• Phase One: Catholic Learning
• Phase Two: The Local Church

Receptive Ecumenism and the Local Church

A Regional Comparative Research Project

The essential principle is that the primary ecumenical responsibility is to ask not “What do the other traditions first need to learn from us?” but “What do we need to learn from them?”

1. Basic statement of aims

The aim is to conduct a three-year collaborative research project, with full stakeholder participation and ownership, which in a practical manner and at the level of the local church will take forwards the fresh strategy for contemporary ecumenism that was explored in the widely acclaimed January 2006 Catholic Learning and Receptive Ecumenism international research colloquium. The primary focus will be on matters of order, formation and organisational culture with a view to asking what mutual learning might take place in these regards that would help better equip the churches of the north-east of England for mission, both independently and together.Taking the region roughly from the Tees to the Tweed, and from the Pennines to the North Sea, the basic plan is for a comparative study of the workings and organisational cultures of the Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, the Anglican Dioceses of Durham and Newcastle, the Methodist Districts of Darlington and Newcastle, the Northern Synod of the United Reformed Church, the Northern Baptist Association, the Salvation Army, the Society of Friends (and, potentially, some of the new churches) in relation to their respective mission statements along three key trajectories of investigation. These are:

1. governance and finance;
2. learning and formation
3. leadership and ministry

Starting out from an understanding of the respective mission priorities and commitments of each denominational tradition, the intention is:

1. to identify and describe the particular cultures and practices of each denomination in relation to the three identified trajectories;
2. to explore the ways in which each tradition may have useful things to learn from the other participant traditions regarding potential ways ahead with perceived difficulties and in such ways as might help each to realise their mission more fruitfully, both independently and together.

The initial focussing and integrating research questions will be as follows (although it is expected that these will develop and be further refined as the project progresses):

• What are the determining understandings (plural) of mission and associated priorities that are operative within the respective denominational traditions? What are their implicit or explicit missiologies?
• What are the particular institutional structures, systems and processes of each denomination in relation to the three identified trajectories? What are the commonalities and differences in the challenges, opportunities and constraints faced by each of the denominations in these regards?
• Is it possible and appropriate to speak here in terms of diverse denominational characters, cultures and identities?
• What relationships exist between the various embedded structures, systems, processes, characters, cultures and identities and the respective ecclesiological and doctrinal frameworks and missiological priorities and commitments that are operative (at both formal and informal levels) in the various participant traditions?
• What relationships exist between the various embedded structures, systems, processes, characters, cultures and identities and the respective faith practices at communal (church) and individual level?
• Where are the perceived difficulties, limitations and frustrations in the respective practices and structures of the participant traditions in relation to the three designated trajectories of research?
• How do representative members of the participant traditions understand themselves and their respective traditions to be being called to grow and develop in relation to these three trajectories?
• How, in specific ways, might each tradition here fruitfully and with integrity learn from – receive of – the particular gifts and best practice to be found in the other participant traditions?
• What factors militate against the realisation of these possibilities and how might they best be navigated?

Integral to the ethos of the project and its intended practical outcomes is the concern that it be pursued in a spirit of full stakeholder participation and shared ownership. In this spirit, it is very encouraging to note that the relevant church leaders in the region have already given their personal support to the aforementioned traditions becoming full partners in the project. This quite unparalleled level of access and commitment, in combination with the unique partnership that it makes possible between the churches, Durham University and the local theological colleges, provides a unique opportunity for a timely research project that promises to be of real significance for both the churches and the academy in the north-east of England and much further afield. Academically, the project will lead to significant fresh knowledge and understanding in the fields of ecclesiology, ecumenism, practical theology, the sociology and anthropology of religion, and in organisational studies and the study of human resources and finance more generally. Ecclesially, it is envisaged that the project will:

1. issue in the identification of a range of well thought-through and tested specific practical proposals for real receptive learning within the participant traditions that would enable each of them with integrity to live their respective callings and mission more fruitfully;
2. provide a thoroughly researched framework against which to assess how the various traditions might most effectively work together;
3. provide an unparalleled, much needed and highly significant model of good practice – a lived performance of the Gospel – by showing forth a particular, creative way of living the contemporary ecumenical challenge that can be offered to the wider church, nationally and internationally.

