FROM Reading the headlines in the papers you'd think that the Church was constantly on the point of blowing itself apart over some issue or another. There always seems to be something that is making some people hot under the collar.
But that's not the BIG STORY as I see it.
What's struck me over recent months is how surely and steadily the churches are in fact growing together - how old wounds, once deep and festering, suddenly seem much closer to healing than they have seemed for many a long year. Right across the Christian Church, people are working together to realise Jesus' prayer that his followers should live and work and pray together in unity.
For instance: it hasn't made the headlines but the fact is that Methodist Church and the Church of England are drawing steadily closer together. At the beginning of July, the Methodist Conference over-whelmingly approved a 'Covenant' - an agreement for working together with the Church of England. This covenant, which has already been endorsed locally at parish, deanery and diocesan level, comes before the General Synod of the Church of England this month.
Again, at the end of May, I made my two-yearly trip to Germany to attend the Kirchentag - a vast assembly of Christians from across the world. This year there were more than ever gathered in Berlin - perhaps 400,000 people took part over the five days - because for the first time the Kirchentag was run by both the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Churches of Germany - with active participation by Orthodox, Methodist, Anglican and other groups of Christians as well. (pictures)
And in a land which five hundred years ago witnessed the most bitter struggles of the Reformation, one of the highlights of the Kirchentag was the signing by some 16 denominations of a Charta Ocumenica, committing them to a programme of working together for the future.
And then, at the closing worship on the Place of Unity in front of the Reichstag, the German Parliament building, and involving over 200,000 people, this vast congregation celebrated their solidarity in Christian Baptism by blessing each other and anointing one another with water drawn from a vast transparent font in the centre of the arena.
My sense of a growing goodwill and practical cooperation between the churches was reinforced a few weeks later when I travelled to Lancashire for a family baptism in a Roman Catholic church. Here, I was able to take some part, something that would have been unthinkable even twenty years ago.
And when I reflect on the fact that in spite of continuing differences, other groups of Christians are drawing increasingly on the rich storehouse of shared signs and symbols which come from 2,000 years of Christian tradition, I find myself filled with hope that the many styles and flavours of Christians may present themselves as one Church and one Family of Jesus Christ in a world that most certainly needs to hear the Good News that Jesus himself commissioned them to proclaim.
John-David Yule