Re-Thinking Priesthood for the Sake of Mission, the Present and the Future

Paul writes – Further to yesterday’s post, another few thoughts on priesthood in the Anglican Church – particularly as it relates to tikanga pakeha (of which I am most familiar) in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

As I see it, there are a few leadership, structural and resource challenges that need to be faced if our missional identity in this land is to be engaged more creatively and contextually. My comments will really only be “bullet points” – thoughts I’ll come back to in terms of my own thinking and reflection, but I thought I’d share them. Others might have different insights and draw on different experiences. For me this remains a work-in-progress:

• The role of priest needs to be re-engaged through a missional lens, as much (and maybe more so!) as it needs to be engaged through the lenses of sacrament and liturgy, pastoral care, Anglican tradition etc.
• The existing path to ordination is predominantly focused on the parochial or parish model. Candidates for potential ordination (whether stipendiary or non-stipendiary) need to be active in a parish church context and require the support of that parish as part of their application for consideration.
• The gender and demographic mix of the majority of Anglican congregations is reflected in those offering themselves for selection. This raises real issues particularly with regards to demographics, and especially the reality that missing demographic groupings (broadly speaking – those under 45 years of age) are seldom represented. This has all kinds of implications for how we engage a changed context and demographic groups with often no church background or interest in church in the traditional sense.
• In the discernment process it needs to be remembered that past behaviors, leadership styles, passion, focus of energy etc are invariably (but not always) good predictors of future behaviour etc. While modification might be possible, "a leopard doesn't largely change it spots" - especially true the older and more set in their ways a person is. 
• Models of ministry need to be reconsidered, e.g. consider an associate priest/missioner supported and enabled by a more traditional (but engaged) priest in a typical parish context. It's hard energy-sapping work leading change and it most definitely requires a team who share the dream.
• As a corollary, because these demographic groups are missing, possible candidates who sense a possible call to ordination aren’t able to both test (and discern) or explore that sense of call; whether it amounts to anything or not.
• If these younger demographics aren’t attending a traditional established Anglican church now – whether evangelical, Anglo-Catholic or whatever – it’s not likely they’ll conceive of any possible call to priesthood as a call to a traditional / aged parish context; especially given their peer-group are significantly under-represented if indeed they are present at all. They could conceive of that if they felt a commitment to a (potentially renovated and renewed) parochial model and had skills and experience as change-agents able to help congregations discern the future of God amongst them and beyond the life of their congregation.
• Another corollary. If the occasional younger person is attracted to the possibility of ordination and a call to a traditional parish, they would more than likely typically feel comfortable in that context and as a consequence largely maintain the status-quo, rather than initiate and direct the hard work of re-imagining the context and the possibilities for contextual ministry and local mission. Youth isn't always a predictor of a missional engagement or the skills to transition a congregation.

• Missiology and missional-shaped questions, reflection, and the quality of candidate reflection, responses and/or experience are currently not even a part of the selection categories which include Theology, spirituality, ethics, pastoral and relational skills, leadership, communication, liturgical practice and sacramental understanding, and self-care.
• One final corollary. One thing that strikes you about a congregation like MOOT in London is the presence, in good numbers, of the missing demographics and gender, and the number of younger people putting themselves forward to have a call to priesthood discerned and to do the relevant training. If Ian reads this, he might be able to comment on the exact number. I have in my mind a number greater than three, from a relatively small congregation. Is this because they’re able to experience and engage different ways of being church, and thus the different ways and contexts in which they might be able to serve as priests? If so, we’ll clearly need more congregational experiments and a broader range of congregations and ways of being church together, including creative variations in liturgy etc. I suspect the fact that we have so few of these is a contributing factor to the frustration that many feel, and to the lack of young people who’ve had their imaginations stirred and have a passion for priesthood, but not in a traditional sense. This will require denominational focus, support and structure change. A significant culture change is required.   