2. Practical execution of the project

In terms of the practical execution of the project, whilst all of these details are still fluid and in need of being developed and refined through further conversation with partners, it is at this stage envisaged that:

• there will be three overlapping collaborative research groupings, or teams, corresponding to the earlier stated three key trajectories of research and with approximately eight members in each team;
• there will be a variety of roles in and a corresponding variety of skills required for the balanced composition of each of these teams – where some might play the role simply of a Core Project Advisor (advising, for example, on how the work of the Governance Research Team might best proceed but not actually either pursuing the hands-on research themselves or collaborating in the analysis of the ensuing data and authoring of related essays/papers etc.), a critical number of others will need to be directly involved in the hands-on research and/or subsequent analysis and authoring/co-authoring (with transparent creditable acknowledgment thereof) of the reports, papers and essays for the associated public conferences, edited volume, academic articles and more popular level articles and handbook/guide etc. that will be the main outcomes of the project;
• each research team will be composed of an appropriate mix of: 1) key local practitioners and church personnel (e.g. local ecumenical officers, theological educators, church administrators and other key personnel, e.g. the Northern Field Officer for Churches Together in England); 2) specialists in the fields of finance, management, and organisational studies (from the University’s Business School); and 3) theologians and sociologists/anthropologists of religion (from the University’s Department of Theology & Religion, the local theological colleges and the North of England Institute for Christian Education);
• each research Team will need to have a designated Team Leader;
• the Assistant Director of and Co-ordinating Researcher for the project as a whole (see below) will act as Secretary to and full participant member of all three of these teams (although not necessarily at the level of hands-on researcher within every team).

In terms of timeline, it is envisaged that the project proper will run from October 2007 through to October 2010, with a subsequent dissemination phase. It is further envisaged that the period of the project proper will then fall roughly into three phases.

1. From October 2007 to Easter 2008, partnerships will be formalised, key personnel will continue to be identified and invited, the research teams will be constituted and the formal launch for the project and related ceremony of dedication will be organised. During this period, the monthly meetings of the research teams will be devoted to identifying: the key issues for investigation, the research methods that will be needed to investigate these issues, the relevant training needs of group members, the relevant case-studies the team will work upon and the appropriate division of labour within the teams.
2. From Easter 2008, or earlier, through to Christmas 2009 the research teams will pursue their investigations and be producing relevant interim reports and papers as appropriate (an international conference is to be held in January 2009 on the theme Receptive Ecumenism and Ecclesial Learning: Learning to Be Church Together, coinciding both with the mid-point of the Receptive Ecumenism and the Local Church regional project and the reception of the original volume Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning, (Oxford: OUP, 2007/08).
3. From Christmas 2009 to September 2010, each research team will produce final drafts of the solo and/or joint authored essays that will constitute a full section (one section of essays per team) of the edited scholarly volume that will emanate from the project (some of these, or closely related versions, will also be able to be published in specialist scholarly journals). Similarly, whatever more popular level resources are to emanate from the project (e.g. a practical handbook, study guides etc.) will also be finalised during this period. It is intended that all such publications and resources (including the edited volume) will be in final edited manuscript form ready for immediate dispatch to publishers by the end of September 2010.
4. The subsequent dissemination period will involve (as time-demands permit): the authoring of popular level articles; public presentations and consultancy work; the organising – by the Assistant Project Director in particular – of a major international conference to coincide with the publication of the project volume.

As the above suggests, the basic methodology will be that of case study. In addition to text-based analyses both of extant relevant literature describing the participant traditions in organisational terms and formal expressions of and studies in the respective operative theologies, it is envisaged that a range of empirical approaches will be adopted relative to the specific requirements of the various case-studies. These approaches are likely to include: ethnographic close observation of institutional processes and structures (e.g. parochial councils, diocesan and deanery synods and the like, Bishop’s Council etc); document trails and associated participant journaling of key processes and initiatives; interviews; questionnaires and surveys; focus groups. The intention is to achieve a properly triangulated “thick” description of each tradition, encompassing Research Questions 1-7 (see pp. 1-2 earlier) that will, in turn, provide the basis for addressing Research Questions 8 & 9 concerning what each participant tradition can learn from the exercise and how factors that militate against such learning might best be navigated.In terms of project management, the Directorate for the project will consist of Dr Paul D. Murray (Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology, Durham University and Director of the Durham Research Centre for Catholic Studies) and Dr Mathew Guest (Lecturer in the Sociology of Religion, Durham University) as Co-Directors, with Dr Marcus Pound (Research Fellow in Catholic Studies, Durham University) as Assistant Director and Co-ordinating Researcher.