Ecumenism - is it always better elsewhere?

This week I have been at a two day ecumenical meeting. The programmed business centred on how the ecumenical body can achieve its core task of calling all churches into the goal of visible unity. This has to be done in ways that will work and with structures and policies that can be supported and resourced by the member churches. 
It is easy to see what has not worked in the past. It is much less easy to define precisely the tasks that we are wanting to undertake today and the structures that will be needed. How are the churches, who all are struggling with their own denominational problems (mostly about manpower and resources but also all challenged in different ways by sex!), able to look above their denominational parapet and take a wider view? Those of us who are convinced ecumeniacs may say that part of the answer will involve looking creatively beyond ecumenical boundaries. 
At our meeting we looked at the example of the churches in Wales with a new covenant and the churches in Australia that have similarly signed up to a covenant. Superficially it is easy to say that these other places have got their act together while we are still in the process of going round and round the same old ground in long and boring meetings. 
On the other hand these covenants are just further stages on the journey. They are tools or instruments for creating the space to allow churches to grow together rather than being a destination in themselves. They are agreements for a loose federality that in themselves do nothing. Yet without structures of some sort churches can't work together. The best structures should be almost invisible.
We need similar structures to facilitate and promote engagement on the deep and substantial things that matter to us. We are all agreed on the need to work together. It seems there may well be many more hours of debate to come before we are clear about how this can best take place.

(Image courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net )