After seven years of serving as County Ecumenical Officer (CEO) for Churches Together in Devon, I was asked to reflect on all that has happened as I retire (if there is such a thing as retirement in ministry!) It has been a time of widening horizons for me personally as I have discovered the richness of Christian witness throughout our lovely county of Devon, as well as the excitement of seeing ecumenical relationships enlarge and develop at a national level through my involvement with Churches Together in England.
A few statistics might help see how things have moved forward. When I started work in 2018, we had only a couple of hundred people engaged on our CT Devon FaceBook group – during Covid that mushroomed and has continued to grow so that now nearly 1800 people have linked up. The monthly CT Devon News Update similarly had fewer than 200 on the list (which had to be trimmed down when I started because of GDPR). We now have 820 subscribers and it is seen by many more when it is sent on to other readers. At a national level, there are now more than 50 member churches of CTE and more than 80 Charities and Networks in Association. On the negative side, many of the more institutional Churches/Christians Together groups have disbanded, even though local ecumenical cooperation continues in other, often less formal ways. This can make keeping track of where ecumenical activity is flourishing, difficult for a CEO!
However, statistics mean nothing unless there is engagement and the life of the Spirit is evident in local areas. In my experience, where there has been good local, enthusiastic and engaged ecumenical leadership, ecumenical cooperation thrives. Local leaders meeting regularly for prayer is a good example of a first step towards a stronger shared witness in a village, town or city.
Churches Together needs to continue to find creative and inspired ways to link ecumenically and to discover that “we are better together”. We always find ourselves in that dangerous place of trying to do our own thing, and often duplicating so much that is done in other denominations, even just in the church down the road. I hope we can learn afresh the value of sharing resources, especially when cooperation is so vital because of depleted resources in many of our denominations. More than this, I hope we can also simply share the common love of God, revealed in Jesus Christ, who came for the whole world and not just our particular corner of the one church – to fulfil the prayer of Jesus in John 17:20-21 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” As God in His Holy Spirit meets with us in our worship, our witness and our mission, the FIRST thing we need to do when planning anything, is to simply ask “Can we do this with our partner churches in our village, town and city?” That one thing would make such a powerful change to the effectiveness of our mission and to how the rest of our community sees us.
In a world which currently feels very fragile, with momentous happenings in the Middle East in Syria, and the ongoing strife and war in Gaza, Ukraine and many other places, the coming of Jesus which is God identifying with us in our sad world, is ever more needed. As we try to offer God’s love to the world, we must do this together, bringing the message of reconciliation, which is at the heart of the good news of Jesus.
As we move into 2025, I pray that Churches Together everywhere will continue to grow in the depth of their relationships and become an even more important focus for Christian witness.
Rev Paul Snell is a United Reformed Minister who has previously served for 22 years in local churches and for 15 years as a hospital chaplain, including 5 years part-time as an Evangelism Enabler and communications Officer for the South West Synod of the URC. He retired in December 2024 as County Ecumenical Officer for Churches Together in Devon.
What Paul is doing next…
Paul is leading an ecumenical 8-day trip to visit the seven churches addressed in the letters of Revelation chapters 2 and 3 from 18 to 25 October 2025. Visits will include Smyrna, Pergamon, Sardis, Thyatira, Philadelphia, Hierapolis, Laodicea, Colossae, Miletus and the magnificent Ephesus. Paul and his wife Linda are guides for Maranatha Tours. Read more about this travel experience.