Education talks

A group of more than 40 church leaders from the north of England met at Scargill House, Yorkshire, to discuss the respective educational roles of the churches and the community.
The gathering was entitled "The Northern Consultation for Mission ' and included Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists and members of the United Reform Church, the Salvation Army and the Society of Friends. Archbishop Derek Worlock of Liverpool chaired the meeting, together with Dr Stuart Blanch, the Anglican Archbishop of York and Rev Trevor Hubbard, the chairman of the north west region of the Baptist Union.
One of the main speakers was Mrs Rosemary Haughton, the writer and founder-member of a small Christian community in Scotland. She claimed that true experience of Christian community was increasingly being encountered in family-sized units not officially organised by the Church.
The Church, she said, should be willing to listen to and learn from such small groupings, especially when social and theological questions were raised by the practical apostolate of the members. It was the role of those involved in official Christian ministries to seek out such groups "where the church is happening" and bring them into the wider fellowship of the official church.