To the degree that these issues are present, the current selection model will not help address the missional challenges we face. It will sadly only perpetuate more of the same, not because of anything inherently wrong in this important process; rather, it’s more to do with the context and realities within which it it seeks to discern God’s invitations to individuals. This context (‘business as usual’) signficantly influences outcomes and thus skews the process in favour of the status quo. 

Comments

[Brian Carrell]

From my lengthy experience, both in parish ministry encouraging vocations to ordained ministry and as a bishop involved with others in the selection and training oversight of those offering for ordination, I could not agree more with your several Re-Thinking Priesthood reflections. What we need to grasp more clearly is that the world (and the Church!) today is not what it was some decades ago. And ministry must take this into account. Only an accurate and well-articulated assessment of society and therefore of the kind of ministry this requires will in fact draw out a sense of vocation in the very people best fitted to lead the church in such ministry.

[Mike Crowl]

This makes great reading, more so in the light of the thinking that's going on in the Presbyterian Church too - maybe not in the whole of that denomination, but certainly in the area I'm working in.

[Paul Fromont]

Thanks so much Brian. I'm much encouraged by your comments, and for the contact I have with Peter. I appreciate you dropping by.

Mike, thanks too - as I know you know, lots of challenges ahead of us. As Brian rightly says - times have changed.

Take care the two of you.
Paul

[Steve Hayes]

Oh dear!

This takes me back thirty years, to when I was an Anglican.

Why doesn't anyone questions the assumptions and presuppositions, which seem to be thoroughly clericalist):

1. that priests are the only ministry in the church

2. therefore anyone with any call to ministry at all must be ordained as a priest.

The reason that priests are mainly called in and serve in parishes is that the ministry of a priest is mainly a parish ministry. The priest is a member of the local Christian community/congregation/parish who presides at the Eucharist, representing the bishop.

There are other ministries that go beyond the local parish/congregation/community - how about apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, for a start? They don't all have to be priests, and nor do all priests have to be all of them. The "one-man-band" model of ministry, based on the omnicompetent priest, must go!

[Paul Fromont]

Hi Steve, thanks for your comment. While wanting the value the role of priest, you won't get any argument from me with respect to the wider issues you touch on e.g. five-fold or multi-skilled team leadership within and amongst the people of God - the "laos" including those with gifts and skills as leaders, i.e. leaders (including priests) not apart from over others! My argument, expanded upon, would entail are re-newed understanding of what it means to be a priest and what it means to be church in the world, and for the sake of the world etc.

Paul

[Steve Hayes]

An anecdote that may or may not be relevant.

I was at a Fellowship of Vocation conference with a colleague (a Canon) and the bishop, and we were interviewing people who thought they were called to ministry, and trying to discern their vocations.

After interviewing each member separately we got together to discuss them before interviewing them jointly. The canon said of one person "Send to college next year".

I said no, I think he's called to be an evangelist, and he should be trained for that, first by being apprenticed to the diocesan director of mission and evangelism, and then seeing what specialised training he needs.

The canon said, "Can't he be a priest and an evangelist?"

And I said: Some people can, but I don't think he can. And as a member of chapter you should know that if you have two parishes, one with a priest but no evangelist, and the other with an evangelist but no priest, which one would you send the priest/evangelist to?

"The one with no priest he replied." and got the point, but chapter as a whole didn't, and he was sent to college and trained as a priest, and was ordained and put in a parish, and evangelism became a kind of spare-time hobby for him, as it generally does in such cases.

We had lots of diocesan planning meetings, where we set "priorities", but the priorities were basically dishonest, because we would always list "evangelism" as one of the top priorities, but if we were honest we would have said that the top priority was the maintenance of the existing structures.

And now I am Orthodox I have the same problem. The bishop keeps asking if I am ready to be made a priest yet, and I say I am called to be a deacon and evangelist, like my name saint and St Philip, but if we reach the point that there are at least two deacons in every parish in the diocese, I will start to begin to be about to commence to consider it.

[Paul Fromont]

Thanks Steve.