Mother Ruth wrote movingly recently on the collection of decrepit hoovers that her congregation has amassed over the years. It is a subject dear to my heart.
It occurred to me this morning during the coldest Diocesan Council meeting in all of Christendom, that we collect other things like this too.
Take mission plans, for example.
- The Purpose of Your Church
- The ANDREW vision (in St Andrew’s diocese)
- Mission 21
- Journey of the Baptised
I’ve been in the church long enough now to have seen them come and seen them go. What was the one that came before The Purpose of Your Church? I cannot now remember, but I bet someone can. There was just a hint this morning at the Council of what we might do next in this diocese. It sounds quite good to me and it is interesting as it appears to suggest that there is life after Journey of the Baptised after all. However, we do collect them.
We have a similar collection of ways of thinking about ministry too.
- Ministerial Review – discussed fully about six years ago at General Synod, I think and not yet implemented.
- Continual Ministerial Development – now with its associated Individual Development Plans – just like living in perpetual TISEC. (Did the Pope not abolish Limbo a couple of weeks ago?)
- Collaborative Ministry aka Local Collaborative Ministry, Whole Body Ministry, the People of God Movement, Full Body Ministry, The Ministry of All the Baptised, Total Ministry and any number of other acronyms and names.
The cold icy tendrils of Collaborative Ministry were starting to creep through the Diocesan Council this morning. The trouble with Collaborative Ministry is that it is a package which some of us in the church believe in as though it were a religion and some of us just don’t get. The presumption of the former is that the others are power crazed megalomaniacs. (The presumption of the latter is that the others are power crazed megalomaniacs too).
Notwithstanding the state of the wider Anglican Communion, the real point of schism in the Scottish Episcopal Church is over Collaborative Ministry, or whatever it is called this week. It is clear to me that several of our current bishops don’t agree with it at all and are starting to be a little bit more assertive about that fact. (It isn’t hard to see why they should be anxious – the dioceses which were early, enthusiastic adopters of all of this are now in dire straights).
The confusing thing to the bystander is probably that there is a difference between collaborative ministry and Collaborative Ministry. Working collaboratively seems to me clearly to be a good thing. However the presumptions of the Collaborative Ministry agenda go far beyond that and they are far from having been agreed by the whole church.
Perhaps a little reflective debate within the SEC Blogsphere would be interesting.
Discuss.
I would say that clergy ought to be given a choice – to undertake to work out a program of continuing education for themselves (in conjunction with a Diocesan or Provincial advisor) or else be asked to partake of the type of post-ordination/mid-ministry which most Dioceses come up with which consists of a lot of time spent sitting around a flip chart. I think that given the choice we’d have a lot more clergy reading interesting books, honing their skills and following their bliss than we do now.
It was, I think, two Provincial Synod’s ago that some body from a Diocese other than E’burgh stood up and asked whether schemes of local collaborative ministry weren’t, in fact, a way of life (or article of faith) but a perfectly acceptable stop-gap until we could muster up some ‘proper priests’. I thought he was going to get lynched. I’m not sure whether he was being delightfully naive or deliberately thick. What was clear is that there were a group of people very upset by his comments and another group nodding their heads in agreement. I agree with our host that were we ever to discuss the issues openly we would have a fairly loud debate on the subject.
I’m probably not qualified to comment on most of the above, not having much experience or understanding of such mysteries as TISEC, CPD (or PPD or PR as it’s variously called in my place of employment, although I probably shouldn’t admit to not having it) and whatnot. In search of enlightenment I diligently followed up Kelvin’s useful links. . . .
I must confess I got stalled at the title – Total Ministry.
Perhaps it’s a paranoid generation X reaction, but that just sounds sinister to me. I’m sure that’s not what it was meant to convey – but all I could think of was ‘duck and cover’.
Raspberry Rabbit – just to say that I cannot remember ever being invited to sit around a flip chart or to undertake any post ordination training with colleagues in the diocese that I was ordained into at all. I know that Edinburgh has post-ordination training because Mother Ruth, who runs it, invited me to do a seminar on the organizational structure of the church. (It was entitled “How to get the church to do what you want” in order to get people to turn up).
In the past, there was a provincial CMD programme which used to put on occassional study days for clergy and people in other authorised ministries. I remember going on study days on the gospel of the year just before advent and also quite a good one with Brian Hardy on the Eucharist. I enjoyed those kinds of things. You got to meet people from around the Province and learn something too.
In the Diocese of Montreal we had a modest deduction taken from our stipends for continuing education. Can’t remember exactly what it was called. It was matched by a tripled amount from the Diocese and put into a ‘Continuing Education Fund’. One could make application to this fund for courses, sabbatical study, etc. If the idea was good and went beyond the money which had been saved up then some grants were available either from the National Church or even discretional dollars from the Bishop. A few bright souls found a way to wangle a computer or books out of the fund but the intention was to pay for courses that would further the practise of pastoral ministry and the theological depth of the clergyperson. I think it’s a shame that some of us can have the date of our ordination divined by the publication dates of the books in our libraries.
The vex questions of ministry and training afflict the Church of England too. I have been in my current Diocese for six years and supposed to have a annual review with one the Senior staff each year – so far I have escaped lightly with a pleasent review with my Rural Dean who seemed happy with the process – though it was all about the Deanery and little to do with my ministry. A smile and a signature on a summary document which everyone will ignore is all that is really needed.
One year I had a letter from both the Bishop and the Archdeacon saying it was their turn – I referred it back for them to decide which is was and they both decided it was the other so life continued pretty much as normal.
Collabarative ministry is essential – not because there are fewer clergy (though there are) but because no one clergy-person can aquire the range of skills needed for leadership in the complex and changing world we minister in. Despite my absence of review I have developed a Ministry Development Team, seen three Reader vocations and two ordained vocations emerge in the Parish, and am now off in two weeks on a three month sabbatical confident that all will well in the parish and a good portfolio of visiting priests. The secret if collaberation to be local defined according to needs and then Episcopally ratified – in too many Diocese it is Episcopally defined and locally and reluctantly ratified.