CLEVELAND, Ohio (3/27/06) — With the election of two clergy to leadership positions with Churches Uniting in Christ (CUIC), the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is well-represented as the group takes steps to bridge the practical divides between its member communions.

 

Patrice Rosner, a Disciples of Christ minister currently on the staff of the National Council of Churches, was elected to serve as CUIC's new director. As the primary staff member of CUIC, her role is to work member denominations and groups toward the goal of full communion in ministry, mission, worship and service and will carry forward the group's emphasis on overcoming racism. She begins work on June 5.

 

Rosner is now the associate general secretary for the Education and Leadership Ministries Commission of the National Council of Churches. Her background includes Christian education and leadership development.

 

Suzanne Webb, pastor of Union Avenue Christian Church in St. Louis, Mo., was elected president of the group. She will serve a two year term.

 

Rosner and Webb were elected during a meeting of CUIC's coordinating council in Charlotte earlier this month. They join Guy Waldrop, a Disciples minister who already chairs CUIC's Ministry Task Force.

 

Other officers elected during the meeting are Ronald Cunningham, vice president; Abraham Wright, secretary; and James Tse, treasurer. Cunningham is ecumenical officer for the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and a bishop of the church. Wright, a lay person with the International Council of Community Churches is a teacher. Tse is an elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and accountant.

 

In other actions, CUIC's coordinating council included approving a revised time-line for the mutual recognition and reconciliation of ordained ministries, a top priority for the ecumenical body. The new process includes a special consultation on October 2006 on the issues of the “Historic Episkope.”

 

The council is preparing a letter about the Voting Rights Act, to be signed by all CUIC heads of communion later this year. It also approved moving CUIC's office to St. Louis in June. The office is now in Cleveland.

 

Rosner replaces Thomas Dipko, the interim director of CUIC since November 2005, . The coordinating council thanked Dipko for his leadership and organizational skills, as well as his passion for Christian unity and racial justice.

 

Webb succeeds C. Dana Krutz as president.

 

At the close of the meeting, Webb told participants that the coming year “promises to be the time in which Churches Uniting in Christ will begin to live into the commitments and possibility we have been envisioning for years. Many pieces are being put in place for just such an occurrence.”

 

Churches Uniting in Christ was inaugurated in January 2002 to put into action the work of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU). Its member communions are the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, the Episcopal Church (USA), the International Council of Community Churches, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Moravian Church (Northern Province) are partners in mission and dialogue.