A report on the problems ailing the congregation at the Grace Methodist Church will focus on healing, reconciliation and a rededication of the membership to its true mission, The Royal Gazette has learned.

But a member of the Grace Methodist Church who wished to remain unidentified, said that the real worry is that the Synod of the Wesleyan Methodist Church may turn out to be an impediment to this process.

The member said the real issue was power and control and not who owns the (Grace Methodist Church) buildings or even the personalities and skin colours of the bickering players.

Consequently the member said that their worry surrounded what would happen with the report once it was in the Synod's hands.

Tonight, members of the Grace Methodist Church and the Synod of the Wesleyan Methodist Church will be present at a special meeting to hear Dr. John Cartwright read his report and explain his conclusions.

Dr. Cartwright, an ordained Methodist minister who was brought to Bermuda because of his expertise in racial problems and its effect on churches, preached the sermon at Grace Methodist church yesterday morning.

And while he did not reveal either the report's recommendations or its conclusions, the thrust of his presentation was aimed at the church membership who he encouraged to "get on with (the church's) true mission.'' "I am so unhappy to see the body of Christ divided,'' he said. "I am so unhappy to see all of what has happened.'' Dr. Cartwright was alluding to a protracted struggle within Grace Methodist Church between the Synod or governing body and a faction of the membership led by lay preachers Gwyneth and Willard Lightbourne.

The friction is the result of a three-year split between the mainstream Methodist Church of Bermuda and Grace Church members over the Methodist affiliation with the United Church of Canada.

Conservative members of the church oppose the United Church's policy of ordaining homosexuals.

And members of the Somerset and Cobbs Hill Road congregations have severed ties with Canada.

The members of the Grace Church aligned with the Lightbournes' went to court earlier this year and received permission to hold separate services on Sundays.

But that court appearance was just one round in a series of battles between the Lightbourne camps and the synod advocates.

At several services last year, Sunday churchgoers were caught in the religious tug-of-war as the rival factions staged separate services at the same time.

Methodist report through the different values that Catholics and Protestants (Methodists) attached to the word "church.'' For a Catholic, he pointed out, the only route to salvation is through the church and its sacraments.

Consequently, the priest becomes " the administrator of the tickets from earth to heaven and the way tickets are acquired is through the sacraments of the church''.

But he added that Protestants rebel against that idea of the church because they hold that "everyone is a priest'' and capable of a one-on-one relationship with God.

As a result, the church in Protestantism becomes a refuge from the evil and decadence where like-minded persons can acquire some relief and rejuvenation.

"We understand ourselves as living in a world out there which is shot through with sin and wickedness and all kinds of vile things,'' he continued.

"...We try as best we can to live in the world but it is impossible to live a true Christian life in the world. There is too much out there.'' The church, Dr. Cartwright said, was the one place where Christians can keep the faith and give each other support.

Dr. Cartwright said the focus of his ministry of reconciliation was to assist Christians to live together within the church.

"Unfortunately we have allowed the world to come in and bring an agenda though those doors,'' he said. "We need to push back through the door all those elements of the world that corrupt our fellowship.

"A fellowship where there is no Greek or Barbarian, no black or white, no old or young. We are all members of one body. We all have different gifts to contribute to that body. But if there is anything that goes wrong with that body it infects the entire body.'' Additionally, he called on church members not to do anything that would incapacitate the church as it carries out its mission in Bermuda.

"We need to bring that healing through our actions,'' he added, "through our words and through our prayer and dedication to the body of Christ.''