A History of Open Forum

 

By John Mills 

How does a brotherhood of some 5,000 autonomous congregations set goals and plan strategies for growth? Each congregation strives to fulfill the Great Commission of Matthew 28, but are there ways to work together to accomplish this divine commission?

For 26 years the Open Forum has worked to achieve this goal. Although several successes can be noted and great steps forward have been taken, Open Forum as an entity has decided to “fold its tent.” As it does so, it is appropriate to share what this unique effort has accomplished.

 

ENGAGING IN DIALOGUE

At the 1983 North American Christian Convention, John Mills and Ken Cable stood outside a workshop led by Russ Blowers of East 91st Street Christian Church, Indianapolis, Indiana. The workshop dealt with how our people could work with those of the denominations, a hot topic at that time.

We wondered if there was some way to gather our leaders together for honest dialogue on such issues. Could we gather 10 leaders to discuss how our people could be called for dialogue on the questions facing us?

Mills and Cable made a quick visit to Leonard Wymore, NACC executive director, who responded, “I have been praying for such a meeting for 15 years. Let”s do it!”

The three worked together on choosing the 10 leaders and deciding how and where to meet. The chemistry of our diverse brotherhood had to be considered. Wymore was an obvious choice for his unsurpassed knowledge of the brotherhood; he had graduated from Manhattan (Kansas) Christian College and Butler School of Religion in Indianapolis. Ralph Small, publisher of Standard Publishing, was a graduate of Cincinnati (Ohio) Bible College. Henry Webb, professor at Milligan College and a graduate of Cincinnati Bible College was chosen to represent east Tennessee. Wayne Shaw, Lincoln (Illinois) Christian College graduate and professor, was chosen to represent the Midwest. E. Richard Crabtree was minister at First Christian, Canton, Ohio, and a graduate of Cincinnati Bible College. David Eubanks was a graduate of Johnson Bible College, Knoxville, Tennessee, and its current president. Don DeWelt, a graduate and professor at Ozark Bible College in Joplin, Missouri, was an obvious choice to represent that constituency. Myron Taylor, a graduate of Johnson Bible College, was chosen to represent the western United States. Ken Cable was a graduate of Manhattan Bible College. John Mills was a graduate of Milligan College and the Graduate Seminary at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma.

Without funds, planning the first meeting was a challenge. A number of the men would be attending the board meetings at Emmanuel School of Religion in Johnson City, Tennessee, that October. Others had expense accounts through their schools. But we agreed the meeting should not be held at either Miligan College or Emmanuel School of Religion.

Instead, the meeting was held in secrecy at Grandview Christian Church in Johnson City. The vision was shared and accepted. To accomplish our work, we chose 50 more people to join us in our first large meeting. We wanted half of those to be under 50 years of age, to represent the breadth of the brotherhood, and we agreed that women should be welcome.

Crabtree agreed to be our treasurer. Wymore would schedule our meeting for Earth City, just outside of St. Louis, and Mills would serve as chair for this ad hoc group. (A list of those chosen can be found in Building Up the Church: A Festschrift in Honor of Henry Webb, 1993, p. 230.)

The “call letter” to the larger group stated the meeting”s purpose:

1. What do we perceive to be our pressing problems?

2. What is the continuing purpose of our existence as a people?

3. What should be the direction of our efforts in the future?

4. How can we develop leadership/consensus in our fellowship?

 

BUILDING TRUST

The first meeting of the larger group in April 1984 was marked by a sense of confusion. We could not really define who we were as a people, yet we all agreed on the need to start new churches. We needed to double the number of churches by the year 2000. The seeds for Double Vision, a national group to plant new congregations, were sown. The group agreed to meet again in November. Even with frustrating areas of disagreement, we were building mutual trust among one another.

At the second meeting of the larger group in November, the program was structured to help us define who we were. This meeting helped build unity as we fleshed out the vision of the task facing us. Alan Alhgrim was asked to lead Double Vision, and the group agreed to call an open meeting for St. Louis in 1985.

A group of us met in Cincinnati in December 1984 to develop the program for the open meeting. We decided to call our vision “An Open Forum on the Future of the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ. We agreed on the following statement of purpose:

 

The Open Forum is a gathering of interested individuals committed to the restoration of New Testament Christianity for the purpose of dialogue toward greater accomplishment under Christ”s commission in such vital areas as evangelism, foreign missions, Christian education, Christian unity, ministry and stewardship.

 

 

We agreed that all of our open meetings would begin with heritage statements. The program for St. Louis would deal with our future. After each set of papers we would have breakout groups led by members of the committee of 50. These groups would choose a spokesperson and report back to the larger group.

Some 375 people attended this meeting and expressed a desire for the Open Forum to perpetuate itself as a dynamic force and an ad hoc movement within our fellowship. We said that the convening committee would appoint task forces and report back to them at the next meeting. The people left very excited and hopeful for our movement.

The convening committee met during the NACC that July. The Open Forum name was changed to Open Forum on the Mission of the Church. The second Open Forum was scheduled to meet in St. Louis, March 4-6, 1986, and designed to launch the task forces and, in particular, Double Vision.

The 1987 Open Forum was moved to Cincinnati with the hope of drawing a larger crowd. The program dealt with how to help ministers and churches face issues hindering growth. To alleviate fears of some about the more moderate leadership of the Open Forum, a number of known conservatives were added to the committee: Jim North of Cincinnati, Lloyd Pelfrey of Moberly, Missouri, Ken Idlemen of Joplin, Bryce Jessup of San Jose, California, and Robert Chitwood of Lincoln, Nebraska.

 

FACING ISSUES

Open Forum met at Chapel Rock Christian Church, Indianapolis, in 1988. On the agenda were the divisive issues of inerrancy, the role of women, and the miracle gifts of the Holy Spirit. Many believe that dealing with these issues there prevented them from causing divisions within the brotherhood.

Registrations for the Chapel Rock meeting initially were slow. It was difficult to promote such meetings with no central office and no secure means of finances. Two of the task forces, Double Vision and Missions, were making great strides. Rondal Smith of Pioneer Bible Translators chaired the Missions task force. Many people became involved, and a worldwide census of our people was taken. We had twice as many members overseas as we had here in the United States.

 

PURSUING UNITY

The committee suggested that our direction ought to turn to talks with the Church of God, Anderson, Indiana. Leonard Wymore had contacts there and he volunteered to plan our next gathering.

The 1989 Open Forum met at Traders Point Christian Church, Indianapolis. Speakers from both our fellowship and the Anderson group presented papers. At long last we were talking to another people about unity. Subsequent meetings of the two groups were held in Anderson, Indiana, Lexington, Kentucky, and St. Joseph, Michigan. These were all open meetings with breakout groups.

But it was decided that each fellowship should select a much smaller team to deepen this dialogue. Meeting sometimes twice a year, these small teams, after years of dialogue, were able to sign a Consensus Statement of Faith in 1996.1 Barry Callen of the Church of God and James North of Cincinnati Christian Seminary wrote the history of this dialogue in the book, Coming Together in Christ. This was a historic agreement and the sweet fruit of our plea for Christian unity.

 

DIALOGUING WITH DISCIPLES

Rather than fold our tent as the Open Forum, we agreed we would pray for the Disciples of Christ to agree to dialogue. We had approached the president of the Disciples when we met in Indianapolis years earlier and were rebuffed. One day, Leonard Wymore contacted John Mills to say the new president of the Disciples of Christ, Richard Hamm, had proposed at a meeting of the executive committee of the World Convention (1997 or 1998) that the convention sponsor a dialogue between the Disciples, Christian churches/churches of Christ, and the churches of Christ. But the World Convention did not see this as their work.

Mills had met Hamm at a local ministerial meeting and called him about this matter. Hamm was going on sabbatical but called him back in three months. Mills continued the phone calls, and finally Robert Welsh was appointed president of the Council of Christian Unity for the Disciples. His board agreed to such talks.

John Mills called Leroy Garrett, statesman and historian of the churches of Christ. His desire for our plea for Christian unity welled up within him, “If the Disciples want to talk, we will talk!” He put together the church of Christ team.

Each group assembled a dialogue team, and the talks began in 1999 at the Westwood Cheviot Church of Christ in Cincinnati. For 10 years the Stone-Campbell Dialogue has been challenging, exciting, and often disappointing. All of the papers, except one opposing homosexuality by John Mills, are posted on the Disciples” Web site (http://disciples.org/ccu/programs/stonecampbell/). The future of these talks is in the hands of God, but there is determined conversation. For that, we are grateful to our Lord who prayed for our oneness.

The Open Forum has worked 26 years to share its vision. Age is taking its toll on the original leaders, and it is time for new leaders to emerge. The Open Forum (but not the Stone-Campbell Dialogue) is formally folding its tent knowing that God has used it to bless his people.

We are grateful to have been used by our Lord in this great work.

________

1Barry Callen and James North, Coming Together in Christ (Joplin: College Press, 1997), 213.

 

 

John Mills enjoys retirement from his home in Brunswick, Ohio.