Working Together in Covenant

The Living Stones partnership comes together to share ideas, give support, critique and learn from one another. The outcome is a renewed vision of local ministry that reflects the personality and needs of each partner.
The basic forum is an annual meeting held in February. This meeting is structured around the presentation of case studies, called “Baptismal Ministry Experience and Reflection” or BMER, by each partner in cluster groups of four partner delegations. Each delegation presents, and responds to three presentations.
Delegations include a bishop (if a diocese) or leader with oversight (if a community of faith), the coordinator, and at least one other representative.
Each partner designates a coordinator to function as their liason to the partnership and to participate in planning the annual meeting. The coordinators meet once a year, in addition to the annual meeting, and a list serve keeps the coordinators connected during the year. A leadership team of three coordinators facilitates the work of the partnership between meetings.

Baptismal Ministry - Experience and Reflection

Each member diocese/community of Living Stones is responsible for presenting the story of a concrete experience (issue, situation, problem or piece of work) critical to ministry development in their diocese/community, and accepting feedback in the form of counsel, ideas, and constructive criticism from the other partners, especially those within the same cluster group. Sufficient information on the background, experience, plans, and theological basis of the work must be provided so the group can offer effective feedback.

The report, Baptismal Ministry – Experience and Reflection, describes a current situation in the diocese/community. How far have you come in developing baptismal ministry? What are the observable changes, expectations, attitudes? In what direction are your efforts taking you? What are your current needs and future expectations? The Baptismal Ministry – Experience and Reflection report presented shall be in agreement with the principles of The Living Stones Partnership Covenant.

Get the guidelines for writing a BMER in PDF form.