The fourth – and penultimate – round of conversations of the international dialogue between Baptists and Methodists took place from 1-8 Feb 2017 at Runaway Bay, Jamaica. The overall theme of the five-year dialogue between the Baptist World Alliance and the World Methodist Council is “faith working through love”, and this year’s conversations centred on “Grace and faith: sung and preached, lived and shared”.
Participants discussed a range of papers on the works of piety and mercy, in worship and preaching, including hymnody, and in the outworking of faith in practice among Methodists and Baptists in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean.
As well as considering the 10 papers submitted for discussion, work began on compiling the final report and preparing for the concluding meeting scheduled for 14-21 March 2018 at Sarum College, Salisbury, in the UK.
The dialogue members participated in Sunday worship at Hoolebury Methodist Church in the St. Ann’s Bay Circuit of the Jamaica District. They were joined for the service and lunch by Bishop Everard Galbraith of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and Americas. Earlier, the group also visited the denominational offices of the Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU) and Jamaica Methodist District in Kingston, stopped at the United Theological College on the campus of the University of the West Indies at Mona, called at the Bob Marley Museum, and were hosted for dinner by the General Secretary of the JBU, the Rev Karl B. Johnson.
The Rev Malcolm Tan, Pastor-in-Charge of Covenant Community Methodist Church (CCMC) and Training Consultant to the Methodist Missions Society, was part of the six-member Methodist delegation. The second round of conversations had been held in Singapore at CCMC (see MM April 2015, P21).
For the official communique, see http://worldmethodistcouncil.org/2017-bilateral-dialogue-between-the-baptist-world-alliance-and-the-world-methodist-council-concludes-in-jamaica/