Drawing on the Pentecost story in the Book of Acts as inspiration, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has written an open letter to the bishops of the Anglican Communion urging them to come to the Lambeth Conference “willing to engage fully” in listening and in constructive dialogue designed to lead to greater unity.

“We have listened carefully to those who have expressed their difficulties with Western and parliamentary styles of meeting, and the Design Group has tried to find a new style – a style more reflective of that Pentecost moment when all received the gift of speaking freely about Christ,” Archbishop Williams wrote on May 12.
 
The aim of the meeting, Archbishop Williams wrote, “is not to negotiate a formula that will keep everyone happy but to go the heart of an issue and find what the true challenges are before seeking God’s way forward.” The method, he said, is similar to what Benedictine monks and Quaker Meetings “seek to achieve as they listen quietly together to God.”
 
The innovative structure of the meeting “makes it all the more essential that those who come to Lambeth will arrive genuinely willing to engage fully in that growth towards closer unity that the Windsor Report and the Covenant Process envisage,” Archbishop Williams explained. “We hope that people will not come so wedded to their own agenda and their local priorities that they cannot listen to those from other cultural backgrounds.”
 

Archbishop Williams went on to note that in circumstances where there has been “divisive or controversial action,” he has held additional private discussions with some bishops about “the need to be wholeheartedly part of a shared vision and process in our time.”

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