From The Church Times-
THE Joint Implementation Commission (JIC) for the Anglican-Methodist Covenant has proposed the establishment of “Covenant Partner ships in Extended Areas” (CPEA) to provide “a greatly enhanced form of shared ministry” between the two Churches.
Its interim report Moving Forward in Covenant, published this week, says that “full and further implementation of the Covenant” has been delayed by both Churches’ being “preoccupied in recent years with ostensibly internal issues”.
It says that “while the Church of England’s process regarding female bishops continues and while there is no clear outcome within the Methodist Church with regard to episcopacy, there is inevitably a sense of hiatus in the structural implementation of the Covenant.”
Given these “concerns and unresolved issues”, it proposes that “a deeper implementation of the Covenant” can be achieved through the establishment of CPEAs.
A CPEA is a form of “shared ministry” in which “ministers of either church can support the worship and outreach of the other”. A CPEA “falls short of” and “is not the same as” interchangeability of minis tries. “CPEAs apply what is permitted under the rules of both Churches to an area wider than the Anglican parish or Methodist local church, extending the provisions to Circuits and deaneries, even in principle to a whole diocese or district, as long as the clergy and people in each place are willing to participate.”
more here-
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=114394
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