The Disciples of Christ sprang from Presbyterian roots on the American frontier in the early 19th century. Spurning inherited Christian divisions, they insisted that the church of Christ is essentially one. Their stress on freedom, diversity, simplicity of worship and a reasonable faith led to rapid growth in the USA and beyond. Today, they are a Christian world communion, represented at the international level by the Disciples Ecumenical Consultative Council (DECC). Many of the Christian communities planted by Disciples missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries have since joined with the Reformed in united churches.

In the 1980s, dialogue between the Alliance and the DECC concluded that there were no doctrinal issues which need divide our two church families and challenged member churches to say whether or not they could recognize and accept each other as visible expressions of the one church of Christ.

The dialogue results were endorsed by the 22nd general council (Seoul 1989), which called for deepening mutual understanding and giving fuller expression to the communion between the two families. Richard L Harrison, currently a senior pastor in Richmond, Virginia, was appointed as a permanent Disciples consultant to the WARC executive committee, and has been a welcome participant in many meetings.

In 1994, representatives of the two families produced a list of positive recommendations, but most of these were not acted on. A feeling on both sides that we needed to revitalize our relationship led to a consultation in January this year in the John Knox International Reformed Centre, Geneva. Hugh Davidson, a participant in the 1980s' dialogue, was there. As a Church of Scotland minister, he is, he says, "particularly interested in the Disciples of Christ since one of their roots lies in the tangled history of the 18th-century Scottish church - Anti-Burgher Seceder Presbyterianism, for the cognoscenti". This is his report.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the consultation was the ease with which the participants felt at home with each other. We all immediately recognized a strong family likeness in one another, and were able to express our hopes and concerns with complete candour. While there are significant differences - sacramental practice is an obvious example - we were conscious of being already firmly bound by our common traditions. It is therefore not surprising that we were able to recommend to both our parent bodies that "the goal of relations between WARC and the DECC should now be the development of comprehensive partnership, in pursuit of the vision of the two eventually becoming one".

As practical means to that end, we also offered a number of suggestions to the WARC executive committee and the DECC:

collaboration whenever possible at local, regional and world levels;
synchronizing the next general council and Disciples international conference, with cross-representation on the organizing bodies;
circulation of information about our two church families, our common history and our current relations, through our publications and in the preparatory material for our major gatherings in 2004;
joint work to compare the results of our respective dialogues with the Roman Catholic Church;
maximum cooperation in such areas as gender awareness; gospel, culture and spirituality; youth work; and theological education.

The DECC was represented by Carmelo Álvarez, who has wide experience of education in Latin America; Richard L Harrison, the longstanding Disciples consultant to our executive committee; Shernett Smith of the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, a WARC member church; and Robert K Welsh from the ecumenical desk at the Disciples headquarters in Indianapolis. The Alliance was represented by Olivia Masih White of the United Church of Christ, one of our vice-presidents; Dhirendra Kumar Sahu, Bishop of Darjeeling in the Church of North India; Setri Nyomi, our general secretary; and me.

The Disciples and Reformed participants

We are unanimous in hoping that the vision of our two confessional families becoming one will be generally shared among our churches, and that realizing the vision may lie not too far into the future.

Hugh Davidson