The future of the church in New England is boldly ecumenical

Martha Whyte, Assistant to the Bishop, New England Synod, ELCA

The future of the church in New England is boldly ecumenical,” said Bishop Hazelwood at the conclusion of an all-day retreat that involved leadership from the New England Synod (NES), the Episcopal Diocese of Western Mass (TEC - https://www.diocesewma. org/), and the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ (SNEUCC - https://www.sneucc. org/).

The New England Synod House was host to this gathering of ecumenical leaders this week, who spent the day connecting with their counterparts across the synod, SNEUCC, and TEC. Together they shared their expertise, experiences, resources, successes, and challenges. They also delved into opportunities that exist for collaboration across and between the three church bodies. What are we doing separately that we could do (better) together?

Rev. Jenny Gregg (TEC) who serves in Pittsfield, MA shared the story of a partnership event around the Easter vigil where the worshiping group moved between the Episcopal, Lutheran, and UCC churches in the area. Reaching out to the local school system in a show of support for teachers and staff resulted in 1,200 letters of support being written to area school teachers by members of the three congregations. Collaboration made this happen!

The gathered staff discussed multiple points where resources might be shared including:

• resourcing small congregations

• shared worship or fellowship events between congregations

• congregations sharing pastoral staffing

• clergy training programs

• first call clergy support

• lay leader training programs

• environmental issues

• diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives

• building bridges from congregations to communities

• creating a collective narrative of transformation

• biannual meetings of staff counterparts to encourage further collaboration

The retreat, organized by Together We Thrive (TWT) (https://www. togetherwethrivegrant.org/), comes as the grant funded initiative for clergy support and development winds down this year. It marks a transition point for the work of TWT as the Program Director Rev. Heather Ramsey Mabrouk and the advisory board look ahead to the end of the grant period and discern the work that might be continued with these three judicatories, who came together for the original grant initiative. ♦