A priest, a pastor, and a vicar walk by a bar...

21st century ecumenism happens over pizza

That title sounds like a great joke, and it maybe could be with some work, but before you start developing your Netflix special, have a seat to hear the story of how clergy from multiple churches in completely different denominations came together and how that helped us survive when the world was turned upside down.

Oh yes, “us.” I was one of those clergy. I started as a lay pastor in the rust belt town of Ambridge, PA in 2014. For years, led a team in a church plant serving the children of a local subsidized housing community. Besides building relationships in the community itself, I was conscious of the need for ministry partners.

Enter the local Missionary Baptist Pastor. Bryan was serving a historic congregation at the outskirts of the town and driving efforts to be present and active in the downtown Ambridge. He started a weekly prayer walk through the summer and I loved being part of it. It also drew the new pastor of the other Baptist church in town. When summer passed, relationships continued and plans started getting laid for the next summer.

The Missionary Baptist pastor accepted a call in another town. So it fell to me as a an ordained deacon in the Anglican church and the other Baptist pastor to organize prayer walks. We met and walked—but it lacked the participation we wanted to see. But some relationships emerged—the local Lutheran vicar became a regular, and the Foursquare pastor showed up sometimes. Me and the Baptist pastor hatched a scheme to get all the pastors together, and after some good natured ribbing and invitations, we met at the Baptist church. Then we met at the Lutheran church the next month. Then I invited my rector and we got him to attend and host our next meeting. Soon it was a gathering that included two Anglican clergy, two Baptist pastors of different denominations, a Lutheran pastor, a Christian & Missionary Alliance pastor, and pastors from two different Pentecostal denominations were gathering on a monthly basis.

It wasn’t elaborate. The host church provided lunch—usually sandwiches or pizza ordered from one of the local restaurants. We’d eat, talk, swap stories and share concerns and encounters we had in the community, wonder about the future together, and pray for one another. The primary gift of that time was friendship. Spanning approximately 40 years in age difference, socio-economic and ethnic diversity, and a range of theologies and experiences, the men (yes, men—I’m afraid we did not have many female clergy in town) of this group formed a profound bond built on nothing except a shared trust in the Triune God, the proclamation of Jesus, and the experience of laboring in the pastorate in our town.

Beyond the gift of deep and true friendship, we accomplished several shared endeavors—

• A unified Gospel reading, where most churches heard from the same Gospel selection on Sunday.

• Community ministry—prayer walks, cleanup days, church festivals, engagement with Boro council and Chamber of Commerce

• Shared work—support for church plants, visiting youth mission teams, food banks, transition programs, and a non-profit vocational farm-to-table program

• Unified worship service—pastors and congregations gathered to worship together instead of their own Sunday service.

It was inspiring momentum. It was life-giving. It felt exactly like ministry together was supposed to. We had big dreams and the organic unity felt like it was within reach.

And then 2020 came. We had big plans and they all came apart when Pennsylvania declared a shut down in March. Our town’s food bank closed. We stepped into immediate action and coordinated among our churches for meals, fruit and vegetables, bread, and other food supplies to be brought in and distributed to our community. We helped each other move services online. We shared tools, and brainstormed problems, discussed managing the drastic reactions and challenges of our congregations, and prayed (online) together as a group every other week for months.

Then one of our own got sick and was hospitalized. We worked to help support his congregation, provide prayer and encouragement to his family, and wait.

As the pandemic continued, we had to turn our attention to the long haul. I’m proud to say that all of these men are still very much embracing their call to ministry four years later. I remain convinced that our fellowship is the only reason we did not join the Great Resignation in 2021. Nevertheless, of those 9, only 5 remain to do ministry in that little rust belt town. There has been no meeting since 2022.

When I left Ambridge, I said the thing I was proudest of in my whole ministry there was being one of the people who spearheaded that group. It’s true, and it’s still true 3 years later. There was some genuine momentum towards what I believe could have been a genuine union of churches across denominations and other barriers to bring common witness to our community. It was beautiful and we tasted it. But it wanted for more time. I will always feel that Ambridge, and, by extension, the whole Church in the Greater Pittsburgh Area was robbed of a powerful testimony to the love of Christ.

One of the collects prayed this week of Christian Unity is a prayer for the Church to find that union. It acknowledges the danger and oppression at work that keeps us divided and scattered. It’s the kind of division and scattering that Saul of Tarsus endeavored to accomplish prior to his conversion, which we remember today. The secret is that this active, grassroots, groundswell limits wasn’t decided on paper, but by a common faith in Christ, loving one another through each difficulty and opportunity. It’s the unity that Paul worked for and wrote about in his letter to the Corinthians.

But that bond of love holds fast, even though we are scattered all over. And the Gospel is being proclaimed in many places—in Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, and further. The same love that drew together disparate unacquainted pastors in the rust belt—all with way too much to do—can take the scattered threads and begin to draw more pastors and congregations together into genuine union, not sameness but a devotion to Christ and to one another. As we conclude this week of Christian unity, turn from your prayers that your bishop or denomination would play nice wit others and instead devote yourself to mutual care and journeying with sisters and brothers in Christ in your same community. Who knows? Maybe the Lord will reconcile you all.