This Sunday is our Churches Together One World Week service. Quite when the OWW organsiation and the churches got so out on synchon dates I don't know, but OWW is now early in the year and the service remains in October. All this is a bit of an aside really, to wondering what other Churches Together groups share by way of services? Our current pattern is that we share the following (arranged to fit the liturgical year!):
Advent 3 - Outreach Carol event (evening, with food, lots of)
Christmas Eve - Christingle to support denominational(-ish) children's charities
Christmas Day - united celebration service
Week of prayer for Christian Unity - united service (afternoon)
Ash Wednesday - Anglicans invite free churches along
Lent - joint study groups
Good Friday - united outreach event, morning
Easter Sunday - joint Methodist-Baptist breakfast service
Ascension - united service with communion; rite of host church
Pentecost - united outreach event (afternoon)
OWW - united service (afternoon)
This seems to me to be a good level of co-operation and shared worship with at least part of every major festival being spent/celebrated together. I'm not going to pretend there aren't any politics or huffs, because there are certainly both, but what we do find is that outreach is 'better together' with people usually impressed to discover that Christians can work with, rather than against, each other. I wonder what others think?