“When I say I’m involved in a cooperating venture, people think it’s something to do with dairy factories,” says Ray Coats.
In fact, he is chairman of the Uniting Congregations of Aotearoa New Zealand, an umbrella for the country’s 140 cooperating/ union parishes that bring together five denominations – Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, Associated Churches of Christ and the Congregational Union.
About 39 percent of Presbyterians and 50 percent of Methodists belong to cooperating parishes.
“Uniting congregations are a movement, not a denomination,” Mr Coats says.
Although some co-operating ventures, such as Raglan, date back more than 50 years, most unions were formed in the 1970s when wide-ranging discussions were held on church union.
“The most viable [now] are those churches that got together because they said, ‘we ought to be together’,” Mr Coats says. He is a Church of Christ lay minister who serves the Central Otago parish Teviot Union, while his wife, Geraldine, is an ordained Church of Christ minister in the adjacent Presbyterian-Methodist parish of Alexandra-Clyde-Lauder.
“One of the joys is the ethos of the partners is well-protected in co-operating ventures,” Mr Coats says. “Uniting congregations are a movement, not a denomination [although] the next step – much further down the track – is developing a theology of uniting congregations.”
Several ministers in such congregations said that, over time, people identified with the parish rather than a particular denomination. The challenge was to ensure that the many strands were drawn together within a parish while remaining connected to the wider church and the denominations on which the parish was based.
The Rev Jenny Campbell, a self-supporting Anglican priest working in Otaki-Waikanae, said a uniting parish utilised “the rich heritage of all the people that they bring to worship and to parish life”.
Drawing not just on one’s own theological training and upbringing but being able to use “a whole range of liturgy and resources” was a great advantage, she says.
Problems could arise because of differences, notably where two sets of buildings were being used and there was no clear parish centre.
Mr Coats agreed, as did Ken Linscott, of Timaru.
A former moderator of South Canterbury
Presbytery and member of the church’s standing committee for co-operating ventures, Mr Linscott described cooperating parishes as “very strong”.
In South Canterbury, six of the 13 parishes were co-operating/union, some having combined “out of necessity”.
The uniting parishes were “more particularly in smaller areas where they had been working together anyway”.
“I’ve been lucky being able to visit lots of parishes, listen to them and see what they’ve been able to do.”
He was impressed by the revitalisation of the concept of the minister as a teaching elder, the way parishes unable to afford full-time ministers had solved the issue, and the use of an “enabler” with responsibility to keep a uniting parish “connected to the wider Church”.
There was nothing to fear from the uniting model.
“Non-co-operating parishes can learn a lot from what is being done [from the] breaking down of barriers between denominations to make sure they work together.”
The biennial conference of the Uniting Congregations of Aotearoa New Zealand will be held in Dunedin in November this year. The theme is “Braided Rivers” and the keynote speaker is Neville Emslie of the School of Ministry.
“We’re going to be talking about what the Church means by unity and where we, uniting congregations, fit in,” Mr Coats said.
• For further information about the conference, contact Ray Coats, email coats@xtra.co.nz