Churches Uniting in Christ (CUIC) is an ecumenical organization that brings together mainline American denominations, and was inaugurated on January 20, 2002 in Memphis, Tennessee on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. It is the successor organization to the Consultation on Church Union.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most jurisdictions of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Old Catholic Church, the Lutheran churches, the Anglican Communion, the Mennonite churches, the Methodist churches, the Moravian Church, Mar Thoma Syrian Church and the Reformed churches, as well as the Baptist World Alliance and Pentecostal churches. Notably, the Catholic Church is not a full member, although it sends delegates to meetings who have observer status.
Presbyterianpolity is a method of church governance typified by the rule of assemblies of presbyters, or elders. Each local church is governed by a body of elected elders usually called the session or consistory, though other terms, such as church board, may apply. Groups of local churches are governed by a higher assembly of elders known as the presbytery or classis; presbyteries can be grouped into a synod, and presbyteries and synods nationwide often join together in a general assembly. Responsibility for conduct of church services is reserved to an ordained minister or pastor known as a teaching elder, or a minister of the word and sacrament.
Ecumenism, also spelled oecumenism, is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjective ecumenical is thus applied to any interdenominational initiative that encourages greater cooperation among Christians and among their churches.
The Church of Scotland is the national church in Scotland.
The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2022 it has approximately 40,000 members in 1,284 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers
The Iona Community, founded in 1938 by George MacLeod, is an ecumenical Christian community of men and women from different walks of life and different traditions within Christianity.
The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) is a federation of autonomous national Student Christian Movements (SCM) forming the youth and student arm of the global ecumenical movement. The Federation includes Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic, Pentecostal and Anglican students.
The World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) was a fellowship of more than 200 churches with roots in the 16th-century Reformation, and particularly in the theology of John Calvin. Its headquarters was in Geneva, Switzerland. They are now merged into the World Communion of Reformed Churches.
The Conference of European Churches (CEC) was founded in 1959 to promote reconciliation, dialogue and friendship between the churches of Europe at a time of growing Cold War political tensions and divisions.
Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) is an ecumenical organisation. The members include most of the major churches in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. CTBI is registered at Companies House with number 05661787. Its office is in Central London. As of 2022 the General Secretary is Nicola Brady, who succeeded Bob Fyffe.
The Fellowship of Congregational Churches is a conservative Congregational denomination in Australia. It was formed by the forty congregations of the Congregational Union of Australia who chose not to join the Uniting Church in Australia in 1977.
The Church and Society Council was a former agency of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which was tasked with facilitating the Church's engagement with, and comment upon, national, political and social issues. It was merged with the World Mission Council on 1 January 2020, as to create the Faith Impact Forum, as part of a wide ranging reform of General Assembly bodies agreed at the General Assembly of 2019.
Sheilagh Kesting is a Scottish minister of the Church of Scotland. She served as Moderator of the General Assembly from May 2007 to May 2008. She was the first female minister to be elected Moderator; she was the second woman as a female elder, Alison Elliot, had been elected for the 2004/2005 session. Since 1993, she has been based at the Church of Scotland Offices in Edinburgh as the full-time Secretary of the Church of Scotland Committee on Ecumenical Relations. She retired in September 2016 and was created a Dame of the Order of St Gregory the Great by Pope Francis in November 2016 in recognition of her exceptional service to the Holy See, and as a result of her commitment to ecumenism in Scotland.
The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the largest association of Calvinist churches in the world. It has 230 member denominations in 108 countries, together claiming an estimated 80 million people, thus being the fourth-largest Christian communion in the world after the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. This ecumenical Christian body was formed in June 2010 by the union of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC).
The Presbytery of Glasgow is one of the 46 Presbyteries of the Church of Scotland. It dates back to the earliest periods of Presbyterian church government in the Church of Scotland in the late 16th century. The Presbytery of Glasgow currently has 125 congregations, making it by far the largest Presbytery in the Church of Scotland.
Olav Fykse Tveit is a Norwegian Lutheran theologian and bishop, and the current Preses of the Bishops' Conference of the Church of Norway. He was elected to the post of general secretary of the World Council of Churches on 27 August 2009. He entered office on 1 January 2010, for a proposed term of five years, and was re-elected to a second term in July 2014. He resigned from the post in March 2020, having been elected Preses of the Bishops' Conference of the Church of Norway.
Matthew Ross is a minister of the Church of Scotland, working for the World Council of Churches. He was General Secretary of Action of Churches Together in Scotland 2014-2018.
Stephen Smyth FMS is a Marist Brother from Scotland. Between 2007 and 2014 he served as General Secretary of Action of Churches Together in Scotland; the first Roman Catholic to hold this post. He retired in 2014 and was succeeded by the Rev Matthew Ross.
The Tell Scotland Movement (1953-1966) was the most extensive and ambitious attempt at outreach by the Protestant Churches in Scotland in the twentieth century. At the time, together with its associated All-Scotland Crusade, led by Dr Billy Graham, it generated considerable energies, publicity and controversy. In 1964 Tell Scotland became a founding part of the Scottish Churches Council, within the ecumenical movement. Commentators since have had varied views about the extents to which Tell Scotland succeeded or failed.
