwide ecumenical movement of the late twentieth century. A colleague once shared with me of being in the Soviet Union for the millennial celebration of the Christian witness of the Russian people. An orthodox priest made a friendly inquiry about her church in the United States. She said, “Oh, you wouldn’t know us. I’m a Disciples of Christ.” He replied, “Oh, yes, I know you. I know Paul Crow.” I recently led a retreat of Roman Catholics and Disciples in West Virginia. One of the first priests I met asked, “Do you know my friend Paul Crow?” Far away Russia, remote West Virginia—the Disciples ecumenical witness is known. Let me recite a very abbreviated list of the Council’s accomplishments with Paul’s leadership: International Commission for Dialogue between Disciples of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church, full ecumenical partnership of the Disciples and the United Church of Christ, the creation of the Peter Ainslie III Lectures, and the Joe and Nancy Vaughn Stalcup Lectures on Christian Unity, and the work of the Disciples Commission on Theology which led to the publication of the major volume, The Church for Disciples of Christ. For this last decade we have been led by Robert Welsh. Robert’s leadership has connections to the legacy of Peter Ainslie. Ainslie called Disciples again to our founder’s frontier vision to be a people of unity. Ainslie mentored H. C. Armstrong so that a new generation could ably take its place in ecumenical leadership. Robert and the Council are calling us again to form a new generation of leaders as we go to new frontiers of exploring interfaith dialogue and healing the wounds among those who share the legacy of Barton Stone and Thomas and Alexander Campbell. Robert and Peter share another gift, the solid
spiritual foundation of prayer. Robert’s immersion in the spirituality of the Orthodox tradition lets us recall Ainslie’s teaching; prayer is not a request to get something but a way to become something— something new. What you believe is not as important as whom you believe. The music of Bach quietly plays Jesu, Joy of Our Desiring. Professor Crow, that’s the recitation of my history lesson for today. But I would like to add a personal 3 word to you, Paul, my dear friend, teacher and mentor. Forty-eight years ago you taught me well a lesson I echo back from a classroom at the College of the Bible in Lexington. When we remember and honor the Council’s century-long ministry, we are like the great Johann Sebastian Bach offering his music. It is “soli deo Gloria”—for the “glory of God alone.” Morgan • Celebrating 100 Years as a Movement for Unity
Page 1 and 2: Call to Unity Resourcing the Church
Page 3 and 4: Call to Unity Resourcing the Church
Page 5: Celebrating 100 Years as a Movement
Page 9 and 10: challenges that we will explore in
Page 11 and 12: Local and Universal We don’t talk
Page 13 and 14: Understanding the Lord’s Supper f
Page 15 and 16: “Christians cannot partake at the
Page 17 and 18: himself, excluding and excommunicat
Page 19 and 20: Being a Multicultural and Inclusive
Page 21 and 22: than our own cultural and tradition
Page 23 and 24: To help stimulate discussion of the
Page 25 and 26: approved a resolution in 1927 to ex
Page 27 and 28: of time and capacity. Who on earth
Page 29 and 30: ogists would call this the bonding
Page 31 and 32: nations. This yoked relationship ha
Page 33 and 34: Christian Unity, Prophetic Witness,
Page 35 and 36: persons remains particularly releva
Page 37 and 38: 1. Thanks to Mandy Burton, Kristel
Page 39 and 40: leaders proclaim themselves experts
Page 41 and 42: and denomination. To my surprise, t
Page 43 and 44: necessary. You can live without an
Page 45 and 46: Rev. Andy Mangum serves as Senior M
Page 47 and 48: a pluralistic context, Christians w
Page 49 and 50: egarded segregation as acceptable,
Page 51 and 52: Sermon Winds of Unity John 3:1-10 D
Page 53 and 54: Dr. Sharon E. Watkins is the Genera
Page 55 and 56: in Christ Jesus? What if we would e
Page 57 and 58:
• The challenge and opportunities
Page 59 and 60:
prayer for Christian unity. It is m
Page 61 and 62:
Rev. Dr. Thomas F. Best, a pastor o
Page 63 and 64:
I believe that the Second Joe A. an
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