by Stuart Patterson

 I don’t work with denominations

I didn’t know what ecumenism meant.

I’m not even sure I knew the word.

I was preparing to move from Dublin to Ballymena, Northern Ireland, when I found myself wrestling with a question I hadn’t really had to answer before.

Where did I stand when it came to working with Christians from other denominations?

It wasn’t an academic question. Nobody had handed me a book on ecumenism and asked me to develop a position. I simply had a growing sense that God was challenging me to work out what I actually believed.

So I took some time out and sought an answer.

Eventually, I found one.

I don’t work with denominations. I work with people where they’re at.

Looking back, that sentence probably needs a little qualification.

Of course I work with denominations. I have worked alongside churches, ministers and organisations from traditions very different from my own. I belong to a denomination myself. Pretending denominations don’t exist would hardly be a useful contribution to Christian unity.

But that wasn’t really what I meant.

What I had stumbled upon was a people-first approach.

I didn’t want someone’s denominational label to decide, before I had even met them, how close I could stand to them, what we could do together, or whether I could recognise what God was doing through them.

That mattered in Northern Ireland.

There, denominational identity could mean considerably more than the name above the church door. History, community, family, politics and faith could become tangled together in ways I was only beginning to understand.

Yet the conviction I arrived with was surprisingly simple.

Meet the person.

Listen.

Find out where they are.

Start there.

Rev Stuart Patterson is Head of Outreach at The Haven Kilmacolm, a pastor, speaker, and author based in the west of Scotland. Having experienced addiction and recovery firsthand, he now works alongside individuals, families, churches, and communities seeking hope, healing, and restoration. His latest booklet is Out of Hiding – Christ and the Journey Back to Communion.

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Image: Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash