The Ecumenical Study Fellowship
faith seeking understanding
faith seeking understanding
This was no enterprise to be undertaken by individuals working alone. There is no knowledge of God without communion with people; it is through belonging that something other than ourselves and our own interests becomes the centre of our lives. Already I knew some clergy - of all denominations - able and willing to educate adults. I saw that if I could bring together a group of such clergy and lay people able and willing to learn from them, we could create a committed worshipping body of men and women educated to educate others in their local communities primarily through leading study groups. My faith and hope thus took shape as the laity themselves strengthening the teaching ministry of the church to adults: I saw the emergence of an ecumenical lay teaching Order, recognised and used by the Church.
An Order would give us the discipline and structure we needed to sustain our part time commitment in a life of other commitments, to study, worship and service; we could develop our spiritual being as we came to know God through our communion with one another. But as our membership would be geographically scattered the Order as such would not meet very often, so members would enter the Order by joining local groups which would meet together more frequently. Within an Order we could learn to put as much emphasis upon service as upon study and worship; we could secure that our officers were servants. We could maintain such standards of learning and teaching as would command the confidence of others in the competence of those members whom we authorised to teach. We could create for ourselves the opportunity to focus our thoughts on God through study in the spirit of worship. We could put money into its proper subordinate place: using it to help us create a generous, frugal and efficient way of life, delegating its management to a committee accountable to the membership.
Those whom I first interested thought through all this together. From them the Order emerged in 1973, and we were ready to agree that our goals were:
1. To provide study group leaders and teachers for those who are seeking, or could be stimulated to desire, a greater understanding of the faith, especially in the fields of the Bible, Christian doctrine, and social responsibility and ethics.
2. In fellowship to promote our personal interior growth and understanding; to extend our own spiritual life and knowledge of God; “to be prepared to change not only what we think but what we are”.
from Dorothy Daldy’s ‘Statement of Inspiration and Intention’, September 1982
Our History (3)