Practical Ecumenism: Joint Worship
Ecumenical joint worship from an Episcopalian–Anglican perspective in North American takes one of the following forms:
- An Anglican church rents space to another church.
- An Anglican church is part of an ecumenical centre. One type of centre is much like a shopping plaza where the various churches share one physical building but maintain separate spaces and, possibly, separate entrances. The other type of ecumenical centre consists of a common hall or space that various churches or faiths occupy on a schedule. For example, the first ecumenical church to be built in Canada in 1968 in Whistler, British Columbia.
- An Anglican church shares a church building and worship space with another church on a fortnightly rotation. One Sunday, the service is Anglican. Next Sunday, the service is of the other church. The congregation can be almost identical on each Sunday so that it is the leaders and style that change. This usually occurs in small and remote communities but there are city examples. For example, St Mark's Anglican Church/Trinity United Church in Vancouver.
- An Anglican church is home to a minister or priest of a different church who leads the occasional service. For example, there is a Lutheran street priest based out of the Anglican cathedral in Vancouver.
- An Anglican and another church hold joint services every Sunday, led by a leader from both churches to a mixed congregation. However, the Roman Catholic Church still insists that the Catholic Mass is celebrated separately and there is no eucharistic sharing.
For example, the Church of the Holy Apostles in Virginia Beach, Virginia: an Anglican/Roman Catholic Church in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia.
There is a diversity of models for joint worship.
Read more about this topic: Anglican Communion And Ecumenism
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