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Honor the Past, Shape the Future

WHEREAS churches throughout the Commonwealth share a story of one hundred years as we work together through the Massachusetts Council of Churches;

WHEREAS we have been shaped by this ecumenical ministry to which our forebears were called by the Spirit and in which we participate;

WHEREAS we have been enriched by relationships with Christians from many traditions at home and abroad;

WHEREAS together our churches are a strong witness for justice and peace;

WHEREAS some who felt powerless have been empowered through the ecumenical movement;

WHEREAS we are paying fresh attention to sources of disunity that sometimes have been ignored;

WHEREAS God has blessed us with ecumenical leaders, lay and clergy, women and men, who enlarge our vision;

WHEREAS many regional and local councils of churches in the Commonwealth were formed with encouragement from the Massachusetts Council of Churches;

WHEREAS our unity is in the God we know through Jesus Christ who by the Spirit calls us to be one;

THEREFORE:

We will pray for all Christian churches in this place and in all places, for the healing of our divisions, and for unity with justice;

We give thanks to God for all who have gone before us in the Massachusetts Council of Churches, who have labored for Christian unity and reconciled communities and who have made our progress possible;

We give thanks for all those committed to ecumenical ministry in this place;

We ask God to give us future leaders who will commit themselves and their churches in this new century to the prayer of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ "that they may all be one." (NRSV)

We pledge the good gifts of time, talent, and treasure that God has given us through Jesus Christ;

We rededicate ourselves to the ecumenical quest enabled by the Massachusetts Council of Churches;

We long for the day when this unity will be fully visible;

We do this in the name of the One who calls us to be one.