We can never manage to deal with our competing identities until we listen and begin to really appreciate each other, laying aside prejudices, reducing friction, and holding up a vision of what God means for the church, the Body of Christ. The vision of the future will provide the guide on which to work in the present. It need not necessarily be a formula that applies to all contexts, but a way of sharing what we know. Coalitions can be encouraged to gather to assert common interests and further common agendas. Being together with humility must be the order of the day.
Individuals have a responsibility for a personal social witness, as do governing bodies.
Many of the authors in this magazine call for greater involvement of the whole church in a social policy witness. Indeed, the church is strongest in its corporate public policy witness when a General Assembly action is joined by letters and actions from congregational members and governing bodies. An immediate challenge for social policy witness is to be intentionally congregation-based, firmly in touch with partners effectively supporting each other in witness. A growing church will be bold in expressing new models for doing social policy witness as new ways of being the church. Our work is to discern what it means to proclaim and embody the Gospel in relation to contemporary society.