Offence Of Laity

For several years, I was chairman of Cape Town's Atlantic Area Ministers' Fraternal. As time went on, I invited lay leaders to join our fraternal meetings –- which was perfectly acceptable to a Congregationalist like me -- in fact to all the Churches -- except the Anglican Church. I didn't realise that this would be, in fact, an offence to them. They withdrew from the Fraternal in protest. I went to see the Anglican priest, and we agreed for the sake of fraternal relations to seek the exclusion of the laity. This was accepted by the Fraternal -- however special input from laity would be allowed. We would call them in and see them out.