At 12:22 this afternoon, the Independent Commissions Legislative Committee voted to move to ADOPT Petition 81456 “as submitted” (i.e. without amendment) regarding UMC-Episcopal Dialogue. This petition (among other things) resolves:

…that the basic teaching of each respective Church is consonant with the Gospel and is sufficiently compatible with the teaching of this Church that a relationship of Interim Sharing of the Eucharist is hereby established between The United Methodist Church and the Episcopal Church….”

Having passed through the LC stage, this petition has now become a “calendar item,” to be voted on by the General Conference as a whole in the coming days.

Having just recently accepted admission into the doctoral program at Wycliffe College, a seminary of the Anglican Church of Canada, the prospect of an Interim Eucharistic Sharing, which is expected to lead into Full Communion, is a good one